Abused Hen Rescued By Anonymous Advocate
Debeaked and Featherless, She Finds Sanctuary in New Jersey

NEW YORK - Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky day for one red hen. Battered and bruised from a life of slavery by the animal
agriculture industry, the debeaked and featherless hen was rescued and left in a box on an animal activist's doorstep in Manhattan. In Defense of Animals, a national animal advocacy organization, jumped in to find her a foster home, and Farm Sanctuary, a shelter for farmed animals in Upstate New York, located a permanent home in New Jersey where she will live out her life free of pain, suffering and human-inflicted death.

Named Ellen, the hen was in a terrible state, with part of her beak missing and nearly all of her feathers gone. Egg factory farms debeak all hens at birth, slicing off one-third of their beaks with a hot blade. They are also forced molted, a process where they are intentionally starved to shock their bodies into extra egg-laying cycles, which is likely why Ellen's feathers were gone.

Today's "hen houses" are a far cry from our fantasies of barnyard life. Over 95% of eggs in the USA come from battery-caged hens who are crammed into wire mesh cages, 8 to 10 birds to a cage, giving each hen less space than a standard sheet of paper. These cages are stacked in rows of thousands in sheds the size of football fields with vast manure pits below, filling the air with ammonia, burning hens' eyes and causing severe respiratory infections. This battery-cage system has been outlawed and is being phased out in the European Union.

"Thankfully, Ellen will not be killed but will live out the rest of her days in happiness at a sanctuary," stated Joyce Friedman from IDA's New York office. "For the vast majority of hens raised on factory farms, however, life has a much sadder ending. 'Spent' hens such as Ellen, the industry term for a hen so damaged, weak, sick and even diseased that she can no longer lay eggs, are torn from their cages, their calcium-depleted bones often breaking, to be killed. Roosters born into factory egg farms are stuffed into garbage bins at birth and left to suffocate, or are ground up alive since they do not produce eggs. Animals raised to produce food for human consumption suffer a cruel and violent death."

Animals like Ellen are sentient living beings who experience happiness, love, fear, and pain, and value their lives. IDA urges compassionate people to boycott the industries that cause animal suffering by going vegan.

# # #

In Defense of Animals, located in Mill Valley, CA, is a national, animal protection organization dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare.