This is Louise

(de Nederlandse versie van het verhaal van Louise  is hier te lezen)



On September 8 2010, we picked up
Louise from a battery farm, the same one as where we picked up Katootje. Louise was also a batteryhen. She just did not stay in her cage for her 10 full months as the others do. She only stayed there for 4 months as we were looking for a girlfriend for Katootje as her mate Kakel had to go to Coevorden and she was left all alone.

But even after four months in her cage there wasn't much left of Louise. She was scared and shy, and her plumage was not much more than bare shafts. When her beak was clipped something must have gone wrong, because she still has most of her beak.

The first few hours she stayed in the nighthouse in the barn, nicely cuddeled up on the fresh straw. Katootje came to see her, but that didn't impress her much. After a few hours she came out of the shed and came into  the garden. She looked very confused. Unlike Katootje who immediately began to scratch into  the ground.  Louise was a bit dazed. She was very frightened.

At one point she went into the nighthouse and didn't allow Katootje
back in there that night. Katootje had to look for another place to sleep. The next day she made a nest in the straw and laid an egg. As she was accustomed to do in her cage, except for that she never had straw before to lay an egg in.  And she continues to do so.  5 eggs a  week. She has two "rest days".

It took a few days before she realized that she could dig into the ground with her legs. That worms are good. That fruit is good for you. That you can chase after insects. And that Katootje is a
very sweet chicken friend.

Now, six weeks later, she is the first in the garden in the
morning and is the last one to go to sleep at night. She lays her eggs in the straw and always tells us about her new egg. She wanders through the garden all day, always close to her friend Katootje. Her feathers have started to come back. And she seems very happy. She is cheeky and she chases the cats, who now walk in a big arc around her.

So Louise's miserable existence in the bio-industry came to a good end.  Louise has become a real chicken and can behave like a chicken should. And she enjoys it visibly. And we enjoy that too!

But let's not forget that at any time more than 22 million chickens are still spending their short lives in those barren cages
in a battery farm. And that figure includes only the battery chickens in the Netherlands! Twenty-two million Katootjes and Louises who also would like to have a different life, a life they will never get. Unless we do something about it. Do not buy battery eggs nor  products where they are processed!





Every noon she impatiently waits for the fruits that she gets every day.

 

"Cruelty against animals and the indifference towards their suffering is one of humanity's heaviest sins. It is the basis of human perversity. If man creates so much suffering, what right does he have to complain about his own?"
Romain Rolland (1866 – 1944)