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by Ayako

Saturday, January 22, 2011

More About Chickens

Stacy, my new housemate, counseled me against getting goats - she says that I don't have enough room in my yard - which I think is probably true. "But rabbits for meat - now that's a good idea." she says. However, I'm not sure I can eat fluffy cute bunnies. That's like eating Babe, the Disney pig. I think I'd rather be vegetarian. I want to eventually throw a "let's kill my chickens" party and see if I can. Because I think I need to be able to kill and pluck a chicken if I'm going to keep eating them. I've thoroughly researched the different methods with which you can kill a chicken - on YouTube. I feel like an expert now (not really). The most humane way seems to be to get a reverted cone that's stapled to the fence with an opening at the bottom. You stick the chicken, head first, into the cone and let its head stick out at the bottom. Then we slit the chicken's neck and draw blood and the chicken will pass out. Berkeley allows up to six hens (female chickens) per household, and I have exactly that. I had gotten a rooster by mistake initially (sometimes they are hard to sex as little chicks) but when he started to crow in the morning, we figured out that maybe he won't be laying any eggs, and he was given away to a Spanish-speaking family in Richmond (which is several towns north of Berkeley) via craigslist.

And then my ex-Muslim neighbors gave me Spicy, a survivor - after the rest of Spicy's flock was eaten by the local raccoon. One of Spicy's wings had turned blue from gangrene from a raccoon bite. After she ended up in my yard, she had - and still has - a hard time being accepted by the flock. Ever heard of the phrase "pecking order?" Well, birds are really mean to each other when a new comer joins a flock. After several months of Spicy's presence, the flock finally allowed Spicy to sleep in the bird pen with them at night (I used to find her on top of the cage, whereas now, she's allowed to sleep inside the sleeping quarters of the cage with the other birdies.) She's still at the bottom of the chicken pecking order, and she spends her days by herself, alone, ostracized from the flock. When she eats food with them, they try to chase her away, but she's a tough chicken and knows how to stand up for herself. I don't remember telling her about Dr. King's speech, but she's strong and insists on her equal treatment as one proud fowl citizen of the world, and I'm proud of her. She's seen the underbelly of a good life and I respect Spicy for persevering. I half expect Spicy to bust out with a song like "I Will Survive" if she could sing - just like Gloria Gaynor.

Unfortunately, all of my chickens have names. My ex-housemates Harry and Andy gave them fun names like Bertha, Ethel and Henrietta. I still just call them generically "red chicken", "black chicken", and "brown chicken." And then there's Spicy. Birds are a lot more like dinosaurs (compared to cute fluffy bunny rabbits), and I don't feel as much of a kinship with them. But I still have a relationship with the creatures - especially Spicy, and all of them have personality (chickenality?) quirks that make them unique. I wonder whether I have the guts to kill, pluck and eat them? Would the experience nourish me or not? Maybe if I get hungry enough? Or maybe I'll just stick to eating eggs and killing vegetables.

The eggs are pretty cool. The Rhode Island Reds (that's a chicken breed) lay brown eggs. The Americaunas lay blue eggs. I think the black chicken is an Australorp - but not sure because she's the one laying the white egg, and the Internet tells me she should be laying brown eggs. I used to have to drive to a feed store in Half Moon Bay (about an hour away) to get chicks. But for several years now, I can get chicks at a store in Berkeley on San Pablo Ave. (about 8 minutes away by car). There are about three places I can get chicken scratch for egg layers, and some sell organic scratch. During the summer, I harvest about four eggs a day from six chickens. The eggs, when collected, are multi-colored and pretty. During the winter months, the days are shorter and they don't lay as much. I'm lucky if I get one egg per day from six chickens (it's always a brown egg, so one of the chickens must be doing all the laying, while the others slack). The color of the yolk changes, depending on the season (darker orange during the summers, and runnier and more yellow during the winters - probably from dehydration). I haven't had to buy eggs in about a year and a half, and during the summer, have enough eggs to give away a bunch to my neighbors.

Recently, I attended a Sierra Club Friday "Green" Potluck Meeting. It was held just down the street, because the local Sierra Club headquarters for the San Francisco Bay Area chapter is within walking distance from my house in Berkeley (the national headquarters are in San Francisco). I learned at the potluck that the term "free range," when it comes to describing a certain standard of living for chickens - has no legal definition and no oversight as to what it actually means. In fact, I remember watching "Food, Inc." and how they described chickens jam packed in a large warehouse with barely any room to move around - and that would be "free range" because they're "not in cages." But the warehouse, though large, is a cage. The movie detailed how unethical the industrial chicken farming practices are, from a variety of dimensions.

My intuition is pointing me to just one conclusion. It's time I looked into how to live healthy as a Vegetarian.

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