Important Position Statement from Animal Sanctuaries about Backyard Birds: PLEASE READ AND CROSS-POST!

Below is a statement put forth by the Eastern Shore Sanctuary in
conjunction with Animal Place, Chicken Run Rescue, Farm Sanctuary, Sunny
Skies Bird and Animal Sanctuary, and United Poultry Concerns. In it we
list the reasons why people should fight this growing trend of ordering
and keeping backyard flocks of chickens, and what can be done should folks
feel insistent upon doing so.

We are asking all AR activists to post this widely. Good places are
backyard bird forums, general "poultry" forums, and anywhere else you know
of that people discuss the "joys" of "having" a backyard flock of
chickens.

HOWEVER, THE LINKS DO NOT TRANSFER HERE so please contact us ASAP for a
version that has working links!!!! You may write sanctuary@bravebirds.org
and we will get back to you right away.

Please also contact us if your town or municipality is considering
rezoning to allow chickens to live there; we will help you formulate a
response.

For the animals,

Miriam, Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center

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Collective Position Statement on Backyard Poultry

In the past couple of years, the practice of keeping chickens in urban and
semi-rural backyards has increased.

People keep chickens for a variety of reasons: opposition to factory
farming; a desire to eat fresh eggs; a genuine love for chickens as
companion animals. Like other fads, this one has drawbacks which
hatcheries and chicken breeders don't want you to know about.

If you truly enjoy the company of chickens and believe that all animals
should be treated with kindness and justice, please consider these facts
before organizing your own backyard flock:

Chicken feed and excrement attract rodents to your house.

Some of the Dangers of Living Near Rats
Hatcheries, like McMurray Hatchery, treat chickens no better than factory
farms do. In fact, they ARE factory farms. Their treatment of chicks is
abominable and comparable to the mistreatment of dogs in puppy mills.

Video of Hatchery Practices
Video of Turkey Hatchery with Similar Practices
Facts about Hatcheries

Sending chicks through the mail is abusive. Temperature-sensitive chicks
should not be boxed up without food or water for up to 72 hours and
transported through the postal service. Please note: Purchasing chicks at
feed stores is the same as ordering them through the mail. Contrary to
appearances, those chicks do not come from local farms, but from
mega-hatcheries.

Dangers of Shipping Chicks by Mail
Dangers of Shipping Chicks by Mail, Part Two

Hatcheries will send you roosters even if you ask them not to. They use
roosters as packing material and chicken sexing is more art than science.
While cities may be zoned for hens, most prohibit roosters, leaving them
to be abandoned or killed at shelters.

Roosters as Packing Material

Chickens need proper housing and fenced-in yards to survive inclement
weather and predators. They also need easy access to fresh food and clean
water at all times, a clean yard and sleeping space and good veterinary
care.

Providing a Good Home to Chickens
Providing a Good Home to Chickens Part Two
Providing a Good Home to Chickens Part Three

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If you are not zoned for chickens, keep it that way! There are too many
problems with chickens living in urban environments.

If your town or city is already zoned for chickens, check out the
specifics of the ordinances and ensure that they are as humane as
possible.

If you have read through all of this material and still want to live with
chickens, adopt from a farmed animal sanctuary or animal shelter. Note,
though, that sanctuaries have strict adoption protocols to protect the
animals.

CONTACTS:

Animal Place
Chicken Run Rescue
Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center
Farm Sanctuary
Sunny Skies Bird and Animal Sanctuary
United Poultry Concerns

Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me. I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., "What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?").

I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else -- a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know"). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.

The human cost of factory farming -- both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals -- is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, and the origins of the swine flu epidemic, whose story has gripped the nation, in factory farms.

I read the chapter on animal shit aloud to two friends -- one is from Iowa and has asthma and the other is a North Carolinian who couldn't eat fish from her local river because animal waste had been dumped in it as described in the book. They had never truly thought about the connection between their environmental conditions and their food. The story of the mass farming of animals had more impact on them when they realized it had ruined their own backyards.



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-portman/jonathan-safran-foers-iea_b_334407.html

Battery farm for tigers: The 1, 400 big cats whose body parts are prized on the black market

In the wild, they prowl across hundreds of miles of jungle.
In contrast, these tigers share the wretched experience of battery hens.
Here in South-East China, hundreds of the endangered animals are crampedin tiny pens - and are slowly starved to death, say critics.
The reason, it is said, is that they are worth more dead than alive.
The Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Park is home to 1,400 tigers - more than livewild in India.
Full story:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-494841/Battery-farm-tigers-The-1-400-big-cats-body-parts-prized-black-market.html