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| | The chickens AND the eggsPage 5 of 8 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) | Hey crazy.. Your completely right, the bigger picture.
I consider myself an animal lover, greenie, tree hugging humanitarian. So on that note I googled , systematic torture... ( seem to google alot today! lol)
whilst doing so I did not find many about chickens, fowl, ducks, elepants or pigs ... but I did find,
Uganda
Iraq
Sudanese
Timor
Tibet ...... you know it is a scary and very real list.
I see your point. Millions of mothers w babies dying dont really care about chickens. Its a fair point. Perspective is a good thing.
I too will enjoy my fresh free range eggs from my happy lil chickens. My bacon nice, thick and crispy too, mushrooms - nothing like good fungus! but I will be thankful I am here and reasonably healthy. Thanks for the reality check. | |
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Naamah
| | Joined: 11/22/2007
Msg: 102 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 1:32:46 AM |
Millions of mothers w babies dying dont really care about chickens. Its a fair point. Perspective is a good thing.
It's interesting you say that. As I've said previously on this thread, when my husband was dying he started to care about this sort of thing more. It surprised me, cos his life had turned to sh1t and was going to end, and yet he seemed to develop a heightened awareness of how finding room for simple kindness in your heart was what being human should be all about. As he became more reflective, it dawned on him how unthinking most people are about the indirect harm they cause animals by simply not caring.
Perspective is indeed important, especially when you realise that it's not the suffering people in Uganda and Iraq who are keeping chooks in cruel conditions to supply Australia with eggs, it's Australians. In my mind it's not logical to use the suffering of others as an excuse for us to continue being cruel to animals, but then I am not looking for any.
Battery hens aren't all that matter in ths world, but I think most people have big enough hearts, and brains, to care about more than one issue at a time. This particular thread just happens to be about battery hens. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 4:13:03 AM |
Battery hens aren't all that matter in the world, but I think most people have big enough hearts, and brains, to care about more than one issue at a time.
Do you care about HIV? Cancer? The billion or so starving Africans, Asians, South Americans? The homeless people from all the hurricanes, earthquakes and floodings?
What about the homeless people in your city? What about the victims of domestic violence? The child victims of molestation? The orphans? Little Timmy with that nasty cough?
I worry about them. I worry about chickens too. I have my priorities in order though- people come first. I donate my time and money to charities that help Australians. When every Australian is happy, then I will look at the rest of the world. When the world is happy, then I will worry about chickens. I think it is a bit sick really that you put chickens above the downtrodden Australians, let alone all the other humans.
I have had four eggs and about a kilo of chicken in the last 48 hours. I feel no remorse. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 4:49:39 AM |
I worry about them. I worry about chickens too. I have my priorities in order though- people come first. I donate my time and money to charities that help Australians. When every Australian is happy, then I will look at the rest of the world. When the world is happy, then I will worry about chickens. I think it is a bit sick really that you put chickens above the downtrodden Australians, let alone all the other humans.
I think maybe you have misinterpreted the quote you are referencing, to me it reads that most people care about more than one thing not that they put chickens above humans.
It has been my experience that those of us that are involved in animal rights issues are generally also involved in human rights issues.
Then again maybe you did interpret the quote correctly and you're just picking a fight | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 5:09:25 AM | | i totally agree that there is a big difference between caring about animals and holding them above human beings and that it is possible for a person to support more then one cause. It would be like someone saying that they gave money to prostate cancer research and then another person interpreting that as implying that people that get HIV aren't important. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 7:13:30 AM | Curiously your quite right.
It is great hey, how everyone can add their points of views . I think people who care about animals naturally nuture. And Crazy nutures by protection. His perspective is perfect for him, and he made it clear. Good work I say.
Still cuddling my favorite chicken over morning coffee in the morning. lol
cue super hero theme... Capn V flys leaps and bounds to ward of evil perils in the world to save yet a nother bohemiam harem from slavery to warlords. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 7:31:48 AM |
What about the homeless people in your city? What about the victims of domestic violence? The child victims of molestation? The orphans? Little Timmy with that nasty cough?
All valid concerns Crazytimes.
Maybe you could start a thread on those, eh.  | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 11:06:24 AM |
Girls with beaks so mutilated are unable to peck morsels off the ground or catch insects like normal chooks
Agree with everything said about free range eggs and have been doing it for years. Would like to see a legal definition of what free range is. Far as I can make out from viewing a commercial egg enterprise recently, free range simply means non battery. Another con job me thinks, hidden in fine print, a guise for extra profits with sod all extra care. Made me sick to my stomach and I'm not a queasy person..
