Thinking Like a Chicken

In today's podcast episode, I discuss the plight of chickens and all farmed animals condemned to the world of genetic manipulation, a global industry devoid of ethics and empathy for animals whose bodies are being manipulated for specific culinary traits and who are being experimentally bred to appear not to mind the environmental “stressors” of filth, excessive heat, lack of personal space, disease organisms, brutal handling, and whatever else generates unlimited funding. Please join me. – Karen Davis

In today's podcast I discuss the advantages versus the disadvantages of Single-Issue Campaigns for animals, including the difference between Focused Campaigns and Closed-Circle Campaigns and why this difference matters. Please join me.

Of all the cruelties inflicted on hens forced to live in battery cages, one of the worst, perhaps even the worst of all, is preventing them from standing up on their legs and feet and walking. Unconfined, chickens walk constantly and often pretty fast. And they run! Today I will tell you about a hen rescued from a battery cage who we feared would never be able to stand up let alone take steps and walk. But she had a mind to do just that. Tune in to hear Sarah's story.

Today's podcast episode, Letter to a New Vegan, is based on an essay I wrote for an anthology of this name, addressing the person who has chosen to abandon a diet of carnage in favor of an animal-free, slaughter-free diet. While so many of the products we buy incorporate hidden animal suffering, the most blatant is food. Food is also more than anything else we consume the most personal and intimate. Determination to throw off years of culinary conditioning can be daunting at first, but it can be done and I urge that it must be done and discuss in this podcast a few of the challenges and, best of all, the lasting rewards from my own experience of being vegan. Tune in! 

Absurd as it may sound to anyone familiar with chickens, some people, including one high-profile animal pontificator who shall be nameless, have claimed based on false and unquestioned assertions, that chickens do not mind seeing and hearing other chickens being slaughtered in their presence. This would include seeing one or more members of their flock being tortured by humans or harmed by a natural predator such as a hawk or a fox. In this podcast episode I address the question of traumatic empathy in chickens. Please join me.

Leafleting for animals in a public place is a way to reach out to people, individually and directly, by giving them concise information to take away and read when they have time to contemplate the information. Leafleting is both an easy and a challenging way to extend our message – by challenging, I mean to the leafleter. Why? Because it requires approaching strangers with a brochure the strangers are not asking for and may not wish to receive. We are putting ourselves – and the animals we desperately want people to care about and help– in a position of being rejected, even taunted. In this episode, I discuss the challenges and rewards of leafleting for animals.

Have you ever, when speaking up for animals, been accused of “anthropomorphism”? This accusation is often a handy way for animal exploiters to intimidate and silence objections to the mistreatment for animals as well as to ridicule insistence that nonhuman animals have feelings and awareness just as we do. In this podcast I distinguish between false anthropomorphism and empathic anthropomorphism as quite different ways of inferring what other animals are communicating about themselves through their self-expressions. Please join me.

The media practice of ignoring, trivializing and demeaning farmed animals is well characterized by the phrase “Dominance Through Mentioning.” In Dominance Through Mentioning, disturbing truths and unorthodox viewpoints are “mentioned” so that the press can claim “balanced” coverage, but is it? Tune in to learn more.

Most people who share their home with one or more companion animals take it for granted that their companions have feelings including emotions of happiness and wellbeing. Although the behaviors they observe support their presumption, there are those in the scientific establishment who continue to disparage the belief that other animals have emotions or even consciousness, claiming it is “unscientific,” “sentimental,” and “anthropomorphic” to ascribe emotions to a Hen or a Hamster or a Horse. Tune in for more on today's topic.

It's easy for an animal activist to become consumed with rage and despair to the point of exhaustion and burnout confronted with the horror, each and every day, of our species' relentless assault on other animals. It's important to not let this happen. Here's how and why we must steel ourselves against burning out if we truly care about animals and want to help them.

