Chickens: Cared For Just Like Mother Hen Would? "But once the eyes are open they can never be shut again without destroying the soul." —M. T. Priebe To be honest, I have never been very fond of chickens, but after reading what I will next share with you, I have had to change my ideas about them. At the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a study was conducted that revealed that when treated with affection, the chickens flourished, acting friendlier and gaining more weight for the amount of food consumed then those who were ignored. The researchers spoke and sang gently to them from the time they were chicks, and it obviously paid off. 1   Perhaps the most astounding to me was the story of a mother hen who was given duck eggs to sit on. She carefully tended and cared for them. When the ducklings hatched, the hen did something neither she, nor, for that matter, any other chicken in the area, had ever done. She led her little brood to the stream, walked out on a plank that bridged it, and clucked to "her" ducklings, inviting them into the water. 2 How did she know that they were ducks and not chicks, and that they would need to be taken for a swim?   Another hen was given 21 eggs of a guinea hen. She too cared for them as if they were her own, but again when they hatched, instead of leading them to the food given to the chickens, she lead them into the brush, where she taught them how to scratch for ant pupae. 3 Again, how could she have known?   Chickens also have a well-established pecking order; they each know their own place and that of every other bird in a flock of up to 90 individuals. If the number exceeds that they will fight constantly, and cannibalism rules until the number is brought back to normal. 4 Because the way God made chickens poses problems for mass production of meat and eggs, the industry has come up with some "brilliant" methods of combating this unlawful show of natural, God-given drives. In today's farm factories, approximately 80,000 birds are kept at a time in one warehouse. 5 Meat birds are crammed into large, bare buildings with no place to roost or room to even move. Egg-laying hens are no better off, with four, six or more birds in a tiny wire cage, hardly more than two or three feet square. To keep the birds from killing and/or eating each other, a part of their break is cut off. To us this would be like ripping off a fingernail, revealing the tender flesh underneath. Often the birds die because they can no longer eat or drink. 6   They are subjected to unnatural amounts of light and darkness, rendering them nearly insane in a matter of weeks. 7 In this crazed condition the meat chickens often stampede, piling on top of each other, which smothers those on the bottom. 8 Also, because their toenails grow continuously, and there is no solid ground to wear them down, they often get hooked into the wire mesh, never to come out again. If the birds are not near the food and water they, of course, die. Chickens that die in this manner do not produce salable meat, and the food that they have eaten is "wasted." To prevent this senseless waste, the industry has come up with yet another solution, merely that of cutting off their toes! 9   No wonder these sensitive creatures live at most only 1 and a half years in this nightmarish environment. A far cry from the fifteen to twenty years in their natural surroundings. 10 With all that chickens have to deal with in their brief lifetime, the hundred dollar question might be, "How do they manage to live so long?"   And what about their diet? Is it one that promotes health? Far from it. In fact, the Bureau of Labor has listed the poultry processing industry as one of the most hazardous occupations because of the high percentage of diseases contracted by the caregivers, from the sick birds! 11   Their feed is riddled with antibiotics, hormones, sulfa drugs, nitrofurans, and arsenic compounds. 12 The birds are so deficient in vitamins and minerals that they suffer from a whole array of problems such as: retarded growth, eye damage, blindness, lethargy, kidney damage, paralysis, bone and muscle weakness, brain damage, internal bleeding, anemia, deformed beaks and joints, fragile bones, slipped tendons, twisted necks and lower legs, malformed backbones, and inflamed joints. 13 Hmmm, maybe that chicken dinner isn't as appetizing anymore. The story is sadly the same with turkeys and other poultry. 14 Another thing that one needs to keep in mind is that poultry, mostly chickens and turkeys but also including geese and ducks, makes up over 95 percent of animals killed for food in the U.S., yet they are not protected under the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act. Therefore, they are not stunned or otherwise rendered unconscious prior to being slaughtered. They go through an excruciating process of being dismembered and plucked while still fully coherent. 15             All rights reserved Copyright © 2006 By J. Lee