The Special Turkey Saved From Being Christmas Dinner
By: Jessica Scott-Reid
Tags: Christmas, Turkey, Vegan, Animals, Sanctuary Stories

Driving past the slaughterhouse in Moroni, Utah, where countless turkeys are killed each year, Zoe Rosenberg, 18-year-old founder of Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary in California, says all you can see surrounding it are farms. “When you’re standing at the slaughterhouse, you can just look over and see the hills, sheds everywhere, for miles and mile and miles; hundreds of thousands of turkeys.” It’s from these farms, and at this slaughterhouse, where Rosenberg, along with activists from Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), have been rescuing turkeys for the past three years, in cooperation with the new slaughterhouse owner. Since then, they have saved and re-homed nearly 150 birds, otherwise destined to be holiday dinner.

But it is one particular little turkey, now named Delilah, who Rosenberg says really demonstrates how a change in care can change an animal. “She’s really a special girl.”

‘A lot of them we’ll pull out of the trailer and they’ll be very scared and stressed out, and after a couple of minutes they calm down, their eyes start to relax, and they realize ‘these people aren’t going to hurt me.’’

When performing the third annual turkey rescue this past November, Rosenberg says slaughterhouse staff did not want the activists too close by. “They don’t want the activists at the slaughterhouse, so they bring the turkeys to a building a few blocks down,” she says. “But as you’re driving by you can see outside the slaughterhouse several trucks parked, all lined up, filled with turkeys who are going to be slaughtered.”

Once at the meeting place, a horse trailer filled with turkeys arrived. This year, 19 were lucky enough to be pulled. Rosenberg says she finds it interesting to see how the turkeys change upon their immediate transfer from slaughterhouse staff to the rescuers. “A lot of them we’ll pull out of the trailer and they’ll be very scared and stressed out, and after a couple of minutes they calm down, their eyes start to relax, and they realize ‘these people aren’t going to hurt me.’”

After taking each bird out, they are given a brief check, “to make sure they are healthy and they will be ok for their transport home to the sanctuaries they are being placed at,” Rosenberg explains. Upon quick inspection, Delilah seemed healthy enough — for a turkey coming out of a factory farm — so she was placed in her crate. But then, Rosenberg recalls, a nearby police officer who was there to ensure the sanctioned rescue went smoothly, “all of a sudden he was like, ‘Oh my god this turkey is gushing blood’.”

Photo provided by Zoe Rosenberg.

Turns out Delilah had a broken wing, and the bone had punctured through her skin. “She had a really bad injury that she must have acquired while the slaughterhouse was transporting her or at some point on the factory farm,” says Rosenberg; sadly not an uncommon occurrence. The rescuers immediately bandaged up her wing, departed to purchase pain medication to prevent shock, and made their way with Delilah to the sanctuary. “We have a full time on staff veterinarian here at Happy Hen,” Rosenberg adds.

Ironically, Rosenberg says staff select specific turkeys to be rescued because they are considered the healthiest.

‘She knows we are trying to help her. Now she is outside, she is with the other turkeys, she is so happy.’

The partnership with the Utah slaughterhouse came about as a result of new ownership, and more specifically, following DxE activists receiving felony charges for performing an open rescue of turkeys in 2017. DxE was investigating one of the farms “and rescued a few baby turkeys who were really sick and dying,” Rosenberg says, resulting in the charges. Soon after, the farms and slaughterhouse were bought by a new owner who did not agree with the charges, but he had no power to have them dropped. “So in an act of compassion toward the activists he is giving us turkeys each year before Thanksgiving,” turkeys including Delilah, who Rosenberg reports would have likely been Christmas dinner.

Delilah today at the sanctuary. Photo provided by Zoe Rosenberg.

Today Delilah is living a much better life, with 25 other turkeys and 275 other rescued farmed animals, on 40 acres at Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary. “She is such a good patient. Every time she needs to get her wound treated she just sits there. She knows we are trying to help her,” Rosenberg says. And the special turkey is no longer in the ICU. “Now she is outside, she is with the other turkeys, she is so happy.” She also enjoys special pumpkin treats, which she would only eat out of a specific red bowl for the first two weeks, Rosenberg laughs. “She’ll be living here permanently,” she says, “where she’ll be able to wander outside in the sun with her friends,” get ongoing top veterinary care, and where this holiday season she will be celebrated, not eaten.