Deep Roots: Animal Rights Blog

We are very excited to kick off the next step in our development: a barn. More specifically, this will be a small barn with a 2-3 acre yard to house dozens of new chickens. In order to make this happen, we need to raise $6000 by July 10th. To meet that goal, we’ve teamed up with Kickstarter and created a fun giving model. You can check it out here: http://kck.st/crFbgq

This project has been driven by Mabel, the sanctuary matriarch and currently the only bird living at Deep Roots (pictured below). When Mabel came to us, she was missing most of her feathers, a large chunk of flesh had been torn from her side, and she was dehydrated nearly to the point of death. During her recovery, she had been very solitary. That changed when Harold, a duck rescued from the dinner table, came to live with us. Mabel and Harold quickly became inseparable. Wherever you found one, the other was rarely more than a few feet away. They did everything together: forage for bugs, sleep, chase cats, and learn to trust humans. They were the best of friends and anyone who met them, immediately fell in love.

Sadly, Harold died last year, leaving Mabel to bide her days alone. She seemed saddened by Harold’s death. But one thing that she learned from Harold was that life is better with friends. Mabel can now be found hanging out with the cats and dogs at the sanctuary. She follows the cats and dogs around, begs for food when they beg for food, and jumps in laps when they jump in laps. Unfortunately, the cats and dogs are terrified of her. They don’t seem to understand this fearless, talkative descendant of dinosaurs.

That’s why we decided to take on some chicken friends for Mabel – survivors of the farming industry, like herself. Chickens have it pretty bad. Our hope is to build a place where people can come to meet chickens, interact with their incredible personalities, and realize that we shouldn’t be killing them in the name of food. You can help accomplish this goal by donating to our Kickstarter campaign (http://kck.st/crFbgq) and spreading the word to all your friends and family. The Kickstarter page has lots of easy ways to share the campaign through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and email. You can also post a widget to your website.

Another great way to help is to “attend” our Facebook event and invite all your friends. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123261337700473 While you’re at it, be sure to “like” us on Facebook so we can easily share photos and updates with you.

By donating to the Kickstarter campaign, you not only help us to save lots of chickens, but you also get fun gifts in exchange. What you get depends on how much you give. We’ve got new buttons, limited silk-screened totebags, copies of the book Extraordinary Chickens, the chance to name one of the new chickens, and more. Be sure to check out our page on Kickstarter for more info about the gifts (as well as more info about our plans for the chickens). http://kck.st/crFbgq