In today's episode I discuss my concept of what I call the Ethical Deviant as Animal Rights Activist in the socialization process. Why is the Ethical Deviant essential to keeping societies and cultures from becoming stagnant ponds and iron prisons of airless conformity? Please join me for this look at the liberatory animal activist in society – the Ethical Deviant.

Should Robots Be Granted “Personhood” Even if Most or All Nonhuman Animals Are Not?Today I discuss the ideas of altering animals' minds to compete with robotic “intelligence” – manipulating some animals to be fit to be “persons” and others to be fit for industrialized farm life. Please join me for this brief look at a future already here and in the making.

In the 20th century, chickens who had formerly been bred to be “all-purpose” birds for flesh and eggs on the farm were genetically divided into two distinct “divisions of labor” – one designed for egg production, the other for meat production. In today's episode, I discuss how today's commercialized chickens embody the condition of forced labor whereby their bodies have been constructed pathologically to meet the demands of the labor force. Please tune in to learn more.

In today's episode, I tell the story of two hens who came to live in our sanctuary, one as a chick, the other as an adult, and the changes they underwent at our place. Please join me as I relive my experience with these two very endearing birds.

Farmed animal sanctuaries, including microsanctuaries, are an important part of the animal advocacy movement. How does a farmed animal sanctuary differ from a farm or 4-H? What are these sanctuaries designed to teach? Some advocates still question their contribution to animal liberation. Tune in to hear my opinion and see if you agree.

At first glance, pessimism and negativity may seem like synonymous attitudes toward the world and its prospects for improvement. Both can seem particularly applicable to animal rights activism and the prospect for animal liberation. In today's podcast, I explain how pessimism and negativity differ from each other and why this difference matters. Please join me.

The question has been asked: Do chickens form intentions? Can they form intentions? In this episode I address the question by citing some key examples of intentional behavior that I have observed in the hens living in our sanctuary. Please join me for my interpretation of the minds of chickens as I watch our chickens pursue their personal interests and satisfactions, and the part played by memory and anticipation in getting what they want.

Farmed animal advocates can be frustrated by the language agribusiness uses to describe the animals we seek to liberate from abusive and demeaning usage – both actual and rhetorical. In today's podcast episode I provide examples of terms to avoid and terms to choose when speaking and writing on behalf of farmed animals. Tune in & listen up!  

Agribusiness portrays chickens raised for food as “happy” and “content” in the squalor of their factory-farm environment. Exploiters insist that chickens who have never known anything else cannot “miss” fresh air, sunshine, and personal space. Is this true? In today's podcast I examine this claim including whether farmers really “know” their animals. Tune in and find out how chickens experience their dark world of incarceration, and why they cannot adapt to it.

In the 1980s I was planning to teach college English for the rest of my life. Little did I know until I met her, that this small, abandoned hen would change all that. In this podcast I tell the story of the life and death of Viva, and why she affected me so deeply. Please join me. 

In his own world of chickendom, the rooster is a father, a lover, a food-finder, a guardian, and a sentinel. He was justly praised by a renowned Renaissance writer as “the example of the best and truest father of a family.” Bu in today's world, the rooster has been dealt a tragic fate. In this podcast I talk about three roosters I came to know well in our chicken sanctuary, versus the pitiable plight these proud birds endure in the poultry and egg industry. Please join me to learn more.

To date more than 33 million chickens, turkeys, ducks and other domesticated birds have been destroyed by the U.S. poultry industry and the Department of Agriculture claiming that these massacres are the only way to control the latest round of avian influenza on poultry farms. Millions more birds are being exterminated in Canada and across the globe. Why are factory-farmed birds so susceptible to avian influenza, and what do wild birds have to do with the disease for which they are being blamed? Join me for a look at the causes behind the carnage that the poultry industry and its government allies do not want people to see, but that everyone needs to.

Today I want to tell you about a very special day in May – a day meant for all chickens! May 4th is International Respect for Chickens Day – a day to celebrate chickens, wherever we may be, by doing an inspiring Action of Compassion for these wonderful birds. In this podcast I suggest some things you can do and that others have done through the years to promote kindness and appreciative care for chickens.