Eyes drooping, feet dragging, I reluctantly walked down to our chicken coop each Saturday morning seven of the twelve months of the year for several years. There were no cartoons watched during those months, just the repulsive job of processing chickens. I always hated getting up early to do something as hard and awful as the job of killing, plucking, cleaning, and bagging chickens. But despite how much I hated missing all the other fun activities I could have been doing; I would go and enjoy my time there. Behind the coop became my playground, and as I grew the tasks I was given were like a rite of passage to growing up. I look back now and wish I had those long Saturday mornings back when all my family was together to accomplish a hard …show more content…
Since I was only six when the purchase was made, I didn’t understand the full effects of what would be required of us kids. I started out with simple tasks like dumping the feathers from the plucking machine, and since that wasn’t very often I had time to explore the pasture behind. My sister and I would always go on adventures. We became damsels in distress trying to find handsome princes to save us. We were hostages to pirates ordered to walk the plank. We were Indians running wild with the horses. The sky was the limit to our imaginations. This was the true beginning of the extremely close relationship I have to my …show more content…
This meant coming back later in the afternoon when I wanted to be playing with cousins. Those that had to do this job were me, my older sister, and my mom. Depending on how many chickens were processed, decided how long it took us to bag. Of all the tasks I was given this one was always my least favorite. My mother knew how much we all hated it so we would either have competitions to see who could bag the most in the shortest amount of time or sing Disney songs and sometimes
So her, her mom, and her sisters usually took care of all the planting, weeding, harvesting the garden, and harvesting the fruit. There was absolutely no electric washing machines, henceforth several hours of scrubbing on a washboard wasn’t uncommon either.
chose many different kids to act in the circus. Then we headed off the the
As night struck I collapsed in my bed exhausted from the day, I felt like I’ve never done that much labor since we first came to Salem. I woke up early afternoon only to see a letter that my dad wrote stating he was going on a hunting trip. Every wednesday I take care of the chickens along with my sister Tara, our chicken coop is a couple of feet from our house and is home to about 12 chickens that are always rowdy.
Chickens are one of the top most tortured animals in factory farms. Farmers get the most money for chickens that are heavier and have enlarged thighs and breasts. Like most factory farmed animals, broiler chickens are raised in overcrowded cages their entire life, and become very aggressive. Because of this aggressiveness the employees of the farms cut of their beaks and toes without any type of painkiller or an anesthetic just to keep them from fighting. After being “debeaked” some chickens are then not able to eat and starve. Layer chickens lay 90-95% of the eggs sold in the U.S. (2013b) The torture starts the day they are born. Chicks are placed on a belt, where an employee than picks up each chick to see if it is a male or female. Newborn male chicks are thrown into trash bags, ground up alive, crushed, and killed many other inhumane ways.
Broiler chickens, luckily for them, only live up to 7 weeks old until they are big enough to be slaughtered. Their life starts out in incubator trays with hundreds and thousands of other chicks without enough head room to stand up, and not enough room to take 2 tiny steps. So for the first week of their lives it goes from cramp trays, to cramp boxes, to getting dumped onto the filthy floors of t...
The chicken is no longer simply viewed as food and is instead seen as someone or something that cares about the family due to her new role as a mother. This is depicted through the words of the daughter as she states, “Mama, Mama, don’t kill the chicken anymore, she laid an egg! She cares about us!” (129). Thus, it can be interpreted
chickens will suffer for minutes until they finally meet death. All because the farmers cannot be
Some of the chickens were not able to walk because their bodies were not able to sustain the weight gained by the use of steroids and antibiotics to aid in their rapid development. The manner in which the chickens were treated when they were picked up by the big chicken corporation was inhumane. They were kicked, thrown and crammed into small cages. The big chicken companies owned the farmers in every sense of the phrase. Owners were expected to pay out over $500,000 to start two chicken houses and additional fees for the latest and best for their chicken farms, but make on average $18,000 a year. Failure to adhere to their strict demands often resulted in the loss of their contract as was the case with Carole. The conditions in which cows and pigs were raised was not very different from that of the chickens. They were being fed corn to help them grow bigger and faster. They were found living in manure up to their knees and much of this manure was contaminated with E. coli. Since a majority of the animals were walking and living in this environment, it is easy for the
Billy Thompson and Sam Westfield were similar in many ways. Since a young age they both has excelled at sports and both loved more then anything, the sport of football. While growing up, the boys did not know each other and probably thought they would never have too. But all of that changed with the diagnosis.
My parents traveled for a living, and even though they were gone a lot I still remember them being home ever holiday. We carved pumpkins, decorated, and dressed up each year. I remember running
As a retired Seal, I still retain the memories of the struggles and hardships I have encountered over my life. Starting at the age of five, my mother met a man named Leon. He would always criticize me for something I did or what I did wrong. Every little detail that was not done correctly would lead to pain and discipline. This was Leon’s way of ,”setting me straight”. Finally I had enough. I decided to leave home by boarding the wrong bus after school one day out of fear. I was so scared to go home. But I eventually decided that I have to live with it, I knew Leon was going to stay I could do nothing to change that. In life there are things that you can't change. I believe that you must learn to cope with problems in order to succeed, not by running away from them.
Growing up as an only child I made out pretty well. You almost can’t help but be spoiled by your parents in some way. And I must admit that I enjoyed it; my own room, T.V., computer, stereo, all the material possessions that I had. But there was one event in my life that would change the way that I looked at these things and realized that you can’t take these things for granted and that’s not what life is about.
I have always been drawn to chickens since I was a little girl. It was only in my thirty’s that I first came in to contact with chickens on a farm. You would think that a city girl like me would be afraid, nope, I went right in to feed and sat in chicken poop. No one told me I shouldn’t sit in the coop and feed them, but I was fine with it, they calm me. Each year I keep telling myself I will move when I can have my chickens. I will cover the difference between meat and egg layers. I will discuss the different ways to home them, and keep them safe. Why should people keep chickens at all? In this research paper I will go over the information that I have read and how I feel personally about raising and keeping chickens in your back yard.
Thumbs Out A girlfriend of mine once defended me to her father by saying, calmly, “Not everyone who wanders is lost.” The dad kicked me out of the house anyway. But the damage had been done. Not everyone who wanders is lost.