Adopt a Katrina chicken survivor and really torture your neighbors

[Modem Butterfly]

Anyone who's ever lived next door to chickens knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. These birds are filthy, smelly, and are unbelievably noisy all day and all night, even without roosters around. The incessant squaking and clucking and shitting and flapping is sure to drive anyone to drink.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/13/BAGP6EMQ951.DTL

[texastoast]

1. I beg to differ

Little of what you said is true. Why do you hate chickens? Do you hate freedom too?

[Modem Butterfly]

3. Our asshole neighbor kept chickens when I was a kid

I can trace my persistant insomnia back to the summer he moved next door to us when I was fifteen. And that was before he got a rooster.

[texastoast]

24. Your neighbor must have been

chasing the chicken hens around after dark (an asshole neighbor might do that). Chicken hens are very quiet at night if they are undisturbed. Roosters get, ahem, cocky and noisy any time. Nothing worse than a flogging rooster thinking it is dawn at 2:00 a.m.

[Modem Butterfly]

32. Hens are quiet at night if left undisturbed...

...but if you live in town, they get disturbed easily. Barking dogs, trucks on the highway, the foghorn, any damn thing at all will disturb them.

Roosters suck big time.

[Meatwad]

2. I'm scared of chickens...

because they eat meat sometimes.

:scared:

[Modem Butterfly]

4. If you want to be scared of something, fear geese

A pissed off goose can break a child's arm...

[frankly_fedup2]

7. Emu's! They creep me out. No bird should be bigger than a person.

I live in the south and we have farmers with Llamas, Emus, Alpacas. Now Turkeys, wild turkeys scare the be-jesus out of me.

I love animals but anything that only has 3 toes or 3 claws really, REALLY creep me out. I would never hurt them intentionally. I just stay out of their way.

My brother in law raised roosters for cock fighting (believe it or not, it is legal in VA but not in Mexico where they torture bulls), which I hated. My husband wouldn't even go to any of the fights because he said it is just cruel. My brother in law would even take his sons with him. One was like 16 and the other 10. The 16 year old was not really interested in it; however, the 10 year old always wanted to go. If he had a rooster that lost too many times, well he was going to be supper eventually. They claim to be animal lovers but how can you treat animals like this and love your 10 dogs, 4 cats, 3 hamsters, 25 fish, God knows how many rabbits and a ferret. I just do not know how they separate the two. Go figure???

[H5N1]

17. Emus are extremely docile and fun as heck to play with

Plenty affectionate, too.
Rheas, on the other hand, tend to be a bit on the crabby side.

[rkc3]

25. And don't forget Double-wattled Cassowaries.

At 5ft tall and over 100 pounds, they'd rather disembowel you with their feet than run from you.

[Akoto]

26. And they have a funny name, too.

"My god, run for your lives! The double-wattled cassowaries are coming!" :rofl:

[Spinzonner]

33. The name is an evolutionary advantage

By the time you get out the warning, it's too late for the other potential targets to get away.

[rkc3]

43. Kind of like "Mexican Whooping Llamas" from Monty Python.

"La La La Liamas" which means "run for your lives the llamas are coming."

It was a very serious documentary on the dangers of Llamas.

[frankly_fedup2]

42. OH-MY-GAWD! I had never even heard of that bird (are emus,

ostriches, these things still considered birds even though they are so big?).

That would be one of my worst nightmares, to be walking in the woods and one of those birds start coming at me. I worry about bears here. I figure the bears could kill them if they got loose. However, bears won't attack you unless you threaten them or their babies. They even have their babies while they are hybernating and don't even wake up. Now that's the way to give birth. (National Geographic Special).

[rkc3]

44. Holy shit - where'd you go to school? Kansas?

These birds were extirpated from the US during Reagan's second term. They made a mockery of creationism and therefore something had to be done to protect children.

[Modem Butterfly]

45. That's why they're called Jesus Chickens

[frankly_fedup2]

38. But it's wierd looking. An Ostrich you have to look up at and they really

really creep me out. Have you ever seen a dolphin up close and personal in the face? Talk about strange. They are beautiful and sweet from a distance, but up close they are the wierdest, most alien looking creatures in the world to me.

Of course, they have flippers and not 3 claws, but they fall in to the category of I would try to help them, feed them, but do not ask me to touch one or swim with one.

[NYC]

27. Wild turkeys should frighten you.

A wild turkey can catch and kill a bobcat. Average weight 15 to 20 lbs., but can go as high as 30 lbs.

People insult turkeys because they think of the domestic turkeys who are specifically bred for the dinner table.

[frankly_fedup2]

40. Can you all believe we have spent this much time talking about chickens

with everything else going on in the world? Reduced a little stress for me though. Thanks for the entertainment.

[MoonRiver]

5. As a vegetarian and contributor to Farm Sanctuary, I applaud this woman!

GO CHICKENS!!! :kick::toast::kick::toast::kick:

[Modem Butterfly]

10. Yes, go chickens!

Go far, far away from my neighborhood and STAY THERE!

