Julie O’Shea

My Dad Kel O’Shae was a Rugby League hero back in the day. He came from North QLD and he played for Wests. He also played for Australia 3 times, Kel O’Shae and Norm Provan back in the 50s and early 60s. We had pubs in Maitland, Tamworth, Chinchilla,Musswelbrook and Redland Bay so my whole life was moving around like a bit of an army brat I guess.

The whole time from when I was tiny, I loved animals. My Mum once found me nursing a dead rat, kissing it and saying poor baby when I was 3 years old. Even though my corporate life was one in franchising, running a few companies, leadership and customer service operations, I always wanted to work with animals.

Accidentally I ended up rescuing 10 chooks from a local farm where I live in Main Arm. The farmer said to me, I hate doing this but every year I have to cull 400 hens and it breaks my heart. Once they reach 18 months they are no longer commercially viable even though they are still laying an egg every second day. Sometimes the smaller egg farms will hold them till they are 2 but it’s 18 months all over Australia.

I said, let me take 10 and I’ll see what I can do. At that time I was doing consulting and running workshops. It was just after Cyclone Debbie in 2017 and I put it out on FB. Within a week I found homes for the 400 hens. I sat back and went…I can do this! Why would I want to be on a corporate board when I can get down in the chook poo and actually do some good?

I did heaps of research and found out hens are the most tortured animal on earth. In Australia in the egg industry alone, there’s 40,000 egg laying hens culled every day. It’s because Australians eat 20 million eggs a day.

I started the charity ‘Who Gives a Cluck’ 7 years ago. I started with free range hens because I didn’t feel that I could emotionally handle dealing with battery hens. There was a local farm where I rescued 400 and had to take them all back because they had Bumble Foot. I couldn’t take them. It takes me half an hour 3 times a week to treat Bumble foot and there’s 400 of them. I’ve worked with the DPI to make sure everything I do is done properly, from approving every hen parent (Motherclucker) to making sure they are giving them a forever home. I also do a 12 point health check on every hen. I take home the hens not fit for adoption. Those 400 hens were put in wheely bins and gassed in front of me. I drove home late that night and decided that I would go battery and I’ve been doing that for the last 4 or 5 years.

Every Motherclucker that works with me are totally in love with the battery hens. They are completely different from free range hens. They’ve lived their whole life cramped in a little wire cage, a wire floor with 6 others in the dark with artificial light to make them lay more, then culled. I go into this egg farm on the Gold Coast. Instead of their workers pulling them out, I do it myself, so no broken wings, no broken legs and it’s the first time these hens have been handled with love, so out of every 150 hens only about 4 need to come to the hospital with me now. The rest can be adopted out to Lismore, Grafton, Mullumbimby and 2 places in Brisbane and a charity on the Sunshine Coast.

I put them into cages with jute matting. They are so used to having their claws clenched around so they learn to spread their feet. I put in hay and within minutes they are trying to dust bathe. I think they know they are the lucky ones. On treatment day I play classical music and chat to them. All the volunteers give them love and care. Out of the 1,000 hens I adopt out, unfortunately there is one egg farm that cull 14 to 20,000 hens at the same time. There are 6 hens in a tiny cage and when I open the cage I have to leave 2 in every cage because they have a conveyer belt of food. I’m looking at 6 storeys high, 100 metres long, 8 towers of caged chooks. I actually say to the 2 that are left, I’m so sorry girls as I close the door. I have to focus on the 1,000 that I’m going to save. We have re-homed nearly 7,000 chooks so far.

Today I’m here at the Lismore Farmers Market. We have 128 hens going to forever homes today. All the Mothercluckers (approved hen parents) have applied on line. It’s a 3 minute application. Once they’re approved they tell me how many hens they want. About 2 days before the rescue I add up how many hens are needed so I can let the egg farmer know. I add 10 more in case of health problem. Yesterday we spent 5 hours health checking these girls that we have here today. They are all going home today to their new homes. We give them worming tables and Ivermectin. Even though they have come from a sterile environment, I usually trim their toenails and there’s an occasional beak trim needed. They are missing a lot of feathers but I worm them because the moment they touch soil, they could get something. I follow up with more for the new owners.

Part of the other thing we do besides rescue and re-home is education on health care for chookies. We have vids on Youtube. You can also subscribe to our Chook Scoop news letter. It has handy tips and nice little stories.

No-one in the charity is paid money including me. We all volunteer. I can live on the smell of an oily rag. Every dollar raised for adoptions goes to care. I have over 100 that I still care for who are now well and live in the retirement village in town or they are in my hen hospital and I treat them every day. Just the cost of feeding and medicines is a lot. Sometimes I need to take them to Richard my local Vet. For the first 3 years I was putting my own money in and we are a registered charity. All donations are tax deductible so we now have Hen Heroes. We have to buy the chooks because basically they are allowing us in whereas normally they would just cull them and they’d be sent for blood and bone. We ask Hen Heroes if they can donate just $5 a month, which means I can use the Vet more. We would love more Mothercluckers and if you have sick chooks regardless if you are a Motherclucker or not, I’m only a text away.”