sustainability
13 Aug 2008
The Great Chicken Heist
Faced with dodgy labelling and regulation of free-range eggs, Debra Mayrhofer took matters into her own hands
We didn't set out to steal the chickens, but fate has a way of stepping in. It was a confluence of circumstances that lead the Beatnik and I to be cruising north on a nondescript highway that Saturday morning. The fact that it was a Saturday and morning was surprising in itself, because the Beatnik isn't known for early rising, but I was on a mission.I'd been wrestling for months with an invasion of Kikuyu (the grass, not the people) and I had long decided that if I didn't want to poison my entire eco-system the only way to go was a chook tractor. This ingenious device is a portable chicken coop that you move from section to section of the garden to keep the weeds under control. I had acquired a set of instructions for building one, but these were filed along with recipes, exercise programs and various DIY sheets in the "one of these days" section of my filing cabinet. Chooks meant commitment.
Then I read a report in Choice which convinced me that not only were the "free range" eggs I had been paying a premium price for phony; they were probably also stale, since the "best before" date was often decided on whimsy.
This was bad news because I'd felt that by choosing "free range" I was doing something to stop the inhumane production of "cage eggs", in which hens are crammed together into small wire cages to live out their miserable lives with barely enough room to stand. The barbaric cage system is a cheap and efficient way to produce eggs and accounts for more than two-thirds of the eggs sold in Australian supermarkets. I knew my paltry (pardon the pun) effort wouldn't make a difference, but thought that if enough people voted with their trolleys, things would change.
Choice found that despite the marketing guff the reality is that many "free range" eggs are produced on a truly industrial scale. The hens may be housed in huge high density sheds, never setting foot outside, their eggs rolling off conveyor belts.
We are being left behind with our animal welfare policies. The European Union has enforceable regulations for "free range" labelling and is phasing out caged egg production, which is already banned in Switzerland. In Australia we have only voluntary standards set by the Free Range Egg and Poultry Association of Australia (FREPAA) and animal welfare organisations, such as the RSPCA. Without a clear national definition of "free range" and meaningful regulation, the term is just a marketing gimmick, and a misleading one at that.
I had to get my own chooks! A call to the council revealed that even on my tiny inner city block I was allowed to keep up to 12 hens. A quick surf of the web turned up a couple of places that shipped chook tractors in flat packs so I chose the closest one. The "Princess Pen", as it was called, arrived promptly and I managed to put it together in about an hour and a half, with very little swearing.
It is designed for two to three chooks and, with a floor space of just over two square metres, it is compact enough for small gardens. In comparison, although the FREPAA recommends no more than seven birds per metre, the Australian Egg Corporation's quality assurance scheme allows producers to cram 18 birds into every square metre.
A visit to the local produce store saw me stocked up on wheat, pellets and comfy looking hay. All I needed now were the chooks.
After driving up and down the highway looking for a turnoff, the Beatnik suddenly spotted the ominous humps of the battery sheds crouching in a distant paddock to our left. We found an exit and meandered until we found ourselves pulling into the driveway of the egg farm. We had taken along a couple of pet travel crates and duly took our place in the queue with people waiting to fill their egg cartons. I looked up at the price board. Eggs cost $4 a dozen, bags of chicken manure, $5. I reached the front of the queue.
"How much for live chooks," I asked.
"Two bucks each," was the desultory reply. I was shocked that a life was worth so little — less than half the price of a bag of excrement.
"I'll take three," I said, wishing I could take the whole lot.
The woman stuck her head out the door and yelled "Ted, these people want three culls." She jerked her thumb towards the enclosure. "He'll fix you up."
A man stuck his head out the door of the shed, glanced at us and disappeared back inside. The Beatnik slouched over and followed him, ignoring the "keep out" signs. He took one look at tier upon tier of cages above a conveyor belt and came out ashen. "My god, don't go in there," he said taking my elbow. "The noise, the smell — it's like a something out of a nightmare."
Silent Ted re-appeared, dangling three chooks by their legs. He started stuffing them in the crates, oblivious to an outstretched wing that was caught on the gate of the cage.