A sanctuary or farm is the perfect place for them. But I have to question this woman's knowledge if she plans to adopt out ~600 chickens to an urban/suburban population.

[Jersey Devil]

6. Chicken bigotry is unacceptable

Some of my best friends are chickens!

[jdlh8894]

8. Some of my best friends are chickens!

Is that a * quote?

[frankly_fedup2]

39. Sounds like something he would say to me. LOL (nt)

[Modem Butterfly]

41. What a coincidence!

One of my worst presidents is a chicken!

[tinfoilinfor2005]

9. I'll take six. My family LOVES chicken...er, chickens...

yeah, that's it, they love chickens.

Now where did I put that BBQ sauce??

[Modem Butterfly]

12. LOL!

You have to pluck them first, and that's enough to turn anyone off to chicken for the rest of their days...

[frankly_fedup2]

19. Pluck them? They don't do that down here. There is a certain way they

cut them and then you take your fingers and work up under a layer of skin and there you have the whole chicken ready to cook. I don't do this, but I have seen my mother-in-law do it with a turkey. It was unreal just to see her peel it off.

They may not do that to chickens now that I think about it.

I remember when we moved down south and lived with my grandmother on a farm for a while. They would butcher hogs in the fall (traumatized me), same for beef cow. They would hunt something all year round. Deer was the big time hunting. However, my grandmother had a stump with two nails a certain distance apart. I have seen her wring their necks or she would push their heads in between the two nails and one chop and that was it. (traumatized me).

One thing about it though, the way she killed the chickens to cook compared to how manufactured chickens (thanks to NAFTA AND CAFTA) live their whole life and then are slaughtered for human consumption is a lot more humane then the way they are just ripped apart by one machine after another. Really cruel.

You really need to watch a tape of them slaughtering animals. You can watch a lot of films free on www.peta.org. You can see calves and how they are raised to a certain age and and slaughtered for veal. You can see how they slaughter chickens, pigs, cows, or just plain abuse of animals.

If you watched those videos and still could eat a living creature or make jokes about it, then you probably would eat road kill too.

I don't eat meat of any kind. Not due to films on PETA. I made that decision a long, long time ago. I don't wear leather nor fur. I just do not feel that humans were meant to eat meat. That's my belief and I'm not trying to change yours by the last statement, but the films could change your life and how you might perceive animals.

(sorry, got a little soap boxy there).

[Modem Butterfly]

22. Chickens have more pinfeathers than turkeys

[frankly_fedup2]

28. They boil the chicken before they pluck right? I figured that chickens

weren't as easy as turkeys. That was the first and the last time I ever watched a turkey get peeled. No plucking involved whatsoever.

[Modem Butterfly]

30. In the chicken industry they do

But the goo that's produced by boiling the feathers away is really foul, and plucking is preferable for having a one or two off chicken, IMNSHO.

[frankly_fedup2]

13. I really do not think that is what they mean by helping to take care

of them. I don't think they are meant to eat (you're just kidding though, right?)

[Modem Butterfly]

14. Well, they are broilers...

These chickens were bred to be eaten. I'm sure the woman rescuing them wants them to go to homes that will keep them safe and not eat them, but the kind of folks that are inclined to know how to care for chickens are probably the kind who are inclined to eat them, meaning most of her adopters will probably be clueless.

[frankly_fedup2]

23. Not necessarily. As long as you don't let the hens nest on the eggs

they will keep you in eggs forever. You don't have to kill a chicken, that is, unless you are a Republican and see egg as the fetus of the chicken. You know how they always give the fetus more rights than the woman. Plus they want the fetus born but by God you better take care of it whether you can afford to or not.

[Modem Butterfly]

29. Hens won't produce eggs without roosters

Or hormones. Lots and lots of hormones.

BTW, roosters are about a million times worse than the hens. They start crowing at dawn and keep it up all hours of the day and night. Nasty little fuckers.

[frankly_fedup2]

37. Chickens lay eggs all the time. They don't have to have a rooster.

That is why you don't let them nest on the eggs if you do have a rooster because those eggs could be fertilized. However, you can just keep chickens to lay eggs.

Chickens do not need roosters to lay eggs. Seriously.

[texastoast]

47. Wrong again, chicken chica

Roosters are completely unnecessary for hens to produce eggs and so are hormones. Those eggs WILL come down the pipeline as long as that hen is alive and well.

I have a very clear picture now that you have an undue prejudice against chickens, and generally undue prejudices are based on faulty information. Barking dogs seldom bother chickens on the roost unless the dog is in the coop. Your neighbor was chasing those chickens at night time to make you crazy with insomnia. Go get HIM and leave the smelly, soft, stupid chickens alone. Chickens earn their keep. Feed them scraps and they give you eggs and some of the best organic fertilizer there is. What a deal.

