'I am a mere animal': why traumatised women turn to animals

Last weekend, I adopted four ex-commercial hens. They had reached 18 months of age and would have been slaughtered at their farm if the British Hen Welfare Trust hadn’t given them a new lease of life via their adoption programme. The hens - whom my children have named Christina (Egguilera), Ariana (Grandegg), Sabrina (Coopenter) and Chickira - have had a pretty dreadful life so far, and came to us covered in lice, having been living knee-deep in excrement, in a barn in which 9 chickens were crammed into each square metre of space. (This is the reality of the lives of commercial birds, even those whom supermarkets brand ‘organic’ and ‘free-range’ - as ours supposedly were.) Christina, Ariana, Sabrina and Chickira are gradually getting used to their new home, seeing the sky for the first time, having enough space to wander around, spread their wings, and root around in piles of leaves, as well as meeting our three rabbits, who are in the adjoining run. They’re also getting used to human touch, and being picked up, checked over, and even stroked and spoken to. At first, they scarpered the minute I came into view, but by now they’ve relaxed a little, and two will even eat out of my hand and purr while doing so.

I didn’t used to be an animal person at all. I live in the countryside now, but I grew up in towns and cities, where I was mostly aware of animals either in the guise of domestic pets or urban scavengers. Not since a period of veganism in my teens (mainly adopted for weight-loss purposes rather than principle) had I been very interested in the issue of animal rights. I thought animals were mainly stupid, dirty, and smelly and I derided the saccharine sentiment that many people seemed to project onto them. (I made an exception for cats, mainly because I’d grown up with them, and because I bought into their performance of aloofness, intelligence and independence.)

In the last three years, I’ve found myself drawn to the company of animals in ways I’d never have predicted. In the weeks immediately after my husband’s suicide, when I found it hard to get out of bed, my cat Jennie snuggled into the crook of my knees and stayed there with me. At a time when nothing at all was simple and people were acting in unpredictable and often painful ways, communication with Jennie remained simple - she rubbed the side of her jaw against my fingers to ask me to stroke her; she purred when she was happy; and she got up and left when she was bored - and her warm soft presence offered brief moments of physical comfort.