Help a neglected animal receive lifesaving care

Please extend a warm fuzzy welcome to Baby Jupiter.

Jupiter entered this big world like so many baby chcks do. Baby J. was hatched at a commercial hatchery in Missouri. Shortly after hatching, this little one was tightly boxed up with hundreds of other silkie chicks for a multi-state journey into the unknown.

The cardboard surface of a chick transport box is patterned with evenly-spaced holes around the waist of the box to provide not-so-adequate air flow for these hopeful, bewildered newborns. It is an oddly unsafe-looking but all-too-common transport unit for millions of baby chicks around the country every day. A typical chick journey by the US Postal Service is two long days. Each chick shipment has a unique destination. A meat facility. A backyard bird outfit. A feedstore.

Jupiter's first day of life was filled with many different jarring moments. It's a chick rollercoaster really. Pulled from the hatcher, loaded on a complex network of machines connected by a speedy conveyor belt, and transferred in to a loading box for shipment.

You gotta wonder: was Jupiter hoping to find the warmth under her mother's wing at the end of this bumpy entrance to this world?

Now ready for postal transport, the chick rollercoaster continues outside of the hatchery and into this big scary world. Deafening noises of postal vehicles, pothole-induced shifts of the transport box repositions the orientation of precious shipment box on-truck, blinding white light followed by blinding darkness, and unpredictable swirls of hot and cold move in and out of the holes of the transport box. Too fast, too furious for such fragile lives.

When will this ridiculous rollercoaster ride end? Not yet.

After two days of travel, this cardboard box with Jupiter onboard arrived at its final destination. Yet another unknown place to Baby Jupiter called Stockton, California.

Shortly after arrival, Jupiter's box was opened. Piercing white light showered the little eyes of Jupiter and her  chickmates. A large hand would scoop up a few chicks at a time to be placed in another plastic container wearing a sign that reads "Silkie Chick - $x.xx". The final destination is a feedstore in an urban-rural dot on the map. So far from Missouri.

Jupiter was placed in the container with everyone. (Was Jupiter wondering at this point if this is where her mother would be waiting to reunite? So much hope, so much.)

Jupiter was a bit different from the other chicks though. Baby J. couldn't stand up without falling. The tiny neck connecting Jupiter's tiny head to her tiny body was twisted. There was no way Jupiter could navigate through the sea of chicks in the bin to find her first taste of food and water on earth. This rollercoaster ride never ends, does it?

Hours pass by, Jupiter's twisted neck tilts her head towards to the blank feedstore ceiling above. Large figures appear and disappear above the bin frequently.

Constant chirping for initial nutrition and motherly warmth gives way to exhaustive silence for Jupiter until a hand appears inches away from Jupiter's penny-size head. A single finger is extended towards Jupiter and then it slowly transforms into a human-skinned cup to scoop Jupiter up in.

We are now Jupiter's mom - not as wonderful as his birth mom would be somewhere in Missouri. But, we will move the heavens to be the best moms we can be for Jupiter now.

The first moments of Jupiter's life are not okay. But, we will make all of Jupiter's next moments just right.

Welcome home, Jupiter. The rollercoaster ride is over.

Support Jupiter and many other animals today by becoming a monthly supporter of the sanctuary!

Links:

• Baby Jupiter after her rescue
• Baby Jupiter now has her very own stuffie
• Baby Jupiter growing up