Emotional support chickens

[Chick_Maelle]

Perfectly written! I agree with everything you said there! Very true. I think that ESAs are a great option for a lot of people, you just have to be aware of the animal’s feelings on the situation, where you live, etc.

 

[lilchickenz]

Well the thing you don't seem to be understanding is that there's a LEGAL difference between a service animal and an ESA. First of all, service animals can ONLY be dogs or mini horses. I'm not sure if mini horses are accepted anymore, but chickens definitely are not considered service animals in a legal sense which means they do not have legal access to public places like Walmart or other stores. The same goes for rabbits, cats and any other animal that's not a dog or mini horse. A service animal must perform a disability related task to be considered a service animal. Soothing your anxiety without having been trained for an actual task is not considered a service animal task, it's considered a pet.

ESAs are pets that have some legal protections for people with disabilities. Those legal protections ONLY exist in housing and possibly airlines (although airlines have cracked down on some of the ridiculous fakes that have been going on). The main point, though, is that emotional support animals do not have public access other than possibly airplanes. You can keep them in your home or on your property where pets would otherwise not be allowed and just about any animal can be an ESA including chickens.

It's important that people understand the legal difference between the two. You can't take your chicken to the store unless the store gives you permission to do so.

I fully acknowledge the OP probably won’t be coming back, but I’ll post just so future people that are looking at this thread for help get some.


( ESA advice)
First of all, a chicken probably wouldn’t be the best emotional support animal. They are eaten by literally everything, and bringing them into public would put them in danger. The stress of it would also probably give the little one a heart attack. If you need an ESA, I would recommend a dog or a cat or even a horse. Dogs would probably be the best option though, as they normally like going out and don’t get eaten by everything. Cats can be ESAs, but it’s a lot harder and riskier. I has a cat in college that was an ESA, and oh boy was he a handful. Dogs being walked in public will sometimes go after a cat and seriously hurt it if you aren’t careful. Mini horses are known for being great service animals and ESA, but I don’t know how good of a plan that would be. How would you even fit a horse in a car if need be?


( me expressing my opinions on ESAs.)
And for all the people in this thread being rude about ESAs, saying they are just people trying to let their pets go out in public, and that’s not true.

Lots of ESAs are owned by young females, yes, but not because some men decided to get a new girlfriend and leave them behind. It’s because society as a whole has been treating us like absolute trash for decades. We were always taught to be perfect, whether that be being a bottle blonde or a video gamer, and those that didn’t fit were berated by everyone for being wrong. We are prone to having mental health issues, not because we broke up with a boy that probably didn’t care for us, but because most of us have had rough lives. Women are just more emotional, that’s a fact. It’s sad to see that even when we show it, when we let down our guards and seek help, society blames it on us. They blame it on the fact we can’t live without some strong man to whisk us away, on not having a Prince Charming. It really just shows how corrupt society is. We are emotional because women have different brain chemistry then men. We have different hormones, we have different upbringings, we have different lives. Men have problems too, I’m not trying to hide it. They get hurt just as often as women, they have to deal with their own struggles, they also need help sometimes. We all need help sometimes, whether we are male, female, neither, or both. We all can get mental health issues, we can all get depression and make bad choices. It’s wrong to say that some of us are just being too overdramatic, that we don’t have any real problems, you don’t know what everyone else is dealing with. Seeing a person in their mid twenties with an ESA shouldn’t make you think that they are faking it, that they just want their pet bunny to go to Walmart, you should respect their individual struggles and respect them.

And a mental disability or illness isn’t any different from a physical one. If you couldn’t get up in the morning, if you just wanted to feel something each day, if you couldn’t get out of the house because your anxiety was getting to be too much, you would want a nice dog to give you a hug, a nice horse to comfort you, a furry or scaly friend to help you through bad times. ESAs are just as important as ‘real’ service animals. ESAs have stopped people from giving up, have given people hope during their darkest hours. Saying that just because someone doesn’t have a visible illness that they don’t deserve help, it’s sick. And sadly, some people will never see that. They won’t see that people can have internal issues, that people can have problems you might not even see. So just remember, next time you see an ESA with someone, don’t think of them as just trying to cheat the system. ESAs are just as real, as important as service animals. They are service animals in their own way, they help. Everyone deserves help, whether it be to be their eyes or ears, or just to cuddle someone when they need it the most.

Saying that just because an ESA doesn’t fit into your idea of a service animal that it isn’t important is wrong. Emotional Support Animals are needed in this world, for everyone that isn’t as lucky as you. Just like a ‘real’ service animal, they have people that couldn’t function without them. ESAs aren’t just pets, they aren’t just an animal someone wants to take on a plane, they help. Help is important.