"Stop it, you're hurting them," I said, snatching the chook from him. He just dropped all three and wandered back inside without a word. We loaded the chooks and I looked at the Beatnik. We were both thinking the same thing. He shook his head. "It's only six bucks, just go in and pay so we can get out of here."
I went back into the shop, but it was empty. I shrugged and returned to the Beatnik. "The chooks are free." We jumped in the car and shot off down the road with our precious cargo.
When we got home I put the chooks in their new pen. They were a sorry looking bunch: no tail feathers, chopped off beaks and pale, floppy combs. At first they just stood in a huddle, looking dazed, but within half an hour they had begun to tentatively explore their new surroundings. One of them started to stretch her wings — a strange contorted motion, obviously developed within the confines of the tiny cage she had lived in. Suddenly she seemed to realise that she was free and she stood on her tiptoes, stretched her wings to their full span and flapped them triumphantly.
As time passed they got back their chickenicity. Their feathers grew back, their legs became steadier, their combs developed a healthy blush and stood up pertly. Finally, they rediscovered their voices. At first, they had been silent, apart from the odd hushed "brrrrk", but now they call excitedly whenever they discover a juicy worm; cluck at us when we talk to them; and proudly announce the arrival of every egg.
While I'm not advocating chook rustling as a regular activity, I would encourage anyone who wants to bring some sunshine into their lives to liberate a chook today. For a couple of bucks you can solve a multitude of problems in one go.
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John Mancy
Barrister
Editor, Australian Animal Protection Law Journal
PO Box 552
Beecroft
NSW 2119
John, are you implying your post office box is the drop off point for chickens on the run?
It’s one of the great experiences in life to see a battery hen adjust to a freedom it has never known. I am always in awe of the resilience of these magnificent creatures.
John Mancy
Barrister
Editor, Australian Animal Protection Law Journal
PO Box 552
Beecroft
NSW 2119
Just a miscue from a first time commentator, Bob.
John Mancy
Barrister
Editor, Australian Animal Protection Law Journal
PO Box 552
Beecroft
NSW 2119
I can hear David Attenborough now! Great stuff John and jokes aside, it must be quite a sight.
I think you have it right Bob, John is part of the ‘underground rotisserie’.
I have a question for Debra though, are you planning to eat your new friends when they have finished laying?
Yeah, they would be delicious with fava beans accompanied by a nice Chianti. But take the batteries out first, Debra.
Eek! From a feminist point of view I have to take offence at the assumption that once a chook has passed her reproductive prime she is no longer a useful member of society. And of course I won’t eat them as long as their little legs can still churn up the weeds. Beyond that … my plan is that they live out their lives in peace and safety.
The exercise of liberating a battery hen or two is indeed pleasurable but they will stop laying long before they die naturally so unless you are going to despatch them to the big chook run in the sky -directly or by way of your stock pot- and assuming the exercise is to provide yourself with ‘free range’ eggs - you will soon have your quota of 12 non laying chooks and be waiting for one of them to die (sorry- ‘pass on’) so you can liberate another productive one.
Unfortunately it is the case that if all the eggs we consume were to be provided by ‘happy’ chooks roaming around grassy fields each egg would be very expensive and be a luxury food item and not the necessary staple that it is today.
Did you check the composition of the pellets you bought? No mysterious additives?
Splendid idea though- backyard chook pens like rainwater tanks and vegie gardens(permaculture?) are to be encouraged if not mandated.
An interesting point, PAD. The natural life span of a chicken is said to be 7-15 years (how’s that for a span!) and in my experience 9 has been the longest so far, but even with that particular chook (RIP Dorothy Chickenblume the first) she still laid the occasional egg right up until the end and continued to dig up weeds and keep garden pests at bay. Moreover, I think that a year in a battery cage is a bit like a "dog" year, so even though the chooks will hopefully have long and happy post-battery lives unfortunately most of them have considerably shorter life spans than those which have never been caged.
Very interesting article and discussion. The vegan forums have some great debates about the rights and (mostly) wrongs of eating the eggs of liberated caged hens.
