Birth date: 2 April 2018

Arrival date: 11 May 2018

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Big Ed was a survivor of a truck crash that occurred on Easter Monday, 2018.

This little chicken hatched, emerging from his eggshell on April 2nd, 2018. He was loaded onto a truck and around 108,000 others that same day, headed for a huge shed. There they would spend the next 5-6 weeks before being trucked once again, this time to their slaughter.
 
The truck carrying them left the road en route to their new shed, crashing into a paddock. Thousands of chicks lay strewn and dead whilst thousands more who survived the crash peeped frantically, seeking the comfort of a mother they would never know.
 
Around 80,000 chicks were collected at the crash scene and reloaded for delivery to the sheds they were initially bound for before being shipped to their slaughter 6-7 weeks later.
 
Hearing about the crash and that the site was cleared, a group of people travelling past decided to stop.  They were shocked and horrified to find hundreds of chicks still clinging to life, left at the site, pushed into piles of rubble and in some instances buried alive. They spent several hours recovering all the surviving chicks, then took them to expert care, where they stayed for several weeks.
 
The little group of survivors received the best care; however, as they are bred to grow so incredibly big so quickly, their lifespan would never be as long as other chickens. Every day Ed and his siblings were able to forage, dust bathe, run and flap their wings is a day for which we, and their rescuers, are grateful.  Sadly, three years on, none of the crash survivors remain, but the time they had was magical, and it all came from one action - an act of kindness.
 
We thank the fantastic individuals who rescued these sweet babies. The decision to stop and check the crash site was a simple act of kindness that saved lives.  All chickens raised for their meat suffer terribly - you can be kind to them by leaving them off your plate.