Society has conditioned us to be selective with our love. Instead, extend love to all animals, no longer letting species arbitrarily dictate your treatment of them.
Photo by Marji Beach
This 4th of July we are celebrating the freedom of Zelda and 1,999 liberated “spent” hens… Freedom from confinement, constant suffering, commodification, exploitation, and death sentences. Help us help all the hens we sadly are unable to save by refusing to support the violence inherent to the egg industry and ditching eggs.
Every industry that exploits and commodifies nonhuman animals is violent and ultimately leads to the animals being killed.
Go vegan.
In a few days, we will be rescuing 2,000 hens from battery cages, where they have spent 1.5 years confined to a space smaller than a sheet of paper. For the first time in their lives, these individuals will experience freedom to spread their wings, nest, dust bathe, perch, and choose their friends. In your own life, you can help work towards the liberation of hens and all animals by going vegan.
Inspiring Farmer
This former dairy farmer transitioned to veganic farming and ensured the cows in his care went to a sanctuary to live out their lives! He admits, “Cows are conscious of what goes on around them -- they have personalities and an inner life. They’re not just units of food.”
2,000 hens will experience freedom for the first time next week during our #libertyforzelda rescue!
If you live in California, help us by applying to adopt hens, volunteering, or donating!
We Love & Miss You, Maddie
When Maddie arrived to Animal Place in December of 2009, she experienced freedom for the first time. Having spent her first 7 years of life in a concrete pen, her blood forcibly removed to help cows at a veterinary hospital...Maddie had only known discomfort, suffering, and confinement.
She flew across the pasture when the trailer doors opened. I had never seen a cow as large as Maddie move so swiftly!
Maddie was never able to fully trust all humans, though she would open her heart to some. She preferred one on one interactions and, if you found her in the right mood, she would lean gently into your touch.
Maddie is what the industry calls a freemartin. The dairy industry considers it a "severe sexual abnormality" probably because, to them, a female cow who cannot get pregnant is abnormal, useless, unwanted.
To us, Maddie was someone who loved her friends, who stood still for a grooming session with Jazzy, who lumbered slowly over for her daily pain-medication-laced treats, who eyed the humans warily, who existed for herself not for human pride or want or greed.
Maddie lived to be 15, 8 -10 years longer than she would have on a dairy farm. Her body simply failed her. Out of respect for her, we kept our distance as she was sedated and euthanized. We made sure that her closest friends - Jazzy, Shelby, and Magnolia cows - could touch, smell, and be near Maddie's body. All investigated her, but it was Shelby who stayed close, resting her head on Maddie, grooming her body. She is laid to rest in the pasture she loved.
Maddie lived a good life, and unlike so many other cows, she had a good death. She will be dearly missed by her human caregivers and admirers but by her bovine friends most of all.
-Marji Beach, education director
Life-Changing Connections
“There is something about turkeys that really strikes a nerve within me. They are so special and important. The young turkey girls at Animal Place are so curious, and a little devious. I was vegan before I met them, but every time I would observe and communicate with them, it was like I went vegan all over again. For me, they have banished that disconnect we humans have between ourselves and other animals.”
--Brenda, recent animal care intern
How can we as a society continue to allow the killing of over 9 billion innocent chickens like Bertie every year for their flesh?
How can such violence ever be morally permissible?
Are we not better than this?
While these girls will forever live in bodies that lay a painful 6-10 times more eggs than they naturally would if humans hadn’t interfered, they will never again be exploited and commodified for their production of eggs. Every being has a right to complete liberation, yet this birthright is denied to most nonhuman individuals. Help rectify this injustice.
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The face of contentment and peace. Juniper doses off as she basks in the safe and loving energy of the sanctuary.
Help Liberate Hens!
Chicken #fact: social grooming is an important bonding experience. The hen in the middle is arching her neck and presenting her face for grooming by the hen on the right. These hens spent 18+ months in a cage where they could not pick and choose their friends. Because escape is impossible and birds use their beaks to enforce social hierarchy, farms have hens de-beaked so fighting is less severe. In less than a month, nearly 2,000 #hens will get to pick their own friends. #libertyforzelda You can help by adopting, volunteering, or donating toward their care.
Cypress cleaning Oak. You can extend to them and all other animals just as much love as they have for each other by leaving them off your plate and out of your wardrobe. #lovethemdonteatthem #liberationislove
Liberated Lucy
Lucy saved herself from slaughter and was fortunate enough that a local animal shelter found her first. She has spent the past four years at Animal Place, where she enjoys the warmth of sunshine and the peace of the sanctuary, unlike the more than 100 million pigs raised and killed for their flesh yearly in the US, most of whom feel the sun and breeze for the first time on their way to their deaths.
Animal Place’s co-founder and executive director, Kim Sturla, will be speaking at our Farmed Animal Conference on Saturday, June 3, at our Grass Valley, CA, sanctuary. Register to learn important information from Kim on the complexities of running a sanctuary: farmedanimalconference.org