Tag: hens

A Battle Over the Treatment of Livestock

  • The treatment of laying hens is one part of the issue getting a lot of attention in Ohio. (Photo source: LEAPTOUY at Wikimedia Commons)

Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Recently, six states have changed their laws to require
better conditions for farm animals. But there’s a battle
brewing in one state that’s putting a new spin on the debate.
Julie Grant reports:

The Humane Society of the United States says it’s shameful
the way animals are treated on many American farms. Paul
Shapiro says veal calves, pregnant pigs, and egg-laying
hens are all kept in cages so small – it’s cruel.

“Hundreds of millions of egg-laying hens in the nation are
confined in tiny battery cages that are so restrictive the birds
are unable even to spread their wings.”

Shapiro says some farms house millions of hens, all
squished into tiny cages, and none of them get the chance to
nest, or act in any way like natural chickens. The Humane
Society has spent millions of dollars pushing for change in
California and other states.

But when the Humane Society hit Ohio with its campaign,
the state Farm Bureau Federation pushed back.

Keith Stimpert is spokesman for the Ohio Farm Bureau. He
says there’s a reason cages are a certain size for hens,
calves, and pigs: the animals’ safety.

“You can expand space, but you’re going to increase
aspects of fighting or cannibalistic behavior, or the chance
for that sow to fall down while she’s pregnant.”

Stimpert says the Humane Society doesn’t understand
livestock.

So instead of negotiating with the Humane Society, the Ohio
Farm Bureau is proposing something new: a state board to
oversee the care of livestock.

“I think we, in this case, can get to a better resolution on
animal care by organizing this board.”

The board would include family farmers, veterinarians, a
food safety expert, and a member of a local chapter of the
Humane Society, among others.

Voters will probably be asked in November to decide
whether to change the state constitution to create this board.

But the Humane Society’s Paul Shapiro says the board will
be stacked by the Farm Bureau. He calls it a power grab by
big agriculture.

“Keep in mind that these are people who have opposed,
tooth and nail, any form of agricultural regulation for years,
and now, all of a sudden, in just a few weeks, they’ve gotten
religion and feel grave urgency to enshrine in the state’ s
constitution their own favored system of oversight.”

Shapiro says this board will only protect the status quo. And
that’s not good for the animals.

Egg producer Mark Whipple runs a small farm in Clinton,
Ohio. He’s got about 1,500 hens. We caught up with him
delivering eggs at a local health food store.

He says his hens are free range.

“There ain’t no cages, really. They go in the box, lay their
egg, and go out and run around with the rest of ‘em, go eat,
drink, I don’t know, just be free.”

Whipple says he was never inclined to cage the hens.

You might expect him to side with the Humane Society on
this debate. But he doesn’t trust them to make decisions for
farmers.

“I don’t know that they really know where their food comes
from – other than they go to the grocery store or they go to
the refrigerator. Unfortunately, that’s a lot the mentality of
the world right now, so far removed from the farm at all,
knowing about livestock.”

Whipple says there are good producers and bad producers
out there – just like any business. He would rather see a
board like the one proposed by the farm bureau than a
mandate on cage sizes from a Washington DC-based
lobbying group.

But the Humane Society says the board proposed by the
Farm Bureau won’t make things better. If it’s approved by
voters this November, the Society plans to place its own
initiative on animal treatment on the ballot next year.

Meanwhile, other farm states are considering the Ohio Farm
Bureau’s approach and might soon have their own advisory
boards on how to treat animals.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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City Chickens and Urban Eggs

  • Linda Nellet brought a few of her birds to a backyard-chicken seminar in Chicago. She and other seasoned urban chicken keepers hope to keep chicken-raising legal and neighborly in their tight, urban landscape. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Maybe it’s easy to imagine chickens
cooing and clucking on American farms, but
how about in big-city backyards? Well,
keeping chickens is legal in the nation’s
three largest cities, but in one of them,
chicken-lovers nearly lost that right.
Shawn Allee tells how some urban
chicken-keepers were nearly caught off guard,
and how they plan to keep their chickens in
the coop:

Transcript

Maybe it’s easy to imagine chickens
cooing and clucking on American farms, but
how about in big-city backyards? Well,
keeping chickens is legal in the nation’s
three largest cities, but in one of them,
chicken-lovers nearly lost that right.
Shawn Allee tells how some urban
chicken-keepers were nearly caught off guard,
and how they plan to keep their chickens in
the coop:

No one’s sure how many chickens are in Chicago’s backyards. But honestly, few people
thought about it until last year.

That’s when one woman showed up at a city hearing.

“Hi. My name is Edie Cavanaugh, and I’ve lived in Chicago, since 1968.”

Cavanaugh told aldermen she’d caught messy, noisy chickens clucking around her
neighborhood.

She was stunned the city wouldn’t round them up.

“I was told chickens are permitted as pets in Chicago, and I said that’s impossible,
this is a city.”

Cavanaugh’s story ruffled plenty of feathers.

You see, even some aldermen didn’t know that keeping chickens as pets or for eggs in
Chicago is okay.

“I was riding down the street, and I seen a rooster. I was like, ‘What is this?’”

For a month, it seemed Chicago’s city council would ban chicken-keeping.

People who already had chickens worried their birds were destined for the stew pot.

But Chicago aldermen kept chicken-raising legal.

Chicago’s pro-chicken contingent saw the fight as a wake-up call. Some figured, if they
wanted to keep birds, they’d better police themselves.

“So, welcome everybody for coming to the first-ever Chicago backyard Chicken
workshop.”

Martha Boyd is starting seminars about urban chickens.

She’s part of the Angelic Organics Learning Center, a group that promotes urban
agriculture.

Boyd is confident city-people can raise more of their own food if they’re neighborly
about it.

“So the idea of the backyard chicken workshop is so we can have this thing grow
without creating more problems and potentially, then, having the backlash to the
backyard chickens.”

For this first seminar, Boyd invited chicken-raising veterans to a church basement.

One is Tom Rosenfeld.

His advice to urban chicken lovers? Talk to your neighbors. And, hey, if they cringe, get
creative.

“It also helps to bribe them, because if they think they’re going to get some eggs out
of the deal or they think they’re kids come over and pet them or whatever, then of
course they’ll be a little more understanding when one day you leave the door open
and there’re chickens running around the yard or other issues.”

Rosenfeld says those ‘other issues’ arise pretty quickly. In fact, just a few hours after
chickens eat.

“A lot about chicken keeping is about poop because they do it a lot. They do it in
surprisingly large quantities at a time.”

Rosenfeld says you can literally get ankle deep in the stuff if you’re not vigilant.

But bribery helps here, too. Rosenfeld says chicken poop makes excellent garden
compost.

“Our neighbors love it. They’ll come by with a bucket and that’s their way of
participating.”

Rosenfeld says the last issue that ticks off neighbors is noise.

There’s no such thing as a chicken muzzle, but there’s still a solution – and there’s no
bribe necessary.

You see, male chickens are the noisy bunch, so if you just want eggs…

“You don’t need a rooster. It’s a sad reality as a male chicken keeper to realize that
roosters aren’t necessary. They’re only necessary if you want chicks.”

Rosenfeld says urban chicken-raising could catch on where it’s legal – if people keep a lid
on noise and smells.

As for places where it’s not legal?

You might want to change the law at city hall – just don’t try to bribe your alderman with
fresh eggs.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Biological Control Gone Awry

Many of the earth-friendly pest control methods developed by organic farmers have become popular among gardeners and homeowners. But when Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer bought guinea hens to eat troublesome insects, he ended up with a different kind of pest… and a new respect for the challenges of organic agriculture: