630 PLAYING CHICKEN

[michaelo]

Before radio, television or the internet, there were chickens, which came in hundreds of colors, shapes, and sizes, and were kept in flocks at family farms and city homes. This history leads us to ask…

Can we bring chickens home from the factory?

[michaelo]

Before radio, television or the internet, there were chickens, which came in hundreds of colors, shapes, and sizes, and which were kept in flocks. Chickens were the entertainment of the day, and much, much more.

Flocks were housed in coops on family farms in the country as well as in the backyards of city homes. The chickens were fed vegetable peelings, table scraps and a couple of handfuls of grain, and then allowed to peck their way around the yard. (Woe be to all bugs!) At night the birds would be secured in their coops.

Chickens cost little to raise, and returned a lot to the families who raised them, including nature’s best source of protein– eggs– as well as fried chicken dinners on Sunday.

A 1906 census showed that in urban areas there was one chicken for every two people. A 1910 survey showed that 88% of farms kept chickens, with flocks averaging 80 birds. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, chickens provided many families with food that simply would not have been available without the domesticated bird.

The technology of the 1940s and beyond allowed for flocks of chickens to be moved indoors, and the small flocks of chickens in family-owned coops expanded to encompass thousands of birds penned up in factory-like buildings owned by giant corporations.

We consumers have, for the most, forgot about the once close relationship we shared with the chicken, and contentedly shop our way up and down sterile, florescent-bright isles of supermarkets to buy “organic” and “free range” food. But having tasted the real thing, to the extent of being raised on it, we pause to ask….

Can we bring our chickens home from the factory?