[Modem Butterfly]

50. I never claimed to have kept chickens

I had the unfortunate experience of living next to someone who kept them. My neighbor didn't chase the chickens around. I'm sure they earned their keep at his house, but they made his neighbors miserable. Keeping chickens in backyards is illegal in many places, and with good reason. Those damn things belong on a farm or out in the country where there's no one to bother.

[Lisa]

52. during the shorter winter days, some chicken breeds will slow down ...

... or stop egg production. (Unless you install artificial lights in the henhouse, that is.) But as texastoast and others say, chickens will keep cranking out those eggs whether or not the roosters are around, whether or not they are fed hormones, antibiotics, etc. Some farmers believe that the hens actually lay BETTER when there are no males (constantly chasing them to have sex).

I had to farm-sit once, and had to figure out what to do with >50 eggs per day, which were piling up in the refrigerator after the car broke down and I had no way of getting them to market. I only wish I could have stopped the birds from laying!


p.s. the amount of noise that the birds make is also related to the breed. Bantams and some egg-laying breeds tend to be more active and vocal. There are some types which are recommended for town conditions because they are relatively unobtrusive. Our city allows up to 6 hens (but no roosters). They don't have to stink or attract vermin if the manure is removed daily and spilled food isn't allowed to sit around. A lady in my old neighborhood kept two, and received no complaints.

[Lisa]

51. if they're broilers, they may not live long anyway ...

A lot of the meat birds being bred these days grow so quickly that they develop heart and joint problems. A friend of mine had a pet chicken (Cornish rock cross, I think) which had a heart attack before its 2nd birthday. Care wasn't the issue, since she also has a heritage breed rooster which is more than a decade old.

Not that I would discourage people from giving rescued egg or meat chickens a good life, of course. But it does show that we've really been rather unfair to the birds for the sake of "market efficiency", letting the old dual-use breeds go extinct, in favor of egg or meat-producing machines with shortened lifespans. (The egg-laying breeds also have it tough ... the males are killed almost on day one, to save on having to feed them ... and because they're from egger breeds, they wouldn't make good eating chickens.)

Those turkeys that Presidents pardon (the standard Thanksgiving photo-op) rarely live more than a year afterwards, because of the same heart problems.

[DBoon]

11. It'll give my pitbull a "friend" to play with

I would expect a quick burial....

[Gidney N Cloyd]

18. How nice.

[pitohui]

15. i used to have chickens

they are not filthy, smelly, and the hens are not noisy

you didn't keep them in proper conditions if you believe those things

alas i had severe damage myself or i would be happy to take on some survivors of the chickenly species

[texastoast]

49. If you had them once

you will probably have them again. It's just plain smart.

[Maru Kitteh]

16. Huh, the chickens my aunt kept were beautiful, lively, playful and

suprisingly individualistic in their personalities. They were generally bright and clean. The conditions you describe speak more about the HUMANS keeping the chickens in vile conditions than the poor birds themselves.


this:



or this:



It's the quality of HUMANS keeping the chickens that makes the difference.

[Modem Butterfly]

21. Unless these are GMO chickens...

...they're still noisy, smelly, and will need to shit. I'm sure your aunt's chickens were really well taken care of, and I'm sure going outside occasionally to feed them was a very pleasant experience. I'm also sure she knew how to take care of them. But it's a very different experience to live next door to chickens kept in a backyard, which is precisely what this rescuer proposes to do with most of the chickens she rescued.

[AlienGirl]

20. I'll have to forward that link to a friend of mine

who I constantly tease about chickens... :evilgrin: It can be her way of contributing to the relief effort!

Tucker

[EstimatedProphet]

31. Chicken make bad housepet

[trackfan]

34. I have a chicken

She's nice - and only makes loud noises if she's laying an egg.

[Spinzonner]

35. I had a boss like that once

[Spinzonner]

36. Dinosaurs' Revenge

[libertypirate]

46. Depends on the breed.

With my windows shut I can't even hear them bitch at 6:00am to let them out to roam.

I ask my neighbors if the birds bother them, none even recalls hearing them. I have 5 birds 3 breads all medium large females.

Yeah they stink. I bet money that my garden grows healthier vegetables compared to any other fertilizer that can be bought off a shelf.

The chicken and eggs you purchase in the store are the real problem.

If you kept 30 birds in the foot print of 2' X 5' @ 6 cages stacked high in your garage. Never letting them roam, sit in the sun, or stretch their legs. The birds on the bottom grey getting whiter as you get to the top because the ones above shit down; someone would throw your ass in jail for animal abuse. If your a corporation you call it production and have a facility with two football fields and hell your a legit egg producer. The reality is treating animals like plants is inhumane!

[TlalocW]

48. My friend lived in the country in Kansas when growing up

A farm down the road had both peacocks and sheep. At 6 in the morning, the peacocks would scream, "Help!" and the sheep would answer back with "Baaaa." My friend's brother, Matt, would hear, "Help, Matt!" and have it affect his last dream before waking.

TlalocW