I found this anonymous paragraph in an old stack of adult education writing samples. It's obviously from a farm wife who took classes to better herself. Great amusing perspective on chicken raising, verbatim from the hand-written copy. It made me smile and think about a time when people raised chickens out of pure necessity, not necessarily for enjoyment:
"Many things can happen to a chiken. It is born out of an egg, lives for a few weeks as a tiny fluffy thing, then becomes hideously naked, eats quantities of corn and meal, gets diseases called pip, cholera, and other names, stands looking with stupid eyes at the sun, becomes sick and dies. A few hens and now and then a rooster, mate. The hens lay eggs out of which come other chickens and the dreadful cycle is thus made complete."
"Many things can happen to a chiken. It is born out of an egg, lives for a few weeks as a tiny fluffy thing, then becomes hideously naked, eats quantities of corn and meal, gets diseases called pip, cholera, and other names, stands looking with stupid eyes at the sun, becomes sick and dies. A few hens and now and then a rooster, mate. The hens lay eggs out of which come other chickens and the dreadful cycle is thus made complete."
