Many animals have my heart, but chickens are right up there at the top. I love the sounds they make, their curiosity, motherly qualities, brilliance and work ethic. Just thinking about the sounds chickens makes relaxes and soothes me.

World Animal Protection lists some facts about chickens and one of them is that ‘Chickens explore great distances foraging for food, scratching at the ground to reveal seeds and insects’ and ‘chickens have very interesting bone structures; they have more bones in their necks than giraffes and all their bones are very light.’

This segways into my absolute devastation on how we raise chickens. Unable to forage for food, to scratch in the dirt and eat seeds and insects, to feel the sun on their skin and dirt between their toes. Bred to grow at an explosive rate, far too fast for their light bones to be able to carry their weight. Broiler chickens (as we call them) are slaughtered at 42 days old. Forty two days. Broiler chickens are the chickens we eat for their flesh and these obese babies suffer immensely. Canada seems to have something specifically against chickens given we slaughtered almost 800 MILLION of these sentient individuals last year for food. A record high we need not be proud of.

I came across an old Facebook memory that mentioned I brought chicken and ate chicken at a chicken training camp. What a sentence!! Interestingly, as you will note below I had some understanding that this didn’t seem right.

While I didn’t further explore why I thought my choice to EAT chicken at a chicken training camp was ‘not the best choice,’ I did vow the rest of the camp to not eat chicken. Of course, going right back to eating chicken once camp was over. To be honest, I was proud of myself since as far as I could tell, no one else was actively avoiding eating chicken during camp. This may have been a seed planted for me, this revelation that something didn’t feel right about eating a chicken while training a chicken. It would be like attending a dog training class with my dog Ellie and eating a dog for lunch. Something does not compute here. If you have under 6 minutes to spare, I would highly recommend you PLEASE watch this video on cognitive dissonance by Earthing Ed. He narrates this phenomenon so beautifully.

I recall during chicken camp hearing the chickens’ stories. It was 10 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy, but I recall all chickens getting vet checked and I am quite certain some chickens had to be put down due to health reasons. I recall understanding the chickens wouldn’t go back to where they came from and that the humane society would build a pen for them to live out their lives. I don’t know how long all of the chickens lasted nor do I know how they were acquired or perhaps why they were given up, but I remember feeling a connection to them, hearing a bit of their story and being able to pick up and hold the chickens close, in a way that would offer them support and comfort so they would ease into my arms and not panic.

We further got to know each individual chicken. Some were really feisty to get in there and earn those treats and others were a little slower to action. Some pecked at the cup of food so enthusiastically I quickly learnt not to overfill the cup! No chicken was the same, they were all unique, their personalities shone through. My chicken even won me 1st place in chicken bingo! That meant that she shit a perfect bingo line first before any other chicken. A hilarious badge of honor.

The point of the camp was to showcase how we could apply the powers of positive reinforcement training to ANY species – as we all learn the same. Incrementally we would ‘shape’ the chicken to perform the behaviours we were looking for such as weaving through a little obstacle course or to peck only a particular color. It was a blast working with these chickens and I was astounded at how QUICKLY they learned and how eager they were to put their minds to work.

I told my Opa about chicken camp and he reminded me how I used to spend hours with the chickens. I spent hours with all of his animals and I am disappointed that I never made the vegan connection as a child. Disappointed that I would play with chickens and then go inside and eat one.

Here’s the full picture my opa shared with me:

What can I say except that I believe our true nature is compassion for animals. We love animals. Most people consider themselves animal lovers and yet we are killing billions of land animals per year globally, trillions of life when we factor in fishes and marine life and these numbers are just the animals we kill for food.

We are horrified at other countries that slaughter dogs for meat consumption and yet we don’t bat an eye at what we do to animals in our own country. They cram dogs in cages and kill them with little to no animal rights protection, and we do the same here to chickens and other animals we eat. Why have a heart for one species and not the other? It’s easy to look at those other countries as a problem because eating dogs is not socially acceptable in our country and yet the best reason I can see for continuing to eat the animals we do is ‘we’ve always done it,’ but is that sufficient reason to kill animals? Because we have always done it? Because we like the taste? Because it is convenient? Do you believe that we HAVE to kill animals?

Whoever is still with me, thank you for reading. I promise I am not judging you. As you can see in these reflections I held some contradictory beliefs in the past. If I can change, anyone can. Matters of the heart are always worth exploring. I truly believe there is a benefit to my own soul now that I am no longer consuming death and suffering three times a day. Am I perfect? No. That is not what veganism is about. Am I doing my best? Yes, I believe I am.

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 🙂

p.s. In case you missed my link above, PLEASE watch this video on cognitive dissonance by Earthing Ed.