Incense, babies and misrepresented values

It was the week of the chicken, and I am definitely going to ruffle feathers of friends and neighbors with this blog entry.

(I’m used to it. I’ve never won a popularity contest, and I never will. I have few human friends, actually, and I will always advocate first for non-human animals. That means I will call out your lifestyle, your preferences, your livelihood. And you won’t like me.)

So, I finally did a little recon at the store whose sign listing farmed animal babies for sale was growing by the day and really bothering me. Separately, a local woman began campaigning for the right to raise backyard chickens within town limits. Nope. Not on my watch.

A LOCAL SHOP

These are my PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND OPINIONS, OBVIOUSLY. THEY ARE BASED ON ONE VISIT:

I don’t know if it’s the aesthetic or to cover up the smell of poop, but it’s hard for a big human to breathe in there for five minutes – let alone for the little lungs of chicks and turtles and cats to fight it 24/7. The cheap incense is still in my hair as I write this, and that’s not the only thing making me feel sick.

Death intertwined with schlocky country kitsch. Like pigs ears and assorted anatomies skeletonized and wrapped up for dogs to gnaw on, nestled in piles between bandanas and I’m not even sure what, because I am not looking closely. It is wall-to-wall stuff, and I almost step on a tiny chicken.

I bend down to say hello, and an impossibly tinier chicken pops out from her wing. I’m startled.

Mom and babe roam the shop at will, a trample-crush-death possible at every tight turn in this space, which seems part feed store, part used clothing and accessories, and a lot like a pet shop.

I see small turtles in a clear barren case. Chicks huddling under warming lights, moving away from the hands of a large family trying to decide which ones to buy and carry home in a cardboard box. I see a refrigerator storing eggs and raw goat milk for sale.

Everywhere inside are babies, the buying food to raise them, the products of their labor and then their eventual dried body parts. It’s all a matter of consumption. I feel sad and frustrated.

Outside in the heat is a pen of maybe three goats, and a friendly lamb is drinking from a bottle attached to the fence. Next to them, a pen of about five piglets. One looks like he’s getting sunburned.

At the store, didn’t look closely enough, and I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t even speak to the owner – nor was I acknowledged in any way. That’s OK. I was nervous. I knew my prejudices going in, and I definitely was snooping and not intending to buy.

MAIL-ORDER CHICKS

I remembered a story my friend told me last month about chickens. She was in line at the local post office and heard crying in the back. Little chicks were held hostage in boxes awaiting pick up. The US postal service does this – the only agency that ships live day-old chickens, and it considers them products, not sentient beings.

Hatchlings are packed and transported without food and water because they can survive like that for 72 hours. They travel by truck or air or both and end up in post offices across the country. So many of them die from stress – like can you imagine the level of terror produced by noise alone?. They also perish from temperature extremes. If they experience delays in delivery that exceed their 72-hour survival time, there is no intervention. Hatcheries routinely pack extra babies to make up for the losses. It’s the cost of doing business.

So, my friend was hearing those babies crying out in distress, babies meant to be under a mother hen. Instead, they were alone, hungry and traumatized. It’s likely their next destination was the farm store across the highway – to be stored in a bigger box with bright warming lights, until some hands reach in, box them up and deposit them in a backyard.

BACKYARD FLOCKS

Last week on Facebook, a woman made an appeal to self-sufficiency, raising your own food responsibly and using your property without governmental overreach. She wants her town to revise the municipal code to allow backyard chickens. She sounded very MAHA as she extolled the idea of food sovereignty as a wholesome practice. She encouraged others to support her in public comment at the upcoming city council meeting. (Note: She didn’t speak, I don’t know why and will watch for her next month.)

Male chicks have no commercial value, as they don't lay eggs and aren't eaten for meat. At hatcheries, they are killed the day they are born, usually macerated in a high-speed grinder or gassed – billions of chicks worldwide every year. If you mail-order chicks or buy them at a feed store, your flock exists because of this. Does that sound wholesome?

Hens live about 10 years, but their egg production drops after three. In commercial operations, they are slaughtered before that. What will you do with a chicken – or 10 chickens – who no longer gives you anything but still needs your care for another 8 years? Does that sound sustainable?

On the same day as that Facebook post, I saw another: “To the house on Casita Dr in … that has the red truck and 3 dogs. Your dog killed your chickens, there may be one alive hiding under your coop. In your backyard.” How is it that responsible?

In my high-desert community, a poorly secured coop is a death trap. There is no shortage of predators: dogs, coyotes, bobcats, snakes and hawks.

Chickens are social, intelligent and emotionally complex animals with individual personalities and feelings. Common sense says backyard flocks need daily care. Research says they need commercial feed, that kitchen scraps aren’t enough. They need room to roam, scratch, dustbathe, perch and forage. A small coop in a suburban neighborhood is a cramped, impoverished life.

But I am not an animal welfarist. I am an abolitionist.

Stop the breeding of chickens for meat and eggs.

Stop mailing babies in boxes.

Stop creating backyard flocks to support a lifestyle aesthetic.

Want to grow your own food? Amazing!

Plant vegetables.

No code revision required.

What do you think? Please send comment to allie.irwin@gmail.com