Re quote top line. Bet the insects are grateful. But no one cares about them do they? Point being, it all depends where we're coming from. The smaller or dumber it is, the more contemptuous we are of it. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 6/15/2008 11:54:47 PM |
All valid concerns Crazytimes.
Maybe you could start a thread on those, eh. That violates some of the fundamentals of my existence. | |
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Naamah
| | Joined: 6/13/2009
Msg: 110 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/20/2009 9:54:16 PM | These stinking hot days in Brisbane...watching my own chooks pant and struggle to stay cool even under shady trees... and, as I do, I have been thinking about the battery hens crammed into cages in sheds with poor ventilation. Caged hens always die in huge numbers when the hot weather hits. Made me realise...it's about time I got my act together and got back into trying to rehabilitate a few. I got banned from the last "farm" that used to sell them to me because I always used to cry when the woman would carry these wretched creatures out by their legs...and she got sick of my pity making her feel bad. Shame on me for caring about stupid old chooks.
So anyway, I've found this woman in Brisbane who acts as a middle-man and helps rehouse ex-caged hens and I am picking up 4 newbies tomorrow. It's so rewarding...I encourage anyone who has a bit of yard and a suitable chook pen (or you can buy a pre-made one on wheels) to give it a try. They need a bit of help at the start until they learn that they can actually walk, and preen, and that they can get food from somewhere other than a conveyer belt, and that dirt baths are bliss, and that the green stuff growing out of the ground is tasty, and why the ceiling is suddenly really high up and so blue with white fluffy things in it, and what on earth they are meant to do when the sun goes down cos they've been in constant light for a few years. It takes a few weeks. But watching them contend with all these pleasant surprises as they reacquaint themselves with the planet outside a shed, and come back to life, and their feathers grow back, and their white faces go back to a more natural red... is lovely.
If anyone in Brisbane is interested in housing a few ex-battery hens, I can pass on this woman's contact details if you pm me. Very rewarding and very eye opening...great learning experience for kids. It won't solve the world's problems, but it will make a difference to those few birds who are lucky enough to escape to a better life...and I reckon, it will stir a reaction within you. I've seen some hard hearts touched by witnessing this sort of thing in real life..and these are just the chooks the "farms" are willing to let the public see...there are others they would never dare let us see, and they get really upset when anyone steps inside the sheds...not meant for public eyes, all that. (And yes, this woman does acquire them legally, and no she doesn't charge any money for them as long as they go to a good home.) | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/20/2009 10:36:50 PM |
I've seen some hard hearts touched by witnessing this sort of thing in real life I was misting up just reading your 2nd paragraph
Very rewarding yep, I just bought a $15 donation certificate on eBay for the Friends of the Pound, apparently that buys a months worth of dog food... that made me feel heaps good about myself. It doesn't take much to make a bit of difference to a few animals & the people work tirelessly to help them. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/22/2009 6:11:00 AM | lt just disgusts me....period!
l think the community could stop this altogether...lets say if one out of every 20 houses or more had 50-60 chooks(at a rough guess).All the neighbors in their area can buy fresh eggs off them if they dont have yards big enough to have chooks.
Go back to the old system....no roosters (as council dont allough it now)but nobody said you cant have chooks.Although l think theres a limit on 20 chooks in residential areas.
So rebeling is the only way to shut down those farms.
Theres always small acreages around all suburbs or just on the outskirts.
How good would it be to get your weekly eggs plus a few bags of good old chook dung for our gardens.
l for one would do this.lm from the country and handled chooks all my life.
So people!...work amongst yourselves on getting a movement happening if you really feel strongly about this.
Then theres those poor damned pigs!!!....theres another thing that should be changed.
Good on you for mentioning this subject. | |
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Naamah
| | Joined: 6/13/2009
Msg: 113 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/26/2009 5:48:59 PM | Got my ex-battery girls on Sunday. They are probably the baldest caged hens I've ever seen...and from the back they look just like plucked chooks in a supermarket, but still alive. Picking them up is like picking up an echidna, they are so prickly with broken and mangled feathers and their faces are the only truly feathered part of them. They have strange lumps on their faces, two have deformed beaks, one has a deformed foot from a wire cage mutilation that was never treated, and another one is limping now because their poor atrophied bodies aren't used to simple movements. They are such sickly looking birds that I've been throwing their eggs outside my fenceline just in case my dogs pinch them...cos I wouldn't feed those eggs to my dogs. Yuck. And yet in a supermarket somewhere, eggs these girls laid in their cages last week are nicely packaged for consumers to buy. Probably with a picture of a healthy hen on the egg carton. Hah.
