Animal Rights Campaigners Attack Chicken Coop Backyards

By Colin Munro

For many year animal rights campaigners have been complaining about the conditions in which chickens are kept industrially both for eggs and for meat. And they have a point; battery hens are kept in very small cages where they can hardly move, with no access to the outside, fresh air and are unable to satisfy their natural instinct to scratch around in the ground looking for food. Inevitable they go crazy and often peck themselves to death so to stop them from damaging themselves they have their beaks cut of which is a painful process. Broiler chickens when are kept for meat only live 6 weeks and have been bread to be hungry all the time and do not a lot more than eat and drink they become obese far quicker that is natural and before their bone structure is capable of taking that much weight often they develop deformed legs and suffer the rest of their short lives being trampled on by the thousands of other obese birds that live with them.

Now I agree that these practices are cruel and something should be done about it but I also appreciate that the growing human population of the world needs to eat and food needs to be produced in large quantities, but that is not what this article is about.

Even though most of the world’s population of chickens live a life of suffering, it is great that many people learn how to build a chicken coop and start to keep laying hens at home in their own chicken coop backyard. This reduces the demand for eggs and therefore reduces the number of chickens living in poor conditions. And the same is true for meat chickens, many people download some DIY chicken coop plans and fatten up some hens in their own chicken coop backyard. This is great news and the more people take and interest in the source of their food the better. Better for food and better for animals. It goes without saying that some people with chicken coop backyards will be more experienced and better at looking after their animals that others but the chances are the poultry living in chicken coop backyards are going to have a much higher quality of life than the battery hens and broilers.

This is why I am extremely disappointed that according to this story from the Chicago Tribune, animal rights campaigners are now targeting the chicken coop backyards. There are very specific guidelines for keeping laying hens but it annoys me when people forget why we have these guidelines. It is not to give power to animal rights groups and inspectors but to stop widespread industrial abuse of poultry. So when a family decide to create a loving chicken coop backyard and have 6 happy chickens let them have their fun.

So my message to animal rights groups is to enforce the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. Don’t get a power trip of telling good people they can’t be good and focus your energies on the widespread industrial abuse.

If you are interested in keeping chicken and want to know how-to-build a chicken-coop [http://www.givingitago.com/home-for-hens/] then check out my blog http://www.GivingItaGo.com.

Article Source: Colin Munro
Animal Rights Campaigners Attack Chicken Coop Backyards