A hen walks through the manure at Wegmans Egg Farm

In the sheds we entered at Wegman's Egg Farm, there were long manure pits below the rows of battery cages. Hens who manage to escape from the crowded battery cages often fall through into the pits below. Once there, they have no way to access food or water. Of the hens we found there, some had surrendered to a dark end, sinking into the murk and giving up. In such a terrible place, this reaction is hardly a surprise. Some of the hens, though, showed us that they had resolved to survive.

Angie was one of those hens. We saw her soon after entering the pits, slowly making her way along the top of a tall manure pile. Without hesitating, Melanie showed impressive balance and agility as she moved to scoop her up. Angie saw her coming and tried to scoot away quickly, but was hindered by the fact that her feet and legs were encased in solid dried manure. Only a couple of toenails were visible at the ends of her 'boots'.

Hens on their way to their new homes

Through the entire ride to her new home, Angie periodically stomped her muck-covered feet inside the plastic carrier. It sounded like someone rapping on a door, the manure on her feet was so hard. She backed up and stomped harder the first time I reached in to give her some water and food, then slowly inched forward to investigate the offerings. When she recognized the water, she drank all of it and seemed to look for more, so I opened the carrier again to add some. Again, she stomped, backed up, then came forward, but this time with a more confident movement toward the water and my hand. She drank, ate, then settled back into the corner.

Angie looked otherwise healthy

Her body condition was surprisingly good, considering where she had been. She didn't look terribly underweight and unlike most of the birds in the cages, she had very little feather loss. Other than the fact that she could barely walk because of the manure immobilizing her feet, she seemed to have taken care of herself very well in a very unlikely situation.

Her feet needed soaking to free up the manure . . .

When we reached the place that would be Angie's new home, she had to endure the unpleasant ordeal of having her feet cleaned off. Closer inspection revealed that the material cemented onto her would have to be soaked before it would come off. After soaking in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water, hoof trimmers and other tools had to be used in order to carefully cut the debris from her feet. After about fifteen minutes, Angie's feet and legs were her own again and she was ready to take her first steps. When she was released, she quickly righted herself and lifted her right leg to take a step, then froze.

. . . and horse hoof trimmers cut off the manure.

She seemed truly astonished, holding her foot in the air and bending her neck to inspect it carefully from all angles. After a very long moment, she began to lower it, ever so slowly, and placed her foot flat on the straw. She looked down again and almost lost her balance. After living with her 'boots' for so long, she didn't recognize the sensation of her foot on the ground, and no doubt had never felt a surface of clean straw with those feet, accustomed to the wire mesh floor of a battery cage. My heart welled up as I watched her find her balance and quicken her pace until she was running across the straw to rejoin the other hens.

Angie's first steps

We don't know how long she spent in the manure pits, but it obviously took a great deal of time to accumulate that much hardened manure on her feet. I wonder what all those days were like for her there, struggling through the quicksand of the manure pits, surviving because of her tenacious refusal to give up and die. I am so grateful for the message Angie brings about perseverance and personal strength. She is a beautiful soul, now spending her days pecking outside, dustbathing, and walking confidently on solid ground.