Fortune hens
Dierenwelzijnsweb Sunday 14 February 2016 I attended a meeting of “Philosophy for a general public” where the author Koos van Zomeren had read out from his own work. Koos van Zomeren is an allround writer of stories, poems, thrillers, novels and columns. Much of his volumes contain stories about animals and nature and from some of these volumes he read out. The most affecting was a story about a hen which was called “the fat hen”. At the beginning of the story, the hen wasn’t fat at all. One night she lay along the side of the road, motionless. She was wounded. Probably she was hit by a car and it seemed like she was dying. It looked like she and her friends from the poultry farm had to go to the abattoir. But for some unknown reason she had escaped from her death in the first instance. But now she lay in the verge and the man who found her took her home. He laid her in a box with straw and provided some water and poultry food, expecting the animal wouldn’t make it through the night.But the next day she was still alive. She lay still and motionless in the straw and hadn’t touched the food. Probably she was too weak or not used to poultry food. So the man gave her grinded food, but she didn’t eat that either. There wasn’t any progress in healing this animal, but she didn’t die either. But suddenly there was a dimple in the food. Hen had eaten! From that moment on it went uphill. She ate, she drunk, she moved and at a certain moment she was strong enough to go outside. Apparently she had never been outside, except for that evening she lay in the verge, because even a gust of wind scared her. But that fear passed off and the life of the fat hen was good, between the other hens of her savior.
With this story in my mind I went home after the discourse and I met an acquaintance, Femke. Femke had a story about hens too. A friend of hers, who lives nearby a poultry farm, saw one day that the farmer threw a couple of living hens in a container with death hens. When she mentioned this to the farmer, he shrugged his shoulders and said that those hens would also be death soon. Femke’s friend plunged into the container and took out the two alive hens. With a hen under each arm she went home. With her, the hens got good care and a good live in the end.
But all those other hens? How often would abuse take place? So it would be a good thing if there would be precise checks often and unexpectedly. With especially enough attention for the well-being of the animals. For nature can be cruel, but unfortunately so can people.
Translated from Dutch by Astrid Kostelijk and Piet Commandeur