–Is Dem Chickens Crazy?
– – “Their bones and muscles waste away and they go insane.” So says a spokesman for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals about chickens raised in the so-called “battery cages” which measure 24 inches wide by 25-1/2 inches deep, and are shared by up to nine hens from the day that they are born to the day that their egg-laying days end 18 to 24 months later. About 96% of the eggs sold in the United States come from chickens raised in such conditions.
Although the chickens can’t fully extend their wings in such cages, producers claim caged hens are healthier and satisfied with the only lives that they’ve ever known. Producers contend that the chickens are not stuffed in so tightly that they can’t move around the cage, and that accordingly these conditions don’t constitute animal cruelty.
Public opinion appears to side with those who oppose the cages, and voters in California approved a proposition that bans cramped cages for hens. Michigan’s governor signed legislation last month requiring confined animals to have enough room to turn around and fully extend their limbs.
A three-year study is being funded by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture on the issue. I know what Foghorn Leghorn thinks about the matter, but can’t quote what he said in a blog not rated for mature content… 😉
Tags: Are penned hens crazy?, battery caged hens, factory-raised chickens
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FOXSYLVANIA 
November 21, 2009 at 4:35 am
Good thing I don’t eat at Kentucky _Cramped_ Chicken.
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November 22, 2009 at 1:45 am
Those cramped chickens can’t run away nearly as fast! Even better are those boneless chickens…the poor things just kind of ooze, amoeba-like, over the ground!
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November 23, 2009 at 4:25 am
Heh-heh-heh! You just reminded me of my second favorite “Farside” cartoon. The Boneless Chicken Ranch!
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November 23, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Now I gotta know…what’s your favorite (No. 1) “Farside” cartoon?
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November 23, 2009 at 10:30 pm
It’s a three-panel job. The first panel has a bunch of bipedal cows, loitering in a field, gabbing like humans around a water cooler. One of them, evidently on look-out duty, shouts down the hill: “Car!”
A family on a rural outing drives by the field, looking at the cows (who are now on all fours).
In the third and last panel, the car is safely out of sight, and all the cows have _resumed_ their bipedal gabbing!
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November 24, 2009 at 12:09 am
I remember that one! And remember the one where a car full of cows drove past a field of humans, and shouted “yackety-yak” out their windows?
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November 24, 2009 at 2:18 am
No! But, I remember the one about a Masai chieftain who calls a certain American about finding her run-away kid.*
*The Masai used a glass phone booth. Talk about primitive!
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November 23, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Since then, I can’t drive by a real dairy farm pasture without thinking of that cartoon.
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