Zoe Rosenberg Freed from House Arrest, Returns Immediately to Rescuing Chickens

Animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg is no longer confined to her home.

Los Angeles, Ca. February 12th, 2026 – After 717 days wearing an ankle monitor and serving 45 days in jail or on house arrest, Rosenberg has officially completed the custodial portion of her sentence stemming from her felony conviction for rescuing four chickens from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse in December 2023.

UnchainedTV covered Rosenberg’s Chicken Rescue Trial live from start to finish, helping to bring national and international attention to a case that raised profound questions about the right to rescue suffering animals, corporate agriculture, and the criminalization of animal activism. Now, with her ankle monitor removed at Sonoma County’s North County Jail, Rosenberg says she is returning to the work that led to her prosecution in the first place.

“The first thing I did after my ankle monitor was cut off was head to a slaughterhouse in the Central Valley,” she said.

WATCH ZOE ROSENBERG’S HISTORY-MAKING SPEECH OUTSIDE COURT

There, she asked the facility to surrender one or two chickens. Initially, she says, the slaughterhouse was hesitant. But as activists waited, a chicken reportedly stood up in a transport cage on the kill floor, flew out of the facility, and into the street. Rosenberg was able to catch him, and, according to her account, the slaughterhouse agreed to let her leave with the bird.

She has named him Christopher.

Christopher is now being quarantined and treated for a respiratory infection before being transferred to a permanent home at Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary, Rosenberg’s rescue organization. She describes him as shaken but alive—an individual survivor from an industry that kills animals at staggering scale.

Chickens are the most killed land animals on the planet. Globally, more than 80 billion land animals are slaughtered every year for food. The overwhelming majority of those animals are chickens. In fact, if chickens were removed from the human diet, the number of land animals killed annually for food would drop by roughly 90%. The scale of chicken production—fast-growing birds bred for rapid weight gain, confined in crowded industrial sheds, and transported in crates to slaughter—has made poultry the dominant form of animal agriculture worldwide.

Rosenberg’s prosecution became a flashpoint within the animal protection movement. Since her initial arrest, she has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 in restitution and remains on supervised probation with extensive conditions for the next two years. Prosecutors argued that such penalties were necessary to deter unlawful entry and property interference. Rosenberg and her supporters counter that rescuing sick or injured animals from industrial facilities exposes systemic cruelty and sparks urgently needed public dialogue.

SENTENCING DAY – ZOE EXPRESSES NO REMORSE, SAYING RESCUE WAS…

THE RIGHT THING TO DO

“The prosecutors hoped that everything they’ve put me through would serve as a deterrent,” Rosenberg said. “Not only to stop my work but to stop our movement. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.”

During her trial, supporters rallied outside the courthouse while viewers across the country watched live coverage. Testimony and evidence highlighted conditions inside factory farms and slaughterhouses, placing the routine treatment of billions of animals under a microscope. Advocates say the case amplified awareness of the realities of industrial poultry production in ways few public campaigns ever could.

Now, Rosenberg says she is committed to resuming consistent, in-person action for animals—within the constraints of her probation. She is encouraging supporters to take at least one concrete step to help animals in the coming months, whether that means attending a protest, volunteering at a sanctuary, fostering an animal, or changing personal consumption habits.

Her immediate return to a slaughterhouse underscores her message: that arrest, conviction, and incarceration have not altered her moral position.

Christopher’s rescue—occurring just hours after her ankle monitor was removed—serves as both symbolic and literal continuation of her activism. For Rosenberg, each chicken represents an individual life, not a statistic. Yet the statistics loom large. Tens of billions of chickens are bred, raised, and killed annually, often in systems critics describe as mechanized and profit-driven. The debate over those systems—how they operate, how animals are treated, and whether they should exist at all—continues to intensify.

UnchainedTV will continue following developments related to Rosenberg’s case, her probation, and her ongoing rescue work. As always, we welcome responses from any company, agency, or representative involved at any time.