Anyway, day 6 today and they are starting to venture out now that all the sights and sounds of the real world have become less scary. This morning I was watching them and three of them walked into a patch of sunlight simultaneously...as soon as they felt the goodness of the morning sun they all fanned out what little wing feathers they have on their right wings, stretched out the leg on the same side, and layed down all spread out on their sides to sunbathe. Despite their damaged ugliness, it was quite graceful, and totally synchronised. The ballet of the mutilated chickens. And the real joy of watching this, is knowing that it comes after not being able to do this totally normal chook thing for 2 years. I am delighted for them.
They constantly dust bathe despite being almost bald cos they just can't get enough of the sensation, and yesterday they discovered grass, which resulted in much excited chatter amongst them. Wait til they realise there is acres and acres of it.  Sometimes I see one find something and dash about excitedly as if they've found food...which turns out to be a leaf or a twig...so they've got a lot to learn. And they have worked out now that, despite my weird non-chicken like appearance (apart from perhaps my legs) that I serve the purpose of bringing tasty treats and helping them find a soft nesting box on sunset....so I am now being honoured with their trust.
But of course, somewhere in an egg farm, in the cages so recently occupied by my new girls... are naive young chickens about to face their 2 year imprisonment, with a very high chance of never making it out of their cage alive, of never seeing daylight again, once that cage door clangs shut.  | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/26/2009 7:42:21 PM | I just found this thread and sat to read all 5 pages. Constant disbelief at those who did not realise that this is how chooks are treated and where the eggs come from.
Admiring nods as those who stated that they have been buying free range for some time.
Then came those that believe there is more important issues. Shaking of my head again. When it is looked at in full, we are careing about ourselves/ family first, by choosing healthy eggs to eat. It is hard to believe that, here is something you can make a change to. Dont overlooked this for a situation you cannot. Start somewhere, get an ethic for careing, Where better to start than with the humble bum nut.
Then the health issues of the chooks. Reminded me of my mate, who purchased 2 dozen chicks. The seller asked "you want all meat chooks??" He got 50/50. The 'meat chooks' are injected with hormone/steroids. After two weeks these were at least 3x bigger than the normal chook. After 8 weeks, and being so heavy, they could not support themselves. How anyone can eat chook has me beat. What a poisoned snack that could be.
Lastly the story of the new life for a group of 'retired' cage chooks. I am glad there are people out there doing this, but more so, telling/discussing it. Maybe if we all cared a bit about a little old chook, then it would develop into careing about more things, the bigger issues.
My soapbox is veal steaks - can not bare thinking about them, and thats why i do not drink milk. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/28/2009 1:36:39 AM | today at wollies, i bought barnlaid, "caged free" eggs for $2.81
the caged eggs were $2.71 for a half dozen.
even if you had no remorse in you whole body for animal welfare, it simply makes healthy sence/cents to buy eggs laid by free range chickens. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/28/2009 2:01:07 AM | Caves, Caves, Caves....come here and let me smack ya!
Barnlaid is crap....sorry to have to say it. Being wedged in a barn with hundreds of others, under constant lights, poor ventilation and still being de-beaked and filled full of antibiotics is not much of a step up from battery farming.
I admire your good intentions......but.........Barnlaid is the way abuse of chooks will continue once people refuse to buy battery cage eggs. Its kind of like the rich mans battery egg.
The labels on these eggs are specifically designed to confuse people and make them think they are buying a more humane product then they actually are. If it does not say free range and organic then put it back on the shalf and walk away.
I will buy you the first box mate............... | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/28/2009 2:03:32 AM | bloody hell me do bad again ..?
box said cage free, and barn..and it was pretty orange like the other ones, thought there was something more to it..
please dont tell naamah, lets keep it between us guys kay | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/28/2009 7:15:26 PM |
The labels on these eggs are specifically designed to confuse people and make them think they are buying a more humane product then they actually are.
Yes, and something new I noticed the other day is eggs labelled as 'Cage Free'.
Since this thread started we've seen expanding shelf space devoted to Free Range eggs down here and I expect the marketing guys are trying to get a bit of that free range market by appropriating the word 'free' . . sneaky buggers . .
Anyway, at the rate my foundling C0ckateil is laying eggs (another three yesterday), my need for chook eggs is diminishing.
The only remaining hurdles to marketing these eggs is obtaining cartons small enough and convincing customers that using 73 eggs to make an average omelette is perfectly normal.  | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/29/2009 2:25:04 AM | they had me by the short and curlies gav'. I consider myself somewhat bright..pft !!
it even has a special little "certified cage free" emblem on it and a heart foundation tick..
