Santa Fe Chicken: A Tale of a Free Bird

My home state of North Carolina is one of the largest producers of poultry in the nation.  There is a big packing plant near my home, and I often see trucks hauling broiler hens by the hundreds off to slaughter.  Santa Fe Boulevard is a particularly precarious area for those large trucks hauling live animals.  There’s a sharp turn, and a steep decline from the overpass to get on the All-American Freeway.  Often times, the doors of the cages will unlatch in the middle of that sharp turn, and chickens will fall onto the highway.  They usually don’t survive for long.  If the fall doesn’t kill them, they quickly meet their end in rush-hour traffic.

So imagine my surprise last week when I was making that sharp turn off of the Santa Fe Boulevard and spotted a live broiler hen sitting on the side of the road.  As an animal lover, I felt that I had no choice but to stop.  I pulled to the side of the road and picked up the hen.  She had a bloodied, broken wing and was covered in dirt and chicken waste from the poultry house.  From the floorboard on the passenger’s side of my car, she clucked loudly, pooped on the floormat and looked up at me fearfully. 

“It’s going to be okay,” I promised her.

As a volunteer for shelters and animal rescues, I have plenty of experience with helping cats and dogs get out of bad situations and find loving homes.  But all of my previous rescues had fur, not feathers.  So I called Alisha, a friend in Charlotte that rescues chickens, and asked for some advice.  She gave me some basic care tips for getting the chicken clean, as well as setting up a crate where we could keep her indoors temporarily.  And on her website, www.mrjoy.net, I found out some other interesting facts about chickens:

• They’re as smart as some mammals, including primates.  They can understand that recently hid objects still exist, which is beyond the mental capacity of small children.
• They have sophisticated animal behavior, and form social hierarchies.  That’s where the phrase “pecking order” originates. 
• They can recognize more than 100 different chickens, and remember them.  They have families.  They have friendships.  They mourn when a fellow chicken dies.
• They have more than 30 different types of vocalizations to communicate with each other.
• A mother hen will turn her eggs as much as 5 times in an hour to chirp to her unhatched chicks.  Through the eggshells, they chirp back at her.
• A hen will often go for hours without food and water just to have a private place to nest her eggs.
• Chickens have vision similar to humans.  Some of them enjoy watching TV.
• Many chickens enjoy music.

Music?  Chickens? 

Really?

I wondered what kind of music my rescued chicken would enjoy.  At home, I put the TV on a classic jazz station and left her to rest in a crate lined with pine shavings.  A few minutes later, I heard her cooing along to the music.   It seemed we both shared a love for jazz.  With Miles Davis trumpeting in the background, I gave her chicken feed for dinner.  Then I helped her learn how to drink water from a bowl.  I rubbed the back of her head, and she closed her eyes and cooed peacefully. 

The following day I called a chicken sanctuary in Chocowinity, NC, which is about three hours to the east of where I live.  (The concept of a chicken sanctuary amuses me to no end, as it conjures up images in my mind of chickens in Sunday dresses and 3-piece suits, lining the pews inside of a chicken church and clucking to songs from the chicken hymnals).  In reality, the kind people at the sanctuary provide veterinary care and rehabilitation for chickens, and let them free range for the rest of their lives.  I spoke with Kay, the President and co-founder of the sanctuary.  She kindly agreed to take to take the chicken in.  We made a plan to meet over the weekend. 

That gave us a few more days to take care of the chicken at home.  We bonded with the hen over more birdseed, bowls of water and jazz music.  After a couple of days, she started cooing whenever she would see a human coming toward her crate.  She would close her eyes and make a sound like a purr whenever her we rubbed her little head.  We started calling her Santa Fe, in honor of the boulevard where she was rescued.  She seemed to like it.  I thought more than once about keeping her, but knew that we couldn’t provide her with the home that she deserved.  She needed a place to roam with grass on the ground, sunlight on her back and other chickens to call her family.  All of that was waiting for her at the sanctuary.

Had I not already given up meat five years ago, I suspect that I would have been moved to do so after spending the week with my feathered houseguest.  She was smart and friendly and delightful, and I had a tough time picturing her on a dinner plate instead of peeking her little head out of the crate and clucking at me to put on a John Coltrane CD.  I’ve kept fairly quiet about the chicken rescue up until now.  Folks don’t flinch when you mention that you’re involved in the rescue of dogs and cats.  But tell someone that you’ve rescued an animal that would otherwise be on the menu for dinner, and they aren’t quite sure what to make of that.  You can see the confused stares as they quickly try to size up the rescue of a chicken as either noble or nutty.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it was nothing more than a small act of kindness that I was called upon to carry out, just by virtue of being in the right place at the right time.  I think my friend Angela summed it up best in an email that she sent to me. “God hasn’t presented me with a chicken situation, because I’d undoubtedly disappoint,” she wrote.  “He has a way of putting things in your path that you – and you alone – are meant to address.”   And she’s right.  The time that I got to spend with Santa Fe was an affirmation that I am who I am for a reason.  We love the way that we were wired to. 

This evening I drove Santa Fe halfway to Chocowinity.  Kay from the sanctuary made the other half of the journey and met me on the highway.  I told the little broiler hen goodbye and wished her a speedy recovery and a happy life.  Kay hugged me and told me that I am welcome to visit anytime. 

 It was a beautiful evening, so I rolled the windows down on the way home.  I was sure that I would get emotional if I listened to the jazz station, so I put on some classic rock. To my great amusement, the song Free Bird was in the lineup.  I sang loudly and off-key in honor of the liberated broiler hen.  And when a tiny white feather drifted upward from the floorboard and landed on my shoulder, I cried like a baby.  I missed my chicken already.  But knowing that her destination was a sanctuary instead of a slaughterhouse, my heart was so very happy.

If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?

Yes, my sweet little Santa Fe chicken.

I will indeed remember you.

I’d like to hear from you, blog readers.  What kinds of things do you find in your path that you feel like you – and you alone – are meant to address?