Jenny MoxhamBattery Hen
By Jenny Moxham
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

All of God's creatures have rights, a fact that most people don't seem to recognize. This includes both human and non-human animals, but not all of them can speak for themselves.


Battery Hen
By Jenny Moxham

Can you imagine how I feel
Condemned to life within a place,
Where I cannot ever take a step
Because there is no space.

Can you imagine how I'm aching,
How I long to flap my wings,
I've swollen feet and knee joints
And the pain debeaking brings.

Each day's a living nightmare
Of uninterrupted pain,
For my feather-pecking cell mates
Have already gone insane.

Each day seems an eternity,
Yet one more day to dread.
I've runny sores and tumors
And I wish that I were dead.

And I wonder if, at breakfast,
With my egg upon your plate,
You ever think about me
Or my cruel and tragic fate.

And when your breakfast's over
And you toss away my shell,
Do you realize that the cost to me
Was one whole day in hell?

15 March 2004

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