I thought it was too good to be true..the other half told me about RSPCA approval stamp or something to guarantee authenticity | |
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Naamah
| | Joined: 6/13/2009
Msg: 120 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/29/2009 3:40:22 AM | ^^^ Caves, go immediately to the poultry confessional and beg forgiveness from the Big Kahuna Chicken who laid this bluey green egg we live on. (I recently formed a religion for tax reasons but also *in case the ATO is reading this* because I really really believe it's true.)
But I am afraid that Hilly is gonna have to smack you again because the RSPCA have well and truly bent over and let the egg industry give them a right rogering. They condone barn systems, which are (sadly) not picturesque barns with cheery chickens poping in and out at will. They are as Hilly described, chickens jammed in like sardines with poor ventilation and artificial lighting, so they are still dosed up on antibiotics because conditions like this lead to disease and infection otherwise. And they still cut their beaks off (very painful) because unnatural overcrowding leads to boredom, and a bored chicken pecks at whatever is nearby, which in this case is ... other chickens. It's marginally better than cages only cos the chooks can move around, but please understand that moving around is limited to squeezing between gazillions of other chickens to try and find some space...and everything else is basically just as bad as the cage sheds. The RSPCA says that is fine...the chickens beg to differ.
So forget RSPCA when it comes to eggs.
You want free range organic.
I put this in the original post of this thread
The best eggs are those that clearly state on the box "no cages, no chemicals, no antibiotics, no hormones, no yolk colourant, no debeaking" eg. from Ovaston Organics.
PS. Neither Hilly or I are dumb enough to try to smack your other half, so just a hug for her. :)
Since this thread started we've seen expanding shelf space devoted to Free Range eggs down here and I expect the marketing guys are trying to get a bit of that free range market by appropriating the word 'free' . . sneaky buggers . .
It's great that the demand is there, and that consumers are making their wishes known. Fighting to get labeling sorted out is another hurdle...but it's important to keep the demand visible even whilst there is doubt. The regulators will only turn their attention to getting labeling sorted once it's recognised as a significant and permanent portion of the market, and the issue of sneaky terminology becomes a more blatant form of misrepresentation to a considerable portion of consumers. The same hurdle exists with the pigs cos they currently can put "raised free" on pork products when the truth is that the sows that make the pigs are living in abhorrent and cruel conditions. Dunno why they can't just get ACCC to slap them about with the Trade Practices Act now, but ... legislation always eventually catches up. | |
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acorn
| | Joined: 9/17/2009
Msg: 121 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/29/2009 7:41:56 AM | Thanks for waking me up Naamah and others who have posted here.I have been buying free range eggs for years but only because I thought they were a healthier choice for my daughter and I.I had no idea of the plight of the chook(I don't watch much TV or read the paper).
It's taken some days for me to read every post on this topic but I after reading your original post Naamah I wanted to give it the headspace it deserves.I didn't buy eggs this week and won't buy them again until I know they are truly free range organic.Thanks to you my awareness has been raised .Prevention of this cruelty is something that can be brought about by raising awareness levels and empowering us to make better choices and my hat is off to you and others who have posted with regard to the simple things we can do to help prevent cruelty to animals.
Strangely enough,this thread will also have me looking into what measures are available to help the prevention of cruelty to humans. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 11/29/2009 8:10:49 PM | | yes I do think about it because I have seen it. I have one child who refuses to eat caged or barn eggs. Luckily I have several friends with chooks and the quality is 400% better...however the cost of buying them is prohibitive especially since I get through a dozen eggs per meal so I buy barn, however not that often as we are all intolerant of eggs anyway...the aftermath far surpasses baked beans and the mild gut rot is tedious. I also have similar problems with how bacon gets to our table and again the cost is unfortunately part of the equation and it is often far harder to determine how the pigs were farmed. I live in a city and the ability to go out to the country to buy bulk and fresh is not usually an option....We used to buy half a pig, lamb etc which ex would render into joints, amazing sausages and pates and freeze....I used to love opening my freezer, nowadays it looks like the North Pole...full of ice and vast emptiness and cheap beef sausages...ugh. | |
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| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 12/4/2009 1:28:00 AM | The plight to battery reared chickens has from time to time attracted a little attention here and there is little doubt that these chickens have pretty unfortunate lives. There are those who object to the suffering that these birds endure during their lives while others also object to the killing of animals under any circumstances.
The imagined solutions offered by those concerned with the question of cruelty range from urging a return to situations in which chickens are raised more or less as they where before the industrialisation of chicken farming; this is I think a forlorn hope rather than an expectation. Still other pin their hopes on improvements in industrial methods which do show some promise and should eventually lead to a measurable improvement in the lives of chickens. It is generally agreed that buying free range eggs and chickens might go some way to shifting production to less intensive farming methods and while this is nowhere near as simple as it sounds, it is generally true.
