On Christmas Eve I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up to what at first I thought was Darko wanting food - it was just on the end of the day, hardly any light left and omg I remembered the chickens, I had closed the gate on their enclosure so the scrub turkey could not get in while they were out in the back garden.  I go for the door thinking they will be sitting by the gate as the closest spot to their nest but there they were standing in a row right on the back step - like a bunch of carollers, they were singing to me, not squawking or anything, friendly little wake up please cheeping sounds. 

Do your neighbours give you eggs?

Back on topic, chickens that is, they sure can be hornery if they want to and there's one of me and there were four of them, they could run rings round me so I had to open up and talk to them by cheeping even tho I knew my neighbours might hear.  So they make all these nice sounds and then the other day my neighbour said to me that he'd changed his mind about what is the best birdsong - he gives happy chickens first place now.  Isn't that lovely, I was so pleased to hear it.  And doesn't it give validity to all those people who campaigned for better conditions for battery hens and for all the other animals who are farmed.

Isn't it shocking to think of how much suffering farmed chickens have been through.  The farm my chickens came from was a magical place, it looked out over a big valley with some farmland and lots of trees, big skies, open to the east, he had acres of pasture around him in which he put one shed with a concrete floor, and then cut the beaks of the chickens he crowded into it.  It stunk.  

On the face of it, you can think well if he doesn't care about how the chickens feel then from his perspective there's less effort involved in their care and more safety from predators by keeping them in the shed and having a concrete floor.

But it doesn't really wash, it's still not practical.  Providing the chickens with their basic needs, letting forage would be less effort than cutting their beaks and removing the poop from the concrete floor.

It seems all wrong to me not to care about his chickens feel.  How can he look after them if he doesn't connect with how they feel?