Coalition of Animal Sanctuaries Urges Ban on Backyard Chickens

[WisconsinGardenChick]

A coalition of animal sanctuaries has issued a position paper

urging municipalities throughout the U.S. not to allow backyard flocks and exhorting those that are already zoned for this practice to establish and enforce strict regulations for the care of these birds.

The coalition doesn't appear to have a name, but includes these organizations:

Animal Place
Chicken Run Rescue
Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center
Farm Sanctuary
Sunny Skies Bird and Animal Sanctuary
United Poultry Concerns

Some of their objections are:

* That backyard chicken keepers unwittingly buy chicks from hatcheries that mistreat animals
* That shipping day-old chicks is cruel
* That too many male chicks and roosters are killed
* That chickens attract mice and rats
* That allowing chicken keeping in cities results in additional burdensome costs to municipalities to enforce permits and deal with complaints

The full statement can be found here.

Another version of their statement and discussion can be found here .

I've written my response on my blog, but I won't go into it here. From my short time here, it appears that the administrators do not like to get into political issues. But I think it's important to know that there is pushback to the backyard chicken trend, and what objections we may encounter.

Edited to add: I will include from my blog my plea to my fellow backyard chicken keepers:

Please take responsibility for your chickens. Do not hand responsibility for chickens you are not able to keep over to agencies, such as the animal sanctuaries listed above, that will use it as an excuse to advocate bans on backyard poultry keeping.




Katherine​

 

[pixie74943]

derrr.. you'd think that animal rights companies would have better things to do!!! I thought they would be applauding us for keeping happy birds, who ARENT stuffed in cages 24/7. Any effort to damage the cage egg industry should be applauded!!!

 

[Wifezilla]

Animal activism and logic have very little to do with each other.

 

[twister]

astounded and speechless.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Quote:

i so agree.

 

[seedcorn]

Welcome to a taste of what agriculture faces every day.

I can understand part of the publics desire to stop chickens from being placed in crowded conditions but to stop them from being pets because they lay eggs. These same people would allow you to have a dog or cat enclosed in their house.....oh the inhumanity.....a dog forced to sleep in an airconditioned house or heated house in the winter...

 

[Amyable]

I only had to google the first one, Animal Place. They are a sanctuary for livestock and promote veganism. They believe it is wrong to kill animals for food or 'exploit' them for eggs. They want no one to eat meat or eggs. You just can't argue with people like that. They will not listen.

Not that there is anything wrong with veganism, just don't try to force or guilt-trip people to eat that way. The fact that they promote this diet should be highlighted if it comes down to defending backyard flock laws/ordinances.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

fascinating. Do they think they will stop the egg industry altogether, or just the backyard chickens?

Just this morning, I cooked two eggs side-by-side. One egg from one of my Buff Orps, the other a "Cage-free, Organic" egg that I purchased because my birds' egg production was down. These are the eggs that also say, "Chickens fed a vegetarian diet."

My birds free-range a couple hours a day, but mostly eat layer crumbles, with occasional treats. They say a picture says a thousand words. Here is the picture....

I can only shake my head. My birds are happy and healthy without any intervention from these activists or the government.

 

[mom'sfolly]

Wow, I checked out the groups supporting the statement. They are all definitely on the vegan/animal rights fringe. It would be interesting to see how they propose to stop chickens from laying eggs, something that at least one of the groups called unnatural. One group also mentioned "chickens in the wild", which to my knowledge do not exist, anymore than wild cows or silk moths. The ancestors of modern chickens are out there, but there aren't "chickens in the wild"

It is something to be aware of. Some of these groups seem very normal on the surface.

 

[WisconsinGardenChick]

Quote:
I didn't google any of them (good for you for doing so!), but I immediately recognized this agenda from the coalition statement. It's not logical to go after backyard chicken keepers if your issue is with the practices of large industrial operations. Clearly their issue is any meat-eating. Preventing backyard folks (easier to ban them b/c they are less powerful than big business) from raising chickens leaves the large commercial operators the only option for eggs and meat. And if you can expose their practices, some of which really are horrible, then maybe people will feel unable to eat meat at all. I believe that is their strategy.

Katherine