April 2015
Dear Humans, Birds and Elephants,
Tonight's meeting gives me great pride because my erudite friend, Craig Russell, is back to discuss and teach us about some of my favorite animals: CHICKENS, To most people chickens are practical animals that people raise to provide eggs and meat. To me they have always been pets with amazingly interesting stories about how each one of their breeds were developed over hundreds of years. Craig will regale us with many of those stories and teach us about what went on to bring the original little red jungle fowl into becoming the Plymouth rock, New Hampshire, Leghorn, Minorca, Jersey giant, Dorking and so other breeds that have been developed through much careful breeding and research.
In our world today, most of those beautiful and practical old breeds are all but gone except for backyard flocks, serious old breeders, and poultry shows. They have been replaced with the genetically engineered modern birds raised in cruel and horrible conditions in agribusiness factory farms. Birds crowded into cages that are filthy and where they can barely move is the avatar of the chicken on a mass production modern poultry farm. Many of these poor chickens have never walked. They can only stand up, eat and sit down to lay an egg. Others that are bred for meat, grow so fast and unnaturally that if they do escape the slaughterer's blade, their bodies become so fat, so fast, that they cannot walk because their legs cannot support them.
I used to be able to rescue a few cages of laying hens each year when their main productive laying cycle was over, about the age of two, and they were being sent to the soup factory. These poor things had combs that were almost white, beaks that were cut half off (debeaking) and nails that were terribly overgrown because they had, literally, never had a chance to walk.
Those that survived had a decent life with me, once they had been rehabilitated and learned that "they were chickens". The debeaking, a terribly cruel process, where half their beak is cut or burned off, left them at a terrible disadvantage when dealing with other chickens who had not been mutilated like that. They debeak them because they are kept in such abnormally small places that they will peck each other more than they normally would and those that are on the lower end of the pecking order cannot get away.
I expect tonight to be a fascinating evening and I am happy that so many people asked me to bring Craig Russell back as a presenter at our club.
Aristophanes, Emma (Emmet) and Zeke are doing pretty well. They had matzoh-brei for breakfast today and they enjoyed that. They have to wait until after Passover to have french toast or bagels and cream cheese again.
I am still juggling programs for the next few months and I have some great prospects. I just have to juxtapose them to our best advantage.
Matt will run the meeting next month because I will be in Israel, attending my cousin's son's wedding.
Have a great month and fight for kindness for chickens and other farm animals. Their terrible abuse adds nothing to our world but suffering.
Love,
Richie
Tonight's meeting gives me great pride because my erudite friend, Craig Russell, is back to discuss and teach us about some of my favorite animals: CHICKENS, To most people chickens are practical animals that people raise to provide eggs and meat. To me they have always been pets with amazingly interesting stories about how each one of their breeds were developed over hundreds of years. Craig will regale us with many of those stories and teach us about what went on to bring the original little red jungle fowl into becoming the Plymouth rock, New Hampshire, Leghorn, Minorca, Jersey giant, Dorking and so other breeds that have been developed through much careful breeding and research.
In our world today, most of those beautiful and practical old breeds are all but gone except for backyard flocks, serious old breeders, and poultry shows. They have been replaced with the genetically engineered modern birds raised in cruel and horrible conditions in agribusiness factory farms. Birds crowded into cages that are filthy and where they can barely move is the avatar of the chicken on a mass production modern poultry farm. Many of these poor chickens have never walked. They can only stand up, eat and sit down to lay an egg. Others that are bred for meat, grow so fast and unnaturally that if they do escape the slaughterer's blade, their bodies become so fat, so fast, that they cannot walk because their legs cannot support them.
I used to be able to rescue a few cages of laying hens each year when their main productive laying cycle was over, about the age of two, and they were being sent to the soup factory. These poor things had combs that were almost white, beaks that were cut half off (debeaking) and nails that were terribly overgrown because they had, literally, never had a chance to walk.
Those that survived had a decent life with me, once they had been rehabilitated and learned that "they were chickens". The debeaking, a terribly cruel process, where half their beak is cut or burned off, left them at a terrible disadvantage when dealing with other chickens who had not been mutilated like that. They debeak them because they are kept in such abnormally small places that they will peck each other more than they normally would and those that are on the lower end of the pecking order cannot get away.
I expect tonight to be a fascinating evening and I am happy that so many people asked me to bring Craig Russell back as a presenter at our club.
Aristophanes, Emma (Emmet) and Zeke are doing pretty well. They had matzoh-brei for breakfast today and they enjoyed that. They have to wait until after Passover to have french toast or bagels and cream cheese again.
I am still juggling programs for the next few months and I have some great prospects. I just have to juxtapose them to our best advantage.
Matt will run the meeting next month because I will be in Israel, attending my cousin's son's wedding.
Have a great month and fight for kindness for chickens and other farm animals. Their terrible abuse adds nothing to our world but suffering.
Love,
Richie