Interestingly there is a third possibility that has not been considered here, which Philosopher Julian Baggini invites us to consider in his book “The pig that wants to be eaten”.
It is known that chickens can live without their heads for about two years which is about as long a battery hen is considered viable. What is being suggested is not that chickens be decapitated which would raise its own ethical questions but rather that a breed of chickens be created which have effectively been ‘decerebrated. Their brains would consist of little more than the brain steam which is sufficient to keep them alive, laying eggs and providing meat.
If these chickens could be created than by definition they would have no more capacity to feel pain and/or to suffer than a carrot would and so could be raised in any economically efficient manner. The question of killing them would also not appear to raise any ethical question as they would by definition have no sense at all of their own existence and so killing them could not be considered cruel in the sense that it deprives them of life of which they are aware. I suspect though I do not know, that research along these lines with these intentions is going on as we speak, a google search for “‘decerebrated chickens” returns results suggesting that these chickens already exist in some form for some scientific purpose.
The question is if this could be done on a large industrial scale is there an ethical problem, chickens are not wild animals their existence is a consequence of domestication by artificial selection and so engineering ‘decerebrated’ chickens would just be an extension of the process that brought them into existence. Nothing that could be done to them could cause them to feel pain or be considered cruel to them in anyway so would this solve the problem? If not, it suggests that causing pain and suffering to the chickens has not been the problem all along which begs the question if causing pain and suffering is not the problem what is?
I don’t know the answer to these questions but I suspect that if it can be done it will be done sooner rather than later. | |
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Naamah
| | Joined: 6/13/2009
Msg: 125 | |
| The chickens AND the eggs
Posted: 12/4/2009 3:36:16 AM | ^^^ Personally my brain is having some difficulty separating this concept from real live chickens, but that's probably because I spent the better part of this afternoon wandering around the yard with 4 ex-battery hens following at my heel like newborn chicks, and musing at their devoted gratitude for the first kindness they've ever experienced in their whole lives...pathetic gratitude which is both beautiful, and immensely & sadly telling. So my fresh thoughts are inconveniently combining with what you've described and I am now trying to rid myself of a mental image of my sweet girls with their brains half removed. Begone image!
*shakes head in the manner of a dog that's been swimming*
Ok, if I was sure that we were talking about a chicken (and we'll have to call it something else really, because it's not going to be a chicken...I am going with unchicken for the moment) ...so if we were talking about an unchicken that had no more awareness or capacity to feel pain or distress than a carrot, then I think unchickens are the perfect solution for the chickens. I'd have to be sure we were really talking no awareness, no anything, etc...but if it were true, then unchickens would be great news for chickens and I would fully support it.
Will this be good news for humans? Well, it may well be slightly healthier eating if they are no longer pumping hormones and steroids and antibiotics into the animals we then consume/consume the eggs of. I am not sure if they will be able to replicate the goodness produced in eggs and meat when a chicken eats green grass, unless they alter that part of their original design. But might be better for conserving space, saving money, and all of those things...given that we seem to have no intention of slowing our population growth and the associated compounding demand for food. The long term implications for humans eating these uneggs/unchickens won't be known until they come to pass...which is usually how we learn all such things about what we initially think very clever and entirely harmless if not beneficial.
Of course, it's another step away from the natural ways of the planet...of our own earthiness... not that we are in tune with the natural ways of the planet anymore anyway, and with regards to the way we currently farm eggs/chicken, the uneggs/unchickens are probably not much further from nature than where we are now anyway. Overall I believe there is something lost in us, every time we find a way to strip the life out of other species for our own convenience and advancement. It makes us that much colder, colourless, straight edged....in a warm, colourful world made up of meandering lines. I think we lose, even when we think we win. I don't think we have any idea how much we lose.
But hey... we are a species who entirely killed the dodo bird simply because we could, because the birds were so trusting that they would come right up to humans to say hi, and it was ridiculously easy to hit these friendly, unafraid birds on the head and kill them. So that's what we did. Every last one. And then we decided dodos were just really stupid animals for letting that happen. Perhaps we should have spent a bit more time considering what kind of animals we are, for letting that happen. Anyway...
their existence is a consequence of domestication by artificial selection and so engineering ‘decerebrated’ chickens would just be an extension of the process that brought them into existence.
Scary reasoning there Scholar. If we call something into existence, there is no ethical issue with doing whatever you want to them thereafter? Different context, but...some abusive parents fall back on similar reasoning. | |
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