This is one of the chicken trucks that travels past my neighborhood ten to twenty times a day to the processing plant. It is a flatbed tractor-trailer stacked deep and wide with chickens headed for the slaughterhouse and then to Publix, or Bojangles’ or Buffalo Wild Wings or maybe my gas grill.
From time to time one of these guys escapes and ends up getting hit by a car. I have also captured many of them over the last thirty years and have taken them to a veterinarian friend of mine who euthanizes them. The reason we euthanize them is that these poor guys can’t be domesticated. My veterinarian friend used the word “demented” once to describe these chickens. They have been raised for one purpose and one purpose only, to be eaten and sadly how they are being transported, crowded together in small metal cages, is pretty much how they have spent their life, on top of each other.
I see these trucks several times a week. I look at their chicken faces, creatures whose lot in life includes no love, joy or compassion. I realize they are not pets, they are simply a commodity. Any personality that they may or may not have been born with is in the end willed out of them and certainly never developed or encouraged.
Now, full disclosure, I am meat eater. I love cow, pig, and chicken all creatures with a face, a brain and if promoted a personality. My Grandfather raised beef cattle. I knew, as a child, that the cute Angus calf frolicking in pasture would probably become the pot roast my Grandmother fixed for Sunday dinner in three years or so. When I was around ten years old I watched my Grandfather deliver a calf that was breached. It was a remarkable experience to witness, performed by a man I already idolized. As the adorable creature struggled to find its footing I told my Grandfather we needed to give it a name, he suggested with a sly smile “How about hamburger”. Yes, I learned at an early age what these animals purpose was, a livelihood and to eat.
But I struggle with the chicken truck. My mother was a school teacher and one year incubated and hatched an egg for her class. That chick found its way to our home in the suburbs and became a pet for several years until it died from some unknown ailment. Chicken, as we called her, had free roam of our yard and our neighbors yards. I am not sure what qualifies as smart in the universe of chickens but this one certainly had both common sense and personality. She enjoyed walks to the park, rides in the car and torturing our poor dog. She also appreciated sharing a cold beer with the next door neighbor much to the dismay of my mother. A drunk chicken is truly a sight to behold and one my mother never appreciated.
So when I am grilling BBQ wings, and drinking a cold Left Hand Stout, I don’t think back on my pet chicken, I probably should. But when I see that chicken truck and all those sad chicken faces looking back at me I do. I know their fate as they speed down the highway leaving a trail of feathers but I also know their potential in a different place and time.
Your chickens aren’t crammed into the cages as tightly as the ones at The Holler. I can’r really eat chicken anymore…..
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Thank you for reading Ms. Cindy
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I worked for a few years for an international company that had as its partners several chicken distributors. My job was to drive the trucks, deliver chicks to the farms and to sometimes dub and debeak….horrible job but the pay was fantastic after being homeless for a few years. chicks were very well taken care of but as they matured..not so much. For the first year they were pretty free to wander within the confines of a huge open chicken house..but when the egg production began the poor things were stuck in tiny little cages. they did indeed go crazy. We were the “good” company..the one that animal welfare groups never ever bothered…but still I see a truck now and think immediately “those poor things”.
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There is a vegetable market near our plant and there are times in the summer I can’t get near the place to buy fresh vegetables because of the smell. I can only imagine what it smells like inside the plant. As always, thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts Ms. Suze.
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Oooo nooo! Good post. Thanks.
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Thank you!
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This breaks my heart–seeing this photo. I cannot believe all the suffering we humans put on animals all around the world. It’s just outrageous.
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We harm each other certainly no surprise we would harm animals as well. Thank you for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts.
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I, too, have a hard time with the chicken trucks.
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Thanks for reading Ms. Belinda
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My pleasure.
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Great post. We see chicken and turkeys in those trucks. I often wonder how many make it alive to the destination
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Thank you for reading!
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I am a meat eater too and these days not only because I like the taste of it, but also out of principle. We are humans, we need meat to stay healthy and yes maybe not each day, but still we need it. However at the same time, if we are intelligent enough to evolved this far, we surely can come up with a better way to treat the ones we eat?
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I agree. Some dogs are treated and feed better than we treat some humans. It is out of balance.
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