This past Sunday, Catskill Animal Sanctuary lost a legend. Barbie, the broiler hen who had been a fixture in the barn for the three and a half years she lived at CAS, and whose friendship with Rambo the sheep was featured in Animal Camp, was euthanized after breathing problems became too much for her.
Barbie was found as a young chicken in New York City, but it took her no time to adjust to life at the sanctuary. She was a husky broad who would come charging down the barn aisle like a feathered gorilla, sometimes for no apparent reason other than exuberance. Her often opinionated personality did not keep her from making friends, though, with everyone from birds to humans to sheep. Especially as she aged, Barbie always stationed herself like a matriarch on a bed of straw with Rambo the sheep, Atlas the goat, and a turkey or two.
In the meat industry, “broiler” chickens are slaughtered at a mere six weeks of age, and even in a sanctuary environment, their grotesquely overgrown bodies often give out before their first birthdays. Barbie was a survivor, though; despite her chronic arthritis, prolonged recovery from a bad wound, and some breathing trouble, she trucked on to the ripe old age of three and a half, earning her the title of one of CAS’s oldest broilers. When she could no longer lumber around the barn, prowling for spilled grain, Barbie accepted her limitations with dignity, still managing to live a full life to the last.
Farewell Barbie, we will miss you.
Close Friends, Barbie and Rambo
