They went to rescue 180 hens. They saved 240 instead.

The rescue that became bigger than planned

What was meant to be a carefully managed rescue quickly turned into something much bigger. With crate after crate holding more hens than expected, the team found themselves in a position no rescuer ever wants to face: leave some behind, knowing they would die, or bring them all home and somehow find a way to make it work.

They chose the second option.

“We couldn’t leave them behind, they were so close to freedom.” — Karli Furmage, Happily Heifer After volunteer

That decision turned one rescue into an enormous logistical, emotional, and financial challenge. But it also meant 240 hens were given a chance they otherwise never would have had.

Critical care, heartbreak, and survival

Once the hens arrived at the sanctuary, the scale of the damage became devastatingly clear. Many were malnourished, featherless, and physically broken from life inside battery cages.

They were treated for worms, lice, and mites. In one group alone, five hens were in critical care and needed immediate veterinary attention. Another 13 had respiratory issues, broken bones, reproductive complications, or possible neurological issues.

Not all of them survived. One hen had to be euthanised on arrival due to a prolapse that had already become necrotic. Two more passed away soon after, their bodies too compromised to respond to treatment.

And yet even in the midst of that loss, there was hope. By the end of the weekend, 206 hens had already gone to forever homes. The remaining 33 stayed at the sanctuary’s hospital, recovering slowly. Some were placed in tiny chicken wheelchairs. Some took their first shaky steps on open grass. Some simply lay in the sunshine, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

After the floods: holding the line for hundreds of animals

The 2022 floods across Queensland and northern New South Wales were devastating for communities and animals alike. Happily Heifer After was hit particularly hard. Enclosures were damaged, fencing was destroyed, and flood-related illnesses began affecting the animals in their care.

As the recovery costs mounted, Global Animal Welfare Fund provided $4,000 in emergency flood relief to help cover repairs to enclosures and fencing, along with food, veterinary care, and medicine for flood-related illnesses.

It was the kind of support that allowed the sanctuary to stabilise quickly and focus on what mattered most: keeping animals safe and healthy while rebuilding around them.

The 240-hen rescue

A few months after the floods, Happily Heifer After undertook one of their most significant hen rescues to date: the 240-hen rescue that began with a plan to save 180.

The veterinary bill alone was over $2,500. There were respiratory treatments, broken bones to set, hens in critical care needing constant monitoring, and chicken wheelchairs to purchase for hens who could not walk.

Global Animal Welfare Fund donated $3,000 toward the veterinary care, medicine, and rehabilitation of the hens who were not yet well enough for adoption.

Volunteer Karli Furmage later described receiving the message from GAWF that Sunday night:

“Your message on Sunday came at the perfect time, Michelle and I were staring at the $2,500 vet invoice. Our costs [were] now nudging $4,000 for this rescue. So many of the hens [had] been in appalling health.”

The funding helped cover vet bills, recovery support, and the purchase of chicken wheelchairs, tiny colourful frames that gave hens with severe leg injuries the ability to move, eat independently, and experience life with dignity.

But for Happily Heifer After, the support meant more than paying invoices. It gave them breathing room to keep saving lives and continue raising awareness about the realities of the egg industry.

Not urgent, but essential: building for the animals’ future

In 2023, Global Animal Welfare Fund supported Happily Heifer After with a $5,000 donation to purchase the materials needed to build a new horse shelter at the sanctuary.

The structure, a large open-sided shelter set in a lush green paddock, gave the horses in their care a safe, weather-protected space to rest and move freely.

Infrastructure like this is often the last thing a small sanctuary can afford. It does not carry the immediate urgency of a vet emergency, so it gets pushed back, sometimes indefinitely. But it matters enormously to the long-term wellbeing of the animals living there.

A shelter means protection from heat, storms, and the physical and psychological stress that comes with exposure. This is exactly the kind of project Global Animal Welfare Fund is designed to support: practical, tangible, and directly improving the lives of animals who have already been through enough.

The animals no one sees

One of Global Animal Welfare Fund’s core commitments is supporting animals who are most vulnerable and most neglected, including those who rarely make it onto the radar of mainstream animal welfare funding.

Farm animals fall firmly into that category.

The hens rescued by Happily Heifer After had never known grass under their feet, never stretched their wings properly, and never had a single day that was not spent in a cage barely larger than an A4 sheet of paper.

The horses, cows, and other animals in their care often arrive malnourished, injured, or so fearful of humans that rehabilitation takes months.

These animals deserve care. They deserve advocacy. And the sanctuaries doing this work deserve funding that allows them to keep going, without having to choose between paying the vet bill and fixing the fence.

Every dollar, on the ground

The total Global Animal Welfare Fund has contributed to Happily Heifer After across these three projects is $12,000.

That funding has gone directly toward emergency flood recovery, life-saving veterinary care for rescued hens, and infrastructure that keeps animals safe in the long term.

Every dollar came from people who wanted their donation to reach an animal in need, with nothing wasted along the way. And that is exactly what happened.

If you’d like to be part of the next rescue, the next rebuild, or the next hen who gets to feel grass under her feet for the very first time, you can donate to Global Animal Welfare Fund today. Every dollar goes directly to the frontline.