- Mar 27, 2008
- 39
- 0
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Okay, this may sound crazy, but bear with me.
My three hens are in trouble: I live in the city and my evil neighbours called Animal Control on me (we have a history of enmity not even related to the chickens, it's a long story...). I have one month to relocate them, or find a way to squeak past the bylaw. I am working on that through various channels. This is not my question though, this is just some context.
I work in media, and heard through my grapevine that a young artist who is crashing our city's Nuit Blanche festival (this is an all-night art event with various outdoor and indoor art spectacles taking place across the city from sundown through sunup, and is modelled on similar events in Paris an Barcelona), is looking for hens to use in a performance-art piece he is doing.
He wants to put them in a clear Plexi glass van (the kind used for advertising promos), and write something to the effect of "Where does your food come from," and talk about the issues facing small-scale farmers, and the increasing industrialization of our food production chain etc etc.
I want to loan him my hens so that I can write about the event in the newsaper and thus gain some media play to their plight (facing eviction due to an unfair bylaw that penalizes me for raising my own pet hens for eggs, as part of my lifestyle which includes growing my own backyard veggies in the city, etc etc), in the hopes that this may help me change the local bylaws in my city, and put the issue into the newspapers again, for other backyard hen raisers in other Canadian cities.
My question is this:
If three hens who free-range and forage in a small urban backyard (with a variety of flower beds and under-tree areas) during the day, and who spend the nights in an indoor coop inside a shed (with some ambiant light coming through the shed windows since my neighbours like to maintain roughly 500 watts of high voltage light on their property!) were to be driven in a cube van all night long, would this harm them?
1-They have not been in a car since they were chicks, although the van would drive slow;
2-There would be dim lights in the van, but ambiant light through the Plexi walls would exist. I would be onsite and order people not to take flash photography;
3-If we do this, I'll lay either sod or carpet on the floor of the van so there's comfortable traction and a softer floor surface, add bales of hay, and set up a roost in case they want to use it when the van is stationary at one if its stops (I think it will stay at a stop for 30 minutes to an hour). They will have access to water and food. I'll also "build up" a corner with some cloth or something so it can be a dark corner they can retreat to if needed.
There is no doubt in my mind that the hens would probably rather be at home sleeping, but given the situation we are in (the order to remove them, my desire to publicize the issue and work with this artist who is actually staging this as part of a larger documentary looking at the issues surrounding factory farming, avian flu, and the way current local bylaws penalize ethical consumers who choose to humanly raise their own well-treated hens as part of a local-food movement), I sort of feel like this might be one fabulous chance for publicity. Not for me--I'm no aspiring Lindsay Lohan--but to the plight of my family hens, and to the bylaws that penalize backyard chickens. I think it brings attention to the issue in a novel way, to a new audience who might not read about these issues in, say, the news section of the newspaper.
So: do you think being out in unnatural light in a see-through van from sundown to sunup would harm them? The greater good I think justifies some lost sleep for them, but if it could potentially really traumatize them, that would not be worth it. But don't battery hens deal with 24-hour light? And this is just one night. Help!
They are Rhode Island Reds crossed with Columbian Rocks and are very healthy, gregarious and outgoing birds. They are so-so on the friendly front. Affectionate with me, and merely curious or tolerant with others. Not intimidated by strangers.
Put it this way: if it merely annoys them a bit, it's worth it for the greater good. But if it could actually harm them -- no, not worth it. Your thoughts? (I have a few days to decide.)
Thanks for your help. I know this is a weird query.
My three hens are in trouble: I live in the city and my evil neighbours called Animal Control on me (we have a history of enmity not even related to the chickens, it's a long story...). I have one month to relocate them, or find a way to squeak past the bylaw. I am working on that through various channels. This is not my question though, this is just some context.
I work in media, and heard through my grapevine that a young artist who is crashing our city's Nuit Blanche festival (this is an all-night art event with various outdoor and indoor art spectacles taking place across the city from sundown through sunup, and is modelled on similar events in Paris an Barcelona), is looking for hens to use in a performance-art piece he is doing.
He wants to put them in a clear Plexi glass van (the kind used for advertising promos), and write something to the effect of "Where does your food come from," and talk about the issues facing small-scale farmers, and the increasing industrialization of our food production chain etc etc.
I want to loan him my hens so that I can write about the event in the newsaper and thus gain some media play to their plight (facing eviction due to an unfair bylaw that penalizes me for raising my own pet hens for eggs, as part of my lifestyle which includes growing my own backyard veggies in the city, etc etc), in the hopes that this may help me change the local bylaws in my city, and put the issue into the newspapers again, for other backyard hen raisers in other Canadian cities.
My question is this:
If three hens who free-range and forage in a small urban backyard (with a variety of flower beds and under-tree areas) during the day, and who spend the nights in an indoor coop inside a shed (with some ambiant light coming through the shed windows since my neighbours like to maintain roughly 500 watts of high voltage light on their property!) were to be driven in a cube van all night long, would this harm them?
1-They have not been in a car since they were chicks, although the van would drive slow;
2-There would be dim lights in the van, but ambiant light through the Plexi walls would exist. I would be onsite and order people not to take flash photography;
3-If we do this, I'll lay either sod or carpet on the floor of the van so there's comfortable traction and a softer floor surface, add bales of hay, and set up a roost in case they want to use it when the van is stationary at one if its stops (I think it will stay at a stop for 30 minutes to an hour). They will have access to water and food. I'll also "build up" a corner with some cloth or something so it can be a dark corner they can retreat to if needed.
There is no doubt in my mind that the hens would probably rather be at home sleeping, but given the situation we are in (the order to remove them, my desire to publicize the issue and work with this artist who is actually staging this as part of a larger documentary looking at the issues surrounding factory farming, avian flu, and the way current local bylaws penalize ethical consumers who choose to humanly raise their own well-treated hens as part of a local-food movement), I sort of feel like this might be one fabulous chance for publicity. Not for me--I'm no aspiring Lindsay Lohan--but to the plight of my family hens, and to the bylaws that penalize backyard chickens. I think it brings attention to the issue in a novel way, to a new audience who might not read about these issues in, say, the news section of the newspaper.
So: do you think being out in unnatural light in a see-through van from sundown to sunup would harm them? The greater good I think justifies some lost sleep for them, but if it could potentially really traumatize them, that would not be worth it. But don't battery hens deal with 24-hour light? And this is just one night. Help!
They are Rhode Island Reds crossed with Columbian Rocks and are very healthy, gregarious and outgoing birds. They are so-so on the friendly front. Affectionate with me, and merely curious or tolerant with others. Not intimidated by strangers.
Put it this way: if it merely annoys them a bit, it's worth it for the greater good. But if it could actually harm them -- no, not worth it. Your thoughts? (I have a few days to decide.)
Thanks for your help. I know this is a weird query.
