Im sick of people shoving this away it NEEDS to be noted!!!!

[wendy]

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100% agree

 

[Beekissed]

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Ditto to this.

 

[EweSheep]

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Ditto to this.

Me too! sometimes we can "humanize" too much that it would be determental to their well being.

 

[Eliza]

I've had this "emotions" discussion before. Logically, animals have "emotions". Emotion is a response to a stimulus, either positive or negative. In the realm of "chicken", or "dog" or "cat", or "horse - etc. an animal needs to have a response to a stimulus in order to navigate successfully through life. Why must we relate everything to "human"??? If we're guilty of "infantizing"what's the harm. Those who can't abide that tend to move the argument toward that animals don't have emotions. I believe that the same goes for intelligence. An animal moves through their reality in the manner that sustains their survival. Again, response to a stimulus. That in itself is proof positive that animals possess intelligence for them, in their world. Again, why do we need to keep equating everything to human standards; as if that's fair? Animals are not burdened with the concepts of good and evil; therefore they are free of the burden of guilt and shame. If animals were incapable of understanding their world and the challenges in it they would not respond appropriately and would not survive. If they "felt" nothing, they would have no responses at all and would be big flat nothings! And we know that that's not true. Anyone who's ridden a horse by a scary object can relate to the thrill of the horse's flight response. In this case "fear" is the correct response to the unknown potentially deadly stimulus.... humans - how egocentric can they get!

 

[Beekissed]

Lets see....how to put this?

Lets just say that a chicken knows when it is crowded and has limited movement because it tries to move and cannot get far. This may stimulate the bird to feel discomfort. It may have sore and tender feet from walking or standing on wire and the response to this may be to hunker down to relieve the pain. It may have trouble breathing the dust created by many birds shuffling around in bedding and this stimulates a fear/anxiety response in their body.

Pain, fear and anxiety are all considered emotions by humans but they are just labels to denote a certain response to a stimulus. Basic responses to stimuli of this nature are universal to higher forms of life such as mammals, reptiles, fish, etc. They are all neural responses that require little thought or reasoning.

Yes, I agree that a chicken can feel the warmth of the sun on their outspread wings, the coolness of dusting to their skin, they can feel that their crops are full, that cool water is soothing to their throats. We would call all that happy, content, good, etc. To the chicken all these actions they perform are learned behaviours or purely instinct. I don't believe they get off the roost in the morning planning their day and just how they can make it happier. They just go about being chickens...simple creatures without the burden of higher cognitive function.

Do battery hens know they are battery hens and therefore are lacking what free range chickens have? Nope. They know only basic stimulus~response behaviours. They aren't sitting there feeling sad or envious. They go about being chickens limited to the space in which they live. They eat, they drink, they lay, they peck each other, etc.

They feel the pain or discomfort of close confinement, feeling ill, anxiety as a response to respiratory distress, possibly neuralgia from being debeaked. They will walk all over and even peck at a dead chicken in the same cage without a thought of sadness or remorse.

No one is arguing that chickens are as intelligent as chickens need to be...but are they on par with the whole range of human emotions or cognitive reasoning? Nope. Thank God for that tender mercy!

 

[Whispering Winds]

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Any creature, two legged or otherwise who LOVES their babies and cuddles them and makes soft sounds to them have emotions. This belief is what keeps my faith some days.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Whether or not true emtions are there is not the point. As someone else stated, biblically,...it is the righteous who regards the life of his beast(s). Not everybody will be righteous or do the right thing no matter how hard we try, but the righteous CAN set a good example for those who follow in our footsteps

I think we're all doing what we can, one little farm at a time

 

[redhen]

Surely you're not saying that only religious folks that read the bible are kind to animals?

 

[Duramaxgirl]

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Nah... but those people that claim to be religious and are still cruel are a
little more... evil in my opinion because they really should know better. I was told once that most puppy mills are in the south run by Amish people... not sure if its true but its so sad...

 

[Organics North]

I just can not let the bible quote stuff go........

I note that::::: It seems to me that some of the "extra religious" here are the ones that say animals do not have emotions and are only here on earth to serve us humans....

I agree humanizing other animals is well kind of a human thing to do..I personally do not think other species have the same emotions as us, heck different cultures of humans have different types of emotions. Last I checked we are all animals too........

We are made of the same stuff other animals are....Blood, bones, muscle, brains and so forth...We are all creature of this planet earth.

Do battery hens know they are battery hens and therefore are lacking what free range chickens have? Nope. They know only basic stimulus~response behaviours. They aren't sitting there feeling sad or envious. They go about being chickens limited to the space in which they live. They eat, they drink, they lay, they peck each other, etc

(Does a baby human subjected to a unique environment know the environment is unique???? NO, they just eat, drink, poop, and go about their business of surviving....)

For me the quoted statement reaks of arrogance... It makes assumptions I personally am not comfortable making.. Yes other species are different than us... But again so are different cultures, races, religions.

I personally am not a chicken, so I can not say what they feel... I do know they are a fellow flesh and blood creature that lives on the same planet I do..... So I will pay them due respect as with all other living creatures.... Yes I am an omnivore, and I do what I am designed to do, which includes killing and eating other flesh and blood creatures......... I do so humbly, without the excuse of some religion to tell me I am some how superior to other creatures of this planet and it is "OK"....

ON​