| I just received an email from Farm Sanctuary with a statement on their position opposing backyard chicken flocks. A main problem they see with legalizing and keeping backyard chickens is that nobody really wants the roosters.
UPDATE: Just a clarification here... I wrote back to Farm Sanctuary to ask for their stance about eating unwanted roosters. Nope, they are NOT for it. They "advocate a plant-based vegan diet as the best thing you can do for the animals, your health and the environment." |
| When chicks are born, 50 percent of them are hens and the other 50 percent are (often unwanted) roosters. Under normal circumstances, people would raise these roosters until they are large enough to eat and then eat them. But that isn't what happens now. Urban and suburban chicken owners often send their unwanted roosters to animal sanctuaries (who, being inundated with unwanted roosters, no longer have room for more). Many urban chicken policies outlaw slaughtering chickens, making it illegal for backyard chicken owners to eat their unwanted birds.
Then there's the hatcheries, about which they say:
Unbeknownst to many well-meaning hobbyists, the massive hatcheries from which most chicks are purchased by individuals or feed stores are notorious for animal mistreatment. No laws regulate the housing of chickens at these facilities and minimal laws that go unenforced cover transportation of their offspring. Breeding hens and roosters may be confined in cramped cages or sheds with no access to the outdoors... Hens are in much higher demand than roosters; therefore, most males chicks are killed onsite at these hatcheries as soon as they are sexed, adding up to millions of birds every year that are killed shortly after they hatch.
Obviously the alternative to getting your chickens from hatcheries is to get your chicks locally from a source you trust, like a farm or another backyard flock. Unfortunately, as many cities allow hens but prohibit roosters, backyard flocks are often unable to produce baby chicks.
Local farms are therefore a much more promising route for obtaining baby chicks. It seems to me that chicken-friendly cities ought to partner with local farms who can supply baby chicks or even adult hens past their peak laying period to backyard chicken owners. The problem here may occur when backyard chicken enthusiasts want rare breeds that are unavailable locally. I've heard anecdotally that if I were to get araucanas (chickens that lay green eggs) locally, I would have to join a year waiting list.
Either way, it seems that the backyard chicken movement is a bit flawed in its unfriendliness to roosters and to meat production. Clearly, we've got some work to do as we re-integrate food production into our lives. |
