Backyard Chicken Hypocrisy: From Fancy Hens to the ‘Agency’ to Kill | Rising Anxieties

Uh, I don't know what. Uh, sometimes it feels so hard... well, I've talked about this before to talk about these issues when really the only issue on on our mind is Minneapolis and all of the other travesties. It's not just Minneapolis. It's, you know, the, the whole nightmare. But, uh, but yeah, what I talk about is animals and I, you know, I think it's not only important to talk about because it's important and because maybe we'll have the opportunity to make change, even more so in a time of change. But because it's all the same thing, it's all the same fucking thing. ' Cause people think they can do this to people who don't have whatever kind of power that they have and they think they can do this and you know, too often they can. That's a fact.

All right, so I'm in a mood. I'm sorry. There's also, it's also nine degrees here that's Fahrenheit. That's not wind chill, that's nine degrees. And, um, there's a foot of snow on the ground that I have to, like, remove from certain parts of my walk. So, so, yeah, I'm in a mood. Um, as you know, well one should be in order to do Rising Anxieties.

And, uh, the first story put me in the worst mood. So thank you Michael Dorf for sending it. It's from the New York Review of Books and, uh, Bang The Drumstick Slowly by Ian Frazier. About 26 billion chickens occupy Earth, but apart from the lucky ones in backyards, most are condemned to the hellscape that is industrial farming.

And you're like thinking, well, why did that make you mad? I mean, that sounds, that sounds legit. Yeah, it is, but you know, as usual, it stops short of the obvious conclusion. This is reviewing three books Under the Henfluence by Tove Danovich, Yardbirds by Philip Levy, and Hatched Dispatches from the Backyard Chicken Movement by Gina Warren.

Uh, Under the Henfluence has been out for a while and I actually looked into whether we should interview, uh, the author or, you know, seek to interview the author when it came out, and I decided we shouldn't because she eats eggs. And, you know, I'm tired of apologizing for drawing the line. Like I know that I try really hard on this podcast to be, to be open to, to all of the wonderful people who are working to try to get people to cut down and, but you know, I'm in a mood today.

It starts out by talking about how two of the authors, Tove Danovich and Philip Levy are sick of how people make fun of chickens. Who makes fun of chicken? Like what do people seriously make fun of chickens? Like how pathetic is that? Like you abuse these animals to the hilt and you make fun of them, like, 'cause they're birds?

I don't know. He says that chickens were bred to be funny, and then he cites some like weird breeds that apparently look odd. Well, it's people who did that! The red jungle fowl, the chicken's ancestor, still lives in the wild in Southeast Asia, so that's good that they point that out.

After having been caught, the hard part, ha ha ha, chickens are readily portable and humans in their wanderings took them all over. I guess that is an explanation for why there are chickens everywhere. And, uh, he goes into some of the history of how people have occasionally, uh, like gotten into this whole like chicken breeding thing and, and points out that we didn't use to, in the US, eat a lot of chicken.

It was, uh, actually during the war, I mean the big war, World War II, uh, that they wanted to save the, the, the beef for, um, the soldiers, and so they encouraged people to eat chicken. I had never heard that before. Um, and then, but the really big thing is that um, the chicken business had been mostly in New England and then it went south where the weather was warmer, and for some, you know, for a bunch of reasons, it was a really good place to raise, uh, birds and invent factory farming. And the workforce was non-unionized and cheap. So yeah, and then the really big thing, according to Ian, I don't know whether this is true, came in the fall of 1983 with the introduction of the McNugget.

I mean, I guess it's true, but I, I mean, I was a kid before 1983, uh, and um, we ate chicken a lot. Sorry, chickens.

Um, but apparently the McNugget made chickens, not just something you had for dinner, but something you had all the time and, you know, it was a snack food. God. The chickenification of the cuisine has been global. Cute. Uh, and mentioning KFC. At any one time, about 26 billion chickens occupy the planet. Always good to remember when you use the word, um, billion, which I think might mean something different in the uk. But anyway, the way it's used here means a thousand million. I think it, it has more of an impact. Uh, so 26,000 million chickens occupy the planet and 65 billion are slaughtered annually.

So that shows how short their