It's early morning one day while you are out on a early walk in your neighborhood. While enjoying the early birds singing their songs, the cool breeze, and the peacefulness of it all before the day truly begins. Off in the distance, you hear a distinct “Cock-a-doodle doo!” 'Is that a rooster?', you say to yourself. Later in the day you hear more characteristic clucking and crowing, and indeed, one of your neighbors is keeping chickens in the city. Previously thought only be a rural animal, chickens are being kept more and more in urban settings as people turn toward the self-sustainability trend, but this has not been without opposition. Even though chickens may be loud and messy, with proper care they are a valuable asset to those who want to control where their food comes from, prevent animal cruelty, and reap the benefits of keeping them for their gardens. Chickens are a wonderful way to dive into the world of agriculture and becoming more connected to the food that we eat.
Humans have been keeping chickens for over 5,000 years. (Bloom 14) My own chicken keeping experience began when I was thirteen years old. My grandfather, who lived on a farm, had taken me along on a trip to the local hatchery. While he picked out most of the birds he bought that day, I found a chick I was partial to and he bought her for me thinking that she could live on the farm with the rest of the birds. I ended up taking her home (to the city) and my urban chicken keeping adventure began. While I initially started with bantams, or miniature chickens, and my birds were pets, my flock evolved into not only being companion animals, but excellent egg producers.
There is nothing quite like having a fresh egg for breakfast. Fried, scrambled, or in an omel...
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As more and more people turn toward being self-sustaining, urban chickens lessen the demand for commercially farmed eggs by provide their owners with plentiful nutritionally superior eggs and provide numerous benefits to their gardens. Provided that the chicken keeper is prepared to take care of their flock,chickens can be delightful neighbors if given the chance to do so.
Works Cited
“Birds on Factory Farms.” ASPCA. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. n.d. Web. 9 April 2014.
Bloom, Jessie. Free Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard. Portland: Timber Press, 2012. Print.
Long, Cheryl and Tabitha Alterman. “Meet Real Free-Range Eggs.” Mother Earth News. Ogden Publications Inc. October/November 2007. Web. 9 April 2014.
Slucher, Laura. Urban Chickens. eSurveysPro. Survey. Web. 14-16 April 2014.
First, the local sustainable food chain is healthy for people. In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma as people stand around to buy chicken from Polyface, Pollan records some of the customers’ quotes. In the book it says, “ You’re not going to find fresher chickens anywhere. (Pollan, 184). ” This quote shows
The U.S annual per capita consumption of poultry has risen dramatically during the past 40 years from 26.3 pounds to almost 80 pounds in 1990.
Fluids drain from the carcass before moving on to the rubber fingers. The array of fingers makes quick work of removing the feathers, leaving the bird bare. Finally, the bird’s innards are removed in what is a mostly mechanical process. Machines then spray an antimicrobial rinse on the chickens before food safety inspectors check each bird for broken bones, abrasions and bacterial infections. To ensure food safety, every day, workers thoroughly sanitize the entire processing facility with hot water and food safe cleaning agents. The poultry leaves the first facility resembling the oven-ready bird that is familiar to most U.S.
Chickens are one of the top most tortured animals in factory farms. Farmers get the most money for chickens that are heavier and have enlarged thighs and breasts. Like most factory farmed animals, broiler chickens are raised in overcrowded cages their entire life, and become very aggressive. Because of this aggressiveness the employees of the farms cut of their beaks and toes without any type of painkiller or an anesthetic just to keep them from fighting. After being “debeaked” some chickens are then not able to eat and starve. Layer chickens lay 90-95% of the eggs sold in the U.S. (2013b) The torture starts the day they are born. Chicks are placed on a belt, where an employee than picks up each chick to see if it is a male or female. Newborn male chicks are thrown into trash bags, ground up alive, crushed, and killed many other inhumane ways.
produced is by three or four chickens or hens in a small cage that do
Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about 11"-14". Stress from the confinement leads to severe feather loss so the chicken will be almost completely bald in the cold cages. When the chickens are of egg-laying age, there beaks are cut off without any pain killers to ease the pain, they do this so the chickens don’t break their own eggs and eat them because the chickens are hungry.
I woke up at 6:30am this morning to get to work. I started to feel hungry at around 8am so I decided to take a look around the kitchen and managed to come up with this delicious breakfast. Super satisfying! I had fried tomato, sautéed collards with garlic, home fries, and avocado slices.
Before they started their project, nearly every egg that was laid was taken to sell for food.
The breakfast was the most delicious breakfast I have ever had. The first breakfast we had waffles, bacon, and eggs.
The chicken is no longer simply viewed as food and is instead seen as someone or something that cares about the family due to her new role as a mother. This is depicted through the words of the daughter as she states, “Mama, Mama, don’t kill the chicken anymore, she laid an egg! She cares about us!” (129). Thus, it can be interpreted
...edia] do not tell us that chickens are the most tortured animals in factory farms and that most chickens have to stand on their own feces all day and end up getting litter burn from their manure … hens are often crammed together in cases so tiny that they do not get enough room to even lift a single wing—which then immobilizes them for their entire lives…” The animals do not even have space to move for their life. Living life only to be tortured and slaughtered alive is a really horrible thing to experience for the animals.
Chickens are the most abused farm animals. In supermarkets chickens are different than they were 40 years ago because of the conditions they go through in the factory. Factory workers put these chickens or hens through chronic pain and it effects them greatly. Chicks are "debeaked" by searing their beaks off with a hot blade. "The beaks of chickens, turkeys, and ducks are often removed in factory farms to reduce the excessive feather pecking and cannibalism seen among stressed, overcrowded birds" (The National Humane Education Society). Egg laying animals can also be starved to shock their bodies into molting. Force molting is when chickens or hens are starved or denied any food for up to two weeks. This can contribute to suffering or early disease of chickens. "It's common for 5% to 10% of hens to die during the forced molting process" (Lin, Doris). Factory farms dominate food production and put animals through abusive environments that cause them
day. For many people, one of the first things they do when they wake up, is to cook.
I’d like to express my appreciation for the famed Kellogg’s Eggo® waffles. For many years now, I have looked forward to subjecting myself to the world apart from my bed, for the very purpose of enjoying a delicious stack of Eggos®. The comforting sound of the toaster—eagerly presenting to me the golden, crosshatched breakfast delights—has by now become almost melodic to my morning ears. Despite the paradigmatic concept of the waffle being a breakfast food, I have never felt compelled to confine my waffle cravings to daybreak. Consuming a waffle for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner is no longer an uncommon occurrence in my home, much to the chagrin of my mother.
Chickens have undergone an interesting history as they evolved from their red jungle fowl ancestors. When the red jungle fowls reproduce, the offspring differ from the parents in minor random ways. If the differences are helpful, the offspring are more likely to survive and reproduce. This means that more offspring in the next generation will have the helpful difference. These differences accumulate resulting in changes within the population. Over time, populations branch off to become new species as they become separated. This is how chickens came to be. Mated with the gray jungle fowl and because of a minor genetic mutation, created a chicken.