Chicken Manifesto

I don't often get preachy on this blog, but I need to get on my soap box for just one small moment.

Last night, Chad and I watched a documentary called Mad City Chickens. It's a fairly low budget film chronicling the urban chicken movement. Appropriate considering our new flock.

I found it interesting and educational and frightening. For instance, the urban chicken movement is sweeping the country. Didn't know that. It's nice to know that I am, for once, trendy.

But there was one portion, one two minute portion, that was so disturbing, so heartbreaking that I felt compelled to write.

For years, when I've thought of it, I've envisioned egg farms in a very Disney-esq way. Rows of chickens sitting on straw-filled boxes, clucking along and laying eggs that drop onto a conveyor belt of sorts. Logically, I knew that there were issues with overcrowding and not enough movement. Logically, I knew that there were concerns with their diet. But the reality is far, far worse.

I've always thought of egg farms as farms and their owners as farmers who, by virtue of their career in animal husbandry, understood the importance of respecting the creature that gives us our food and them their livelihood. I thought that most, if not all, eggs came from farms like Glaum Egg Ranch and, while they may not all be fed organic feed, they were allowed some sort of range of motion, of movement.

I was wrong.

Two minutes in an hour long documentary was enough to make me pledge to never buy store eggs again. Two minutes of watching, with shock, as the screen flashed from the plump, beautifully feathered hens of backyard flocks to the motley, mangled, deformed hens of a factory "farm". Tears welled up and I fought back a sob at the images.

I won't support factories - I refuse to call them farms - in which hens are de-beaked, their nails grow in curves under their feet, they never see the light of day and spend all their lives in small cages, skinny bodies devoid of almost all feathers, skin glowing a bright pink.

I won't support factories that feed hormones to baby chicks to make them grow more quickly and produce eggs sooner.

I won't support factories that gas chicken and dump their bodies in landfills after they deem their production days over.

I won't support factories where the owner's only tie to the land and the fowl he tortures is the cash it brings in. The only time he dons farmer "gear" is when he needs to be interviewed for a news story.

I will support true chicken farmers. I will support people who care for their flock, who understand that chickens need dirt and grass and sunlight. I will support true farmers who are struggling to compete against a factory that produces more eggs for less money. I will support the small local flocks who live in backyards.

True, my lack of factory egg purchasing won't make much of a difference. But it will make a difference to me.

I have one thing to ask of you, dear readers. Please, before you purchase those eggs, watch a video of what happens in an egg factory. Tour one, if one is near you. Know where your food is coming from and, if you're fine with that, pick up a carton. If not, look for alternatives.