You take offence at the assumption that once a chook has passed her reproductive prime she is no longer a useful member of society but then explain they will still be productive in terms of weed control. The productivist rationale is still strong. Assuming you eat shop bought meat then a quick kill and a nice casserole once their egg production rates have dipped in order to make room for another factory farm refugee seems a reasonable and sustainable system. Whether you can do the dirty on (I presume) ‘Dorothy Chickenblume the Second’ is of course another matter. You could check out [www.backyardpoultry.com/articles/chicken_for_food.pdf] but only when the chickens can’t see what’s on your PC…Unless you want to make a clean breast of it.
Debra, I may have missed something - I’m unsure if you are vegetarian - did you eat Dorothy Chickenblume the first?
I think your point about battery cage years being ‘dog years’ is very apt. Well done.
Thanks for the feedback. The productivist rationale is partly a cover to make me appear rational. I don’t care if the chooks don’t keep the weeds down. I love just sitting and watching them express their chickenicity because there is always something going on in the pen and they show such enthusiasm and interest in everything they do. Possibly this is the result of a short concentration span: walk around the pen – “ah, interesting patch of dirt, I’ll have a scratch, great!” .. walk around the pen, “ah, interesting patch of dirt, I’ll have a scratch, great!” and so on. The ability to continue to find joy in what others might see as the mundanities of life is a true sign of a happy soul.
Dorothy Chickenblume the First died in her sleep and was buried under the lemon tree. It is difficult to kill named creatures (this, I believe is why hostages and others in peril are advised to try to get their aggressors to call them by name, but I digress) and I couldn’t kill and eat the girls. I had to chop off the head of a chook who had advanced coccidiosis and it was a traumatic experience (for me). She just lay there blinking up at me with her beady little eyes and didn’t seem to suspect my fatal intentions at all.
I once lived on a farm where we raised a steer named Fergus and he was duly dispatched and put in the freezer in neat little packages. I gagged when I tried to eat him, and when the urge for red meat became too strong I crept down to Woolies and bought a nameless packet of flesh which I quickly barbequed and scoffed. Hypocritical, I know, and it will no doubt incur the wrath of vegetarians everywhere, but I don’t have a problem with so-called corpse eaters. My concern is with the way the animals are treated. I totally agree with Chicken Boy that liberating chooks, humanely killing them and making room for more refugees is a sustainable solution, I just don’t think I have the courage to do it.
Whilst I appreciate that this started from the wish of the author to have some pets she could rationalize as being useful, productive and evidence of a contribution to sustainability or a reduction of a carbon foot print- it seems to me that if we are talking about chooks, vegie gardens, fruit trees, maybe a pig or two then it is about taking some very small steps back towards subsistence agriculture. Clearly we are not going to get there, or anywhere near it, but according to Diamond and Ronald Wright et al it was urbanization and industrialization that started us on this path to where we are. Now the point about subsistence farming or something like it is that there is no place anthropomorphism. Occasional discomfort, pain and death of both humans and animals is part of the tapestry of everyday life. In nature, hunter gatherer society or primitive agriculture there was not the quick painless death for the thing we are going to eat. At least now, and thankfully so, we have got to the point where pain is the issue and not the sanctity of life.
I think the point of subsistence farming is to feed your family rather than take a stand on anthropomorphism, however in societies where animism underpins the prevailing belief system, subsistence farming and anthropomorphism may be inseparable.
The chook project didn’t start entirely from my wish to have pets I could rationalise, but rather as a multi-purpose solution for some problems I faced (desire for fresh eggs produced humanely, need to reduce weeds). Nor is it the first step towards subsistence farming in suburbia. It is simply one thing I can do to make my world a better place; perhaps on a par with putting on a jumper instead of the heater; reusing some of my home’s greywater; donating money and walking or cycling instead of driving to work. As an individual, none of the things that I do will make a great difference; and none of them require much personal effort; but if lots of people make small changes, the effect will be palpable. One of the barriers to getting people to act is their concern that what they can do comfortably won’t count and if they aren’t going "all the way" then they will be accused of hypocrisy, but every bike trip means one less car on the road and every happy egg is one less from the battery farm.