Revelations: Chickens Come Home to Roost

Rescued Hens Fly Cross-Country to Find New Lives

Packed, prepped and finally flying high, some 1,200 rescued hens aboard a chartered cargo plane touched down in Elmira, N.Y., early Thursday morning, completing a cross-country chicken run that involved two pilots, dozens of doting animal lovers and untold numbers of grateful clucks.

The birds, just 2 years old and on their first man-powered flight, had come all the way from California, where they had lived in harsh conditions on an unidentified egg farm, in cold metal cages, with little fresh air and less leg room than your average seat in coach…

Sure enough, most of the eggs the nation consumes are from caged hens like those that ended up going coast to coast. After a refueling stop, the flight touched down just after 6 a.m. in Elmira, a small city in New York’s Southern Tier, where trailers were waiting to transport the chickens — many still drowsy from their long flight — to the organizations awaiting their arrival.

One of those is the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in Saugerties, a rolling 110-acre rural tract, which is taking 200 birds to be housed in an old wooden barn and allowed to roam outside as much as their beaks desire. “They will have everything they lacked in their egg-laying facility,” said Kathy Stevens, the group’s director, adding that while her group would try to find adoptive parents for the birds, some would inevitably end up staying put.

Ms. Stevens said the Elmira mission was important because of the attention it brought to the plight of farm animals, which she believes too many people feel are simply anonymous entrees…

“I know there’s been a lot of questions, and I anticipated this, people saying, ‘This is ridiculous: a private plane, a cargo plane, taking just chickens,’ ” she said. “But that is really what we are all about, which is respect and compassion for all life. And if anybody could go inside of that farm, they would have made the same decision.”