Actually, the chickens don't have to stay in a coop, but they do have to
stay in an enclosed area for all the reasons you mention. One of my uncles
also owned a chicken farm and my family visited there during my later
childhood and early teens. Again, the purpose of the farm was only to
produce eggs, which he sold. When he needed more chickens, he purchased baby
chickens from somewhere or other. I remember entering a finished heated room
with windows, and the floor was covered with baby chicks. I have no idea how
he got them. It's kind of like they all arrived by parcel post one day.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2015 3:51 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Apocalyptic Capitalism
I think I was given the job of feather plucking a couple of times myself. I
am reminded of something else too. When I was in college I had an embryology
class. We had an incubator and we incubated eggs and dissected them at
various stages as the class progressed. Toward the end of the term there
were some eggs left over and they hatched. What to do with the chicks? I
volunteered to take them. I kept them in an enclosure until they outgrew it
and I did not have a chicken coop at that time, so I just let them run
loose. I was able to collect some very fresh eggs and some not so fresh
eggs. What with the chickens running loose you never knew where you would
find a nest nor how long the eggs had been there. It was a good idea to
crack them into a bowl before the frying pan just in case they were spoiled.
There are two good reasons to keep chickens cooped. One is that they are
really messy and they eat things they shouldn't eat, like decorative plants.
Actually, I think some neighbors were mad at me for having uncooped chickens
even if they didn't say anything to me about it. The other reason is to
protect the chickens. Eventually something picked off every one of them one
by one in the night time. In the middle of the night I would hear a chicken
shrieking and I knew that in the morning I would have one less chicken.
When the flock got down to few enough that they would fit I returned them to
the enclosure that I originally kept them in and the creature managed to get
in anyway. This time it was not able to carry off its prey so instead of a
missing chicken I found partially eaten chickens. I found one chicken that
had apparently been eaten alive - well, half eaten alive - and the culprit
had started on its stomach and gobbled out a large cavity. I think it was
probably a weasel, but whatever it was it managed to wipe out my whole
flock. I wasn't too disappointed at seeing them go though. Even uncooped
chickens can be a lot of trouble and at that time I had a lot of pots on the
stove, including being a college student and I was politically active too. I
had a tendency to take on more work than I could comfortably handle.
On 12/13/2015 11:05 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Roger,negative.
Your grandma and my grandma were cast in the same mold. I remember
looking at this sweet, smiling, silver haired lady bringing the
hatchet down on the neck of the hapless chicken. Once the body got up
and actually ran around for a couple of minutes before it realized it
was dead. One difference between our memories is that I was the one
who got to pull the feathers off. But grandma never let me burn off
the pin feathers. And as far as I recall, the innards went into the
slop pot on the back of the stove, along with the trimmings of the
potatoes and carrot tops. After it stewed a few hours, grandma would
toss in a few handfuls of grain, mix it in and I'd haul the slop pot
out to the chicken house and dump it into their feed trough.
By the time I was old enough to remember, grandpa no longer
slaughtered his own hogs. He had a fellow who came around and picked
them up and took them to his slaughter house. Grandpa tried teaching
me to milk the cow, but I was such a scaredy cat that I never got the
hang of it. I think I thought that the old cow would turn around and
bite me.
Grandma kept a big old goose. I think it ate some of the bigger bugs
and slugs. But it was King of the barnyard, and mean as all get out.
Many was the time that I barely made it into the house just ahead of
that hissing snake-like head. Once I didn't quite make it. That old
goose got me right on the bare leg, just below my shorts. That left a
good welt for some days.
Still and all, the good memories of that life will always trump the
Carl Jarvishold of.
On 12/12/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As a child I remember my grandmother preparing chicken dinners. She
would go to the chicken coop and grab a chicken. It was usually the
one that tended to produce the fewest eggs, but with their running
around trying to escape it was often just the first one she could get
She then carried the chicken by the feet with it looking very
uncomfortable. She took it to an old stump and with a hatchet she
lopped off its head. She waited until the body stopped flopping
around and picked it up by the feet again. I found it fascinating to
watch the disembodied head lie there with the beak opening and
closing for several minutes. She carried a pot of boiling water from
the kitchen and in an area where the feathers could be discarded she
dipped the carcass into the boiling water. Then she plucked all the
feathers off and let them fall to the ground. Then with a kitchen
match she set a rolled up newspaper on fire and ran the flames over
the chicken to singe off the small pinfeathers. Then she took the
carcass into the kitchen to the sink and gutted it. All the internal
organs that were not to be cooked she dumped into a pan and often I
got the job of taking that outside and feeding it to the dog. The
rest of the job consisted of simply cutting it up and frying, baking
or cooking in whatever way she had decided to to fix it for dinner.
On 12/11/2015 10:20 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
yes, this is the ultimate in intellectual dishonesty.as long as the
animal, be it chicken, cow, lamb, rabbit, is all sterile and
protected by plastic, it's not really an animal.how easy it is for
people to delude themselves. For several years of my young life, I
could not eat meat, because I could not stand the thought of animals
being killed and, worse, killed in horrifying circumstances. I
eventually got over it, and I eat meat now. But I don't kid myself
about where it comes from, and I believe that I could kill my own
chicken if I had to, because I already admit that somebody killed
the chicken, so what difference does it make?
BTW, I loved your descriptions of how it was in your mother's kitchen...
On Dec 11, 2015, at 2:10 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Bob,
I've been listening to the coverage of COP 21 on Democracy Now for
days and reading many articles about climate change and Chris
Hedges is the only person, so far, who has written that we could
solve the whole problem by not eating meat. For years and years I
have been reading articles that promote vegetarianism and give
various reasons for its adoption.
Certainly,
the industrial farming and the industreal meat industry are harmful.
But no
one has yet convinced me that eating meat is bad for people. As far
as I am concerned, we are biologically, carniverous animals and
eating meat is natural. If people don't like eating meat or feel
physically better when they avoid meat and dairy products, if they
have moral objections to eating other animals, I accept their
personal choices. But I don't appreciate their missionary zeal in
attempting to convince others to adopt their position. I do think,
however, that there should be changes in how the animals that we
consume, are raised, and in how they are killed. I also hate the
idea that we have to kill animals in order to eat them. Actually, I
think that people like to think that all meat drops from the sky,
neatly wrapped in plastic packages. This was brought home to me
when, on Thanksgiving, I was describing how, when I was a very
small child, my mother would buy chickens from the kosher butcher.
She brought home a whole chicken with all its feathers and its
feet. Only the head was gone. She removed the feathers by hand, and
then removed the pin feathers by holding the chicken over the gas
flame of our stove to burn them off. I remember that these chickens
had undeveloped eggs inside them, the yokes without shells. She
boiled the chickens for chicken soup and the little eggs were part
of the soup, and were deliscious. She skimmed the fat off the top,
rendered it with onions to make chicken fat which was used in
cooking and also, spread on rye bread. My older daughter was
horrified by the foregoing description and said, "I don't want to
think about a real chicken. I just want to get packaged parts in
the store". So, perhaps Hedges is on to something. Perhaps if
people had to see the cow slaughtered, steaks and hamburgers
wouldn't be so appealing.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob
Hachey
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 1:34 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Apocalyptic Capitalism
Hi Miriam,
Reading this brought to mind the criticism I get from a few of my
vegan friends and colleagues. They rightly label me a hypocrite
based upon the fact that I complain about climate change and the
deleterious effect of greenhouse gases while continuing to eat
meat, eggs and dairy. Many of my favorite foods fall into these
groups and boy do I love to eat. The gut around my middle is purely
based upon diet as I get a good bit of exercise.
I politely eat vegan meals at the homes of friends, but could not
picture myself changing to a vegan diet. Even reducing meat
consumption would not be easy for me. This all makes me wonder if
meat and dairy are addictions like drugs, sugar or caffeine.
Bob Hachey
