My grandparents used to have a lovely little flock of chickens. It was really the kind of place you imagine when you think of a farm, with the chickens bock-bocking about in the yard, the rooster crowing, the geese snapping at you :P No crops, obviously, but back when my granfather was alive they had a nice garden and I loved my grandma's fresh asparagus.
Mostly the chickens just laid their eggs in old barrels in the barn, but at some point they built a big hen house, and later moved the (much smaller) flock into a smaller roost. By that time she only had about 4 hens and one rooster, dominickers*, and then one night a possum got in and that was the end of that. My grandma's still sad about them, but she's had too many difficulties lately to get new ones. It's sad, because they had such character, and they made such good eggs--nothing beats eggs from happy chickens allowed to pursue their true chickeny natures.
When I was a kid, we had hatchlings in the the spring. My grandma kept them in a little kiddie pool in the yard to keep them from wandering off. You could pick them up and they'd panic, but hold them under your chin and they'd calm right down, because it felt like being under their mother's wing. I had a little pet chicken for a while, until something (probably a hawk) ate it.
Even baby chicks have this basic, instinctive desire to love and be loved and protected and comforted by their mothers, and mother chickens have the same in return.
I think what they do in factory farming, both the way they treat the animals and the way they've bred them to be nothing but meat machines, is simply atrocious.
*Some people call them dominiques, which is supposedly the "right" name, but my grandma calls 'em dominickers. They're very handsome birds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_%28Chicken%29 If I ever get my wish and have my own farm, I'd like some dominickers.
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Mostly the chickens just laid their eggs in old barrels in the barn, but at some point they built a big hen house, and later moved the (much smaller) flock into a smaller roost. By that time she only had about 4 hens and one rooster, dominickers*, and then one night a possum got in and that was the end of that. My grandma's still sad about them, but she's had too many difficulties lately to get new ones. It's sad, because they had such character, and they made such good eggs--nothing beats eggs from happy chickens allowed to pursue their true chickeny natures.
When I was a kid, we had hatchlings in the the spring. My grandma kept them in a little kiddie pool in the yard to keep them from wandering off. You could pick them up and they'd panic, but hold them under your chin and they'd calm right down, because it felt like being under their mother's wing. I had a little pet chicken for a while, until something (probably a hawk) ate it.
Even baby chicks have this basic, instinctive desire to love and be loved and protected and comforted by their mothers, and mother chickens have the same in return.
I think what they do in factory farming, both the way they treat the animals and the way they've bred them to be nothing but meat machines, is simply atrocious.
*Some people call them dominiques, which is supposedly the "right" name, but my grandma calls 'em dominickers. They're very handsome birds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_%28Chicken%29 If I ever get my wish and have my own farm, I'd like some dominickers.