Easily Replaceable Livestock

Why so many people have trouble seeing chickens beyond their price tags

“Personally I would never waste the money on such cheap and easily replaceable livestock.”

Whenever someone posts in a chicken group asking whether it’s “crazy” to take their chicken to see a vet, there’s always at least one answer like this. I know it’s coming and yet I’d love to never see it again.

There are many good arguments against taking a chicken to the vet: for one, there aren’t many veterinarians with experience treating chickens (or ones who will see them at all) which can lead to incorrect diagnoses. It can be expensive; while people might have one or two dogs that need vetting, the calculus is different in a flock of fifteen chickens. Some vets will provide medicine to the entire flock in a case of a parasite or illness that can spread between them but others don’t feel comfortable practicing flock medicine after seeing only one chicken. Suddenly one vet appointment becomes fifteen. Those are valid concerns. Why spend money on bad information or insufficient treatment?

But we don’t provide better or worse care for our pets based on their market value. And chickens, for some people, are exactly that.

Photo by: Artem Beliaikin

Plenty of people get dogs and cats for free or for less money than the average vet appointment. There are thousands of traditional pets in shelters waiting for homes yet we don’t refer to them as “easily replaceable”. We recognize that pets are not commodities; they’re individuals with personalities and quirks that their owners wouldn’t trade in for triple or quadruple their values.

The seven chickens in my flock are as much pets as my two dogs. I would hate to lose the friendly hens as much as the ones like Loretta who has never been held or petted willingly in the almost four years I’ve had her. It’s still fascinating to watch her form and lose friendships with the other hens. I feel honored when she sits near me to take a nap in the sun. I couldn’t honestly say she likes me all that much. I love her anyway—grumpiness and all. If she got sick, I would take her to the vet just as quickly as I would the rest of the flock.

But it’s hard when most people’s experience with chicken is looking for the cheapest kind they can take home for dinner. Every time I’ve gone to the grocery store throughout my entire life, I’ve seen chicken parts with price tags on them behind the meat counter. Low low prices. Historically, chickens have been a grocery-store loss leader. Stores would advertise chicken at prices below cost to tempt people to come in (and do the rest of their shopping). Even now when inflation and supply chain issues have raised prices on most foods, rotisserie chicken remains cheap. Society does a lot to reinforce the idea that chickens are an animal that’s not worth much. So we’ve gotten used to treating them like their lives have little value.

In farming this shows up in welfare standards. Chickens are exempted from humane slaughter rules that apply to pigs and cows. During the current avian flu outbreak, nearly 40 million birds in the United States have been killed to prevent the spread of this disease. The poultry industry has used a process known as “ventilation shutdown” on the vast majority of these birds. The fans are simply shut off and heat turned on until the animals die—hours later—from overheating. In the last avian flu outbreak in 2015 birds were killed using faster and more humane (though not ideal) methods with carbon dioxide or firefighting foam. There have been news articles and protests about the use of ventilation shutdown but little notice from consumers. I’ve heard more people complain about the price of eggs going up because of avian flu than the way the birds are being killed.

On these farms, veterinarians might give the entire flock antibiotics or treatment as needed but no one would ever stop to splint a broken toe or help a hen who was eggbound. Individually, they’re not treated as though they matter at all. Farmed chickens are commodities—cheap and replaceable. It’s become a value judgement on chickens as a species even though it says more about us than it does about them.

Market value doesn’t dictate the value of our pets. It’s about the relationship we build with them, the time we spend together. Whether it’s a chicken or any other animal, their worth doesn’t depend on how much money it costs to bring them home: the amount of love you can put in is endless.

Photo by: Griffinarts

News from the Coop

It’s been a while since I sent one of these newsletters. Hello again! I spent the last half of 2021 finishing the draft of my book Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them and, to be honest, I got a little chickened out. (I suspected it might happen eventually and yet didn’t know if I believed it was possible!) Now that we’re almost halfway through 2022, I find myself having a lot of pent up things to say about chickens!

I wrote this essay for The Washington Post about avian flu. I wrote another for the newsletter Prism about falling in love with my flock. There has been a lot happening in the flock that didn’t make it into the book and a lot happening in the world that I want to share with you all. I figured it was time to start this newsletter back up especially since the book now has an official release date: March 28, 2023!

I may start branching out into talking about other animals besides chickens and our relationships with them but rest assured there will always be plenty of fowl content to peck at.

If you need a chicken fix before the next newsletter, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

If you liked this email, please share the newsletter with a chicken or animal lover in your life! As always, email me at underthehenfluence@gmail.com with any tips or comments. See you next month.

-Tove