How would you handle this?

My husband has a really good friend he works with. We've gone to this man's wedding and many other outings. Out of the blue his wife complains to him that she 'doesn't agree with the fact we breed chicks.' (I breed one breed only...turken...and my birds are very well taken care of, they free range my acre and enjoy daily interaction) She works at a local dog rescue and believes nothing AT ALL should ever be bred as it's 'not natural.' Well, she's always been very friendly to my face but now I feel too awkward to go out with them and be able to relax. According to her husband she gets angry anytime my chick business is brought up.(And I'm pretty darn proud of it) I really can't make sense of this? Is it just ignorance or a high horse? How would you proceed around this woman?

I'm sorry, but this lady sounds quite ridiculous. Humans have bred animals for centuries to suit their needs and in many cases, improve the population of the animal. How does she think we got all of the different breeds of dogs and cats and chickens and horses and pretty much any other domestic animal? The answer is people. People devoting time to iron out the negative traits and qualities in one strain, tweak a little something and try again until they get a good end result. To me, she sounds completely ignorant to how all of the variations of animals came into existence. I would just be friendly to her and not bring anything up. However, if she ever confronts you about your "unnatural" business, kindly explain to her that if it were not for humans domesticating and breeding animals, we would not have the quality of food we have today, not to mention the beauty of some of the breeds of dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and the like.

Maybe its something deeper than your chicken keeping exploits? Chicken is one of the most widely eaten meats in the world, so somebody has to breed them! If she's not a vegan, then surely there is a great deal of hypocrisy there (and almost all vegetables have been bred - they are no longer "natural" so there's not much of a leg to stand on. Not sure how constructive your husband friend is being by mentioning it to you to be honest. All sounds a bit twilight zone to me!

If she does not raise the issue, then leave it alone would be my advice.
CT

*sigh* It's what you might call a "high horse." The motivating thought for these people is that there really shouldn't be any animals held in captivity, or forced to endure the presence of humans at all, because it isn't normal and natural. The dog that delights in your company and enjoys a good scratch behind the ears is actually a warped, tortured creature, having been forced into a meaningless existence that bears no resemblance to its original purpose in the great scheme of things, simply to please the whim of some humans. In her mind, what she is doing is a noble thing, by seeing to it that the few pathetic creatures that she can rescue live as peacefully as possible, and have a painless, merciful end. To people that subscribe to this thought process, killing them is a kindness, and one of the most disgusting things you can do is deliberately create more animals to endure such torment. If you can manage to avoid the subject of your chicken business altogether, it might be possible to peacefully coexist with her, but expect her to try subtle ways to indoctrinate you into her way of thinking.

Incidentally, there seems to be no middle ground for us, the best we can do is to agree to disagree, which is why this group is not to be mentioned by name on BYC.

Thank you for all the replies! She is actually vegetarian, but with loose rules lol. I've seen her eat things fried in bacon fat etc..I don't eat my chickens, I only breed them. My kids treat them like loved family pets and when they are ready to be retired they generally go to my father in laws land up north to eat bugs for him. So I can't imagine what her problem is. My turkens allow me to be a stay at home mom to my kids and not have to worry about feed cost so much. I see no negative.
I think I'll probably just continue to be kind to her and hopefully she won't try to bait me too much. I don't know what her husband was thinking telling us lol. Maybe he wanted us to be warned not to mention the birds too much? It's not a common topic, but I'm proud when I finally perfect a nice new color in my flock or have a great hatch...Oh well. People will be people I suppose.

I would not be able to resist baiting her about this, you are to be commended if you manage to keep taking the high road. If someone brought this up to me, I would agree with them and then launch into a diatribe about how unfair it is that we raise tomatoes and potatoes in our gardens, it's such an unnatural thing to have removed them from their homes in South America and genetically modified them to suit our tastes.

FREE THE POTATOES FROM HUMAN TYRANNY !!!

Are you all with me?

While I mightsomewhat agree with not breeding dogs as much due to how many are in shelters (in my area, at least) I don't notice this problem with chickens. You can hatch 50 chicks and as long as there is a market for them, you'll know that those chicks will have a home. It's not like there's thousands of them sitting in a chicken pound cramped in cages waiting to be rescued. Geez, sounds like she's both ignorant and on a high-horse. Especially if you're only breeding a few for yourself and neighbors and not on a commercial scale; but either way she shouldn't talk about things she doesn't understand.

dheltzel said:

I would not be able to resist baiting her about this, you are to be commended if you manage to keep taking the high road. If someone brought this up to me, I would agree with them and then launch into a diatribe about how unfair it is that we raise tomatoes and potatoes in our gardens, it's such an unnatural thing to have removed them from their homes in South America and genetically modified them to suit our tastes.

FREE THE POTATOES FROM HUMAN TYRANNY !!!

Are you all with me?

Click to expand...

YES! To protest our consumption of the defenseless plants and animals, let's all turn to all-natural cannibalism, as nature intended.

lol dheltzel, I may have to bring that argument up sometime if she continues on this with this. I can understand differences in opinion. I can respect hers if she respects mine. But the fact that every time she sees a post on my facebook page about chicks hatching or whatever she launches into an angry diatribe about the damage it does seems ridiculous. I'll just chalk it up to crazy lol.

Chewbagawk, I agree with the dog aspect. Where I live has a horrible overpopulation issue of strays and breeders who don't know what they're doing. I breed small scale for sure, for quality and not quantity and I have NEVER not sold a chick as soon as they were for sale. I even have a waiting list.
She really is just ignorant I think. Not once has she asked a question about my little farm or how I raise my birds. I picture in her mind they're all in tiny factory farm metal boxes, two to a square foot and dying regularly from neglect lol. In reality if she'd ask she could see they have an acre of grass, trees and even a small pond to enjoy drinking from. It just gets me a little angry when she acts that way because I put A LOT of effort and care into my birds.