Animal cruelty? I think so!!

[Promiselandfarm]

Wow what a sheltered life we live. I like mine that way but there are links to internet sites that will show you how chickens are being treated daily on chicken farms which call themselves free range and organic that will make you upset. It is appalling and no where near what I consider free range( fresh air, grass, run of the farm ect...) or organic(nothing more than the type of feed given to those chickens). My children gripe because my husband and I require the waters to be clean like a drinking glass others would fine that excessive(we have more than 5 different breeds and over well over 50 hens). We each view or chicken raising differently that is for sure. I took a college agricultural class(just finished) came away with a good grade an realized no one treats their animals the same. I also agree that your son's friendship will be at stake over the chicken issue if not handled correctly. Maybe the man does not have excess money to purchase a new coop for his chickens a suggestion of something else cheaper? I read on here where others buy playhouses and such for their new birds and build really nice coops yet not everyone can or wants to spend that much housing their chickens. Just a thought on how to look at the different perspectives out there and get ideas first before leaping

 

[LyonFuzz]

If you don't have the money to keep them, or any animal that depends on you, you should not have them. Period. We have HS and animal controls, rescue groups, local classified, etc, etc, that this person can relinquish his chickens too. There are plenty of options other can keeping them in the filth they are in. Turning the other cheek is wrong also. Just a phone call to the local animal control and you will remain anonymous. Be the voice that they don't have.

 

[MoodyChicken]

I know, it's terrible. People think that chickens don't need to be cared for

Last semester I took Intro to Animal Science at my college. Every Tuesday we went to the local highschool farm to work hands on with animals (cause my college is too cheap to make their own farm lol). Anyways, the care those students provided to the animlas was appalling. They had a pot belly pig that was too big to fit inside his house and resorted to scraping his back trying to get in. I know pot belly pigs get big, but all they had to do was give him a bigger house. They had a huge fish tank with an observation window (what a blessing for kids to work with aquaculture, few kids get that opportunity, but they sure as heck didn't care)... the window was so thick with slime you couldn't see through it and you couldn't see from the top either because it was full of dead fish floating at the top and it smelled terribly. There were 3 rabbits who lived in feces and drank green mush. And they had chickens... whose water had an inch thick of gross poop and slime and no clean clear water in it, and who literally starved to death because they never had food. I was shocked. It's a HIGHSCHOOL farm, shouldn't you be teaching kids how to PROPERLY care for animals? Have you dumb@$$ kids that little common sense to give the animals clean water, let alone FEED them? Seriously, those animals were literally living in their own crap, and no one did anything till I came along and cleaned and fed as much as I could during MY class time. Before I left I threw a huge fit and the "caretaker" was fired, and some of the animals were relocated. According to my friends who took the class after me conditions have improved somewhat. I ended up seeing some of the kids at our local county fair and chewed them out so bad. I hope they learned something.

 

[joebryant]

The simple facts show that the man does not care. He does not care about the chickens, and he cares less about what you think. You are considering dealing with a form of unconcerned evil (cruelty to animals); be sure you know what you're doing before you proceed, he could be dangerous.

 

[cariboujaguar]

My 5 new hens spent 2 days and nights in a 10X10 chainlink dog kennel covered on 3 sizes and the top with nice tarps, with 2 roosting poles and free choice feed/water and I thought I was being mean! now they have a coop, we just had to take a few days to build one. It's funny, when we let them out to free range they still want to go roost in the chain link temp coop, I guess they didn't mind it as much as we did... I just can't understand people... but then we spend a minimum of 3 hours a day feeding, cleaning, grooming, managing our goats, chickens and horses... It scares me, if they will treat innocent animals like that how will they treat children/people??? I would do something, report them, offer to buy them, drive by and kill them all to put them out of their misery... ok maybe not that LOL but sieriously, that has to be so hard seeing that... maybe your kid could try to relate to his kid, even a teen can set up a proper coop, it's not difficult...

 

[Chickenmaven]

Quote:
I have to agree. Also, the anonymous note might not end up being so anonymous. I wouldn't do anything... Unless... Unless, you could contact him with a solution in hand, as in "My neighbor has this shed to give away" or such. Let's face it, the link between knowing & doing is tenuous, at best. The person with the dog tied out *knows* that other people do better by their animals. That's a dog owner that is not going to provide a fenced yard unless s/he happens to move to a house with a fenced yard.
Some people do not value their animals. You cannot shame or educate such people into action.

 

[shaggy]

Quote:
unless he is actually broke enough to "need" them for subsistence

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

I agree with JoeBryant (check his BYC page, his coop is terriffic!). People who do that to animals are sometimes classified as "hoarders", it can be a psychiatric disorder. AKA "crazy". I saw an articla in the SPCA journal last month in the library, which was interesting to find about animals when I was researching that disorder for another work related subject altogether.

My poor chickens are hardly ever cooped up. They get confused about which roost is appropriate for chickens, in fact are usually trying to come inside with the kids and sit around in front of a video game. One even laid an egg in the couch. My dear chickens have a lovely roost in our comfy safe and CLEAN basement at nite.

From opposite end of that spectrum, I will pray on it for you. Somebody once prayed for me, so I'll pass it on. Please update on how you choose to proceed.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I'm suprised at all the responces.... If the OP won't even try to talk to the person in question how can everybody make comments?

Case and point from personel experience. We met a local older couple that lives near us, they wanted some more poultry so we took them some. their birds were in horrid conditions pretty much as described by the OP. There was no way we were selling poultry to those people - (first thought in my head). Instead of just leaving we both decided to find out why. To make a long story short, they just didn't know, they raised poultry the way their parents did and probably their parents parents. We talked and explained, they listened. being on a fixed income it was a slow process. We helped where we could and now it's a very nice setup. All it took was some effort on our part.

Isn't that the BYC way? Lend a hand and help. Not just step back and bash, or say I won't talk to that person because I think they might be creepy.

Just my 2 cents worth

Steve in NC

 

[saddina]

Just a quick thought.

Does your state have a minimum cage size requirement? In CA they passed a law that set a minimum size of 2 ft/bird, does your state have a similar law? I agree on the filthy aspect it's not good at all, but maybe a "hey I saw your birds the other day, and wondered if you heard about the space per bird rule?"