Hang on!

Okay honey. Okay. Here. Here you go.

It does sound strange.

I mean if you hear somebody say we rescued a chicken

If you say we rescued a pit bull, or if we rescued a cat

People will be like that's so wonderful. That's so great

But you say you rescued a chicken....from what?

Right?

Is there a chicken in there?

Do you worry about being a crazy chicken lady?

Ah...I just never thought that I would be a chicken person

I don't know, I have never connected with a chicken before

I never had the opportunity to.... before Penelope

They are flock animals

And we are her flock!

I mean she really does treat us like family

She's with us all the time

Those are big nails

Who's in there?

Super curious, very interested

Penelope, where's it going?

Where's it going?

Will you play video games with daddy?

Good job!

Her nickname is Penela-poop

Because she is a machine

This is Penelope's diaper

It goes up around her tail, nice and high

Okay... go for a walk

There you go, good girl.

We are convinced that sometimes she gives us like vengeance poops

-You know, if we are not giving her we're not giving her enough attention -Please stop talking about the poop, please..

She loves chin rubs

She has so much personality

And she is so loving

Do you burp?

Did she go blind or did she lose her eye?

She went blind, her eyes had sunken in

She's doing a pretty okay job though. All things considered, that she has been through

News in Brooklyn.

A group of residents there tried to stop the systemic, and bloody slaughter of chickens right in the streets

But they are facing a big obstacle

This is an annual religious ritual. Practice by Hasidic Jews.

In the days leading to Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement

cage chickens are brought by the hundreds to ultra-orthodox neighborhoods

for the performance of the Kaporos ritual

We take the chicken, and we say,

"God, I know we've done some things this past year

that maybe if you were being strict with me, you would maybe want to punish me

god forbid, but taking away my life.

I'm asking you, don't take me

let me live, be kind, be merciful.

Take the chicken, I'm gonna give you the chicken"

And I, three times, swayed gently over my head

"This is my repentance

This is my substitution

This is my exchange

May the chicken be slaughtered in a kosher way,

and then I go on to a good life of peace and health and happiness for the upcoming Jewish new year"

To serve the growing Orthodox community

the ceremony demands high efficiency

At the expense of animal welfare

The birds were packed into small crates

And are often left without food or water for days

See they're dead. See they are all dead.

I remember

my grandfather, who was ultra-orthodox, talking about it

And ridiculing at himself.

He thought it was ridiculous

But when he spoke about it, I thought he meant that it was done in the middle ages, and it stayed there

I didn't realize it was still going on in this day and age

You've got hundreds of people lining up to do this

And it becomes, like an assembly line type of situation

and people are running, and here and there

And things aren't being done so carefully

and the chickens aren't being treated properly

This was Penelope's fate

But in October 2014

Venessa was walking to the grocery store

when she saw the signs with chickens on them

So I turned the corner

and I go down this random street

There were crates filled with chickens

And there were teenage boys that were standing on top of them

We called through 311

we called ESPCA

we called 911

you talked to police officers directly

and you know...oh...okay, we'll look into it...we'll look into it

Not only is it cruel that they died

But it's a public health issue

You could smell this all the way down the street

Practitioners claim the flesh of the dead birds is donated to needy

In my over twenty years of monitoring this

I know for a fact that's not true

Many, if not most of the birds' bodies, are thrown directly into trash bags

often still alive.

It just kept getting more and more shocking to us

I just kept like I gotta do something. I have to do something

If I can get just one chicken out, it would be worth it

And we tried to just buy one

And we did just try to get in line

and purchase one and bring it home

And we weren't allowed to do that

because I was clearly not a member of the community

I decided that I was going to go in disguise

and pretend to participate in the practice

I arrived at the site,

I paid my 20 dollars, at the registration

And then I had to come and stand in line

A guy brings me out this chicken

They pulled her wings back behind her

Because that's the way that they don't struggle

So I kept trying to hold her like...in a different way

and they're just all like looking at me

but I was just like....well...I'm playing a part

I'm sorry chicken ...you know...I just have to ...hold you like this

I stood in line and I'm standing here

And people are swinging them

And I took her, and I just walked away

and I kept walking ...I kept walking with her

and said no one's following me

You know, I'm just going to keep following ....just keep going

Okay...I called Steve at work and said

"Steve...I got one! I got one...Oh my god!"

Very good, it's okay...

Stay with me... stay with me... stay with me beautiful

She was unbelievably sick when we got her

Hi, you're back!

Is that all you need is some water?

We were holding on to hope that she would just make it through the first night

When I brought her in

they kinda looked at me like I was crazy

This chicken is suffering

And I didn't want for her to suffer

But I just had a feeling that it wasn't the end for her

They said that it looked like somebody had either stepped on her head

Or a crate fell on her

something had crushed her face

She was there for a solid month

We were set to bring her to this sanctuary

and this is when they had told me

"Well...something was going on with Penelope

We don't know what's happening, but she's not standing up anymore"

She actually seemed to be getting worse

She lost total feeling for both of her feet

It was like watching her rot

We had to do the compassionate thing,

we couldn't just let her suffer and suffer

Part of our thinking was that if she does have to die

let her die with people who love her

A lot of these sites would "just oh, just cull them"

Which is to kill them

When they get to this point..."oh... they end up in the freezer"

And I said okay, what are some natural cures for Merek's...

Because the vets don't have a cure for it

And sure enough

there were all of these other chickens that have recovered from Marek's disease

yeh....that's a purr

She's been trying to use her legs a lot more today

so we hope that she is on the mend

I had to go out of town for a wedding

It was interesting being home alone with Penelope

I have ...ah ...absolutely no background in taking care of a chicken

I had a Parakeet when I was a kid, and it didn't last long

So I did...my string of luck with keeping birds alive wasn't good

It was college football season,

so she would sit next to me on the couch, in her box

and I would give her the play by play

But I think it wasn't very fair that she couldn't see the TV

So I tried to think of a way that I could elevate her out

And I had found out that people had made these therapy swings for their chickens

Out of like... a big container box....and a towel

I stuck her in there

and she started to push with her feet

And she started to use her feet again

Steve was calling me and he said

"Venessa...she's trying to stand up

She's trying to stand up right now...

I think she's gonna ...she's gonna walk"

Okay....almost there... okay

If she could only do spurts

she would walk a few steps and then she would sit down, walk a few steps and sit down

But I mean it was obvious that something miraculous had happened in this little bird's body

and she just kept getting better

Come one, let's go! Come on Penelope,

come one!

careful

Where's Penelope? Hi Penelope!

And at this point we knew she was gonna make it

that she was gonna survive

And now all of a sudden it was like.... well now what?

Here you go!

She's gotten so beautiful

She's grown honey, she's great

The way in which Kaporos's done these days is.... pretty bad

It is intrinsically violating our very own tenets of our religion

of cruelty to animals... absolutely

There's a better way to do this

But change doesn't come easily

Especially for strict orthodox, Jewish people in insular community

and we have a lot of historical anxiety and stresses upon us

and our relationship with the non-Jewish surrounding community

So we have to work together peacefully

to the common goal and to the common good