Animal Photo of the Week: Diane

 

Packed inside tiny wire battery cages, the majority of today’s egg-laying hens are so intensively confined that they can’t even spread their wings or stretch their legs. At Farm Sanctuary, chickens who are rescued from these miserable factory farm conditions are able to walk on solid ground and engage in natural behaviors for the first time. In our Animal Photo of the Week, longtime volunteer and photographer Derek Goodwin captures Diane engaging in her favorite activity … dustbathing! Chickens love to create little patches of softened earth, and roll around in them to cover their feathers with the dirt. (While this may sound a little messy, it is actually a way that they keep clean, as the dust acts as a natural form of parasite control.) When you watch chickens like Diane doing all the things they love to do, it becomes clear how much they love life and how much they deserve to be free.