28.
If Chickens Could Speak
By Andrew Kirschner
I am a chicken.
I have the same five senses as you: I can see, smell, touch, hear, and taste.
I experience pain, misery, loneliness, and happiness.
I like to socialize and enjoy time with my family and friends.
I am intelligent and follow a pecking order.
I can recognize other chickens by sight and smell.
I nest and nurture my young.
I chirp dozens of vocalizations and speak my own language.
I have a long term memory.
I like to sit in trees.
I run towards food because I enjoy eating.
I am scared of loud noises.
I have a purpose in this world just like you and yet I am the most disrespected and mistreated animal on the face of the earth.
I have the same five senses as you: I can see, smell, touch, hear, and taste.
I experience pain, misery, loneliness, and happiness.
I like to socialize and enjoy time with my family and friends.
I am intelligent and follow a pecking order.
I can recognize other chickens by sight and smell.
I nest and nurture my young.
I chirp dozens of vocalizations and speak my own language.
I have a long term memory.
I like to sit in trees.
I run towards food because I enjoy eating.
I am scared of loud noises.
I have a purpose in this world just like you and yet I am the most disrespected and mistreated animal on the face of the earth.
I Am A Chicken.
The majority of humans show no regard for my life.
They ascribe no reason for my existence beyond being tortured and killed for food.
They show me no mercy but ask for it for themselves and those they love, including their own animals they keep as pets.
I wonder how they can say that they can’t watch someone slaughter me but can still bring themselves to pay someone to do it and eat me.
I wonder if they will ever see the irony of calling themselves animal lovers while they eat animals.
I bet if they met me and got to know me and held me on their lap, they wouldn’t eat me.
They ascribe no reason for my existence beyond being tortured and killed for food.
They show me no mercy but ask for it for themselves and those they love, including their own animals they keep as pets.
I wonder how they can say that they can’t watch someone slaughter me but can still bring themselves to pay someone to do it and eat me.
I wonder if they will ever see the irony of calling themselves animal lovers while they eat animals.
I bet if they met me and got to know me and held me on their lap, they wouldn’t eat me.
I Am A Chicken.
They abuse me in ways that would shock you.
“Free-range” or “cage-free” means that instead of putting me in a cage, I am packed on a sordid warehouse floor where I live with thousands of other chickens in less than a square foot of space for each of us.
You’re told I’m cage-free so you will feel less guilty and so the factory farmers can charge you more money and increase their profits. The cruelty is the same.
They cut my beak off so when I go crazy.
I don’t fight with other chickens and kill them.
It is not my nature to go crazy and kill other chickens any more than it is your nature to go crazy and kill other humans. Imagine the living conditions that would cause me to kill another chicken.
I am filled with antibiotics to prevent my death before I’m killed. You eat those antibiotics and your body develops an immunity to them which places you at risk to resist them when you’re sick and need them.
You think you know what I taste like but you do not.
I am stuffed with preservatives and flavorings that create what you believe tastes like chicken.
It isn’t healthy for you to eat me.
You’ve been fooled by the meat industry into believing otherwise.
Unsanitary living conditions cause us to die of thirst, overheating, infections, and diseases. It is common for 20,000 of us to be crammed in one broiler house in a factory.
“Free-range” or “cage-free” means that instead of putting me in a cage, I am packed on a sordid warehouse floor where I live with thousands of other chickens in less than a square foot of space for each of us.
You’re told I’m cage-free so you will feel less guilty and so the factory farmers can charge you more money and increase their profits. The cruelty is the same.
They cut my beak off so when I go crazy.
I don’t fight with other chickens and kill them.
It is not my nature to go crazy and kill other chickens any more than it is your nature to go crazy and kill other humans. Imagine the living conditions that would cause me to kill another chicken.
I am filled with antibiotics to prevent my death before I’m killed. You eat those antibiotics and your body develops an immunity to them which places you at risk to resist them when you’re sick and need them.
You think you know what I taste like but you do not.
I am stuffed with preservatives and flavorings that create what you believe tastes like chicken.
It isn’t healthy for you to eat me.
You’ve been fooled by the meat industry into believing otherwise.
Unsanitary living conditions cause us to die of thirst, overheating, infections, and diseases. It is common for 20,000 of us to be crammed in one broiler house in a factory.
The electrical current used to kill us is often set low so it doesn’t ruin the meat on our bones.
In many cases, it doesn’t kill us and we are thrown into a scolding hot tank of water to remove our feathers while we are still conscious.
You can hear us scream from a mile away.
A mechanical blade is also used to slash our throats.
Many times it isn’t properly aligned and only partially slashes our throats, leaving us to die miserable deaths.
These killing errors happen to millions of us.
In many cases, it doesn’t kill us and we are thrown into a scolding hot tank of water to remove our feathers while we are still conscious.
You can hear us scream from a mile away.
A mechanical blade is also used to slash our throats.
Many times it isn’t properly aligned and only partially slashes our throats, leaving us to die miserable deaths.
These killing errors happen to millions of us.
I Am A Chicken.
The truth is
I can’t speak
which is why this happens to chickens like me.
But if I could speak, I would beg you not to eat me anymore.
I want to be free like other birds.
I want you to respect my life on this earth as you value your own. Your existence is only more important than mine in your mind.
Simply because you believe it doesn’t make it so.
Knowing what you know now,
that you don’t need to eat me to survive,
and that my life and death are cruel beyond your imagination,
are you still going to pay someone
to torture and kill me?
Or will you make a humane decision
and refrain
and ask others to do the same?
I was a chicken.
I can’t speak
which is why this happens to chickens like me.
But if I could speak, I would beg you not to eat me anymore.
I want to be free like other birds.
I want you to respect my life on this earth as you value your own. Your existence is only more important than mine in your mind.
Simply because you believe it doesn’t make it so.
Knowing what you know now,
that you don’t need to eat me to survive,
and that my life and death are cruel beyond your imagination,
are you still going to pay someone
to torture and kill me?
Or will you make a humane decision
and refrain
and ask others to do the same?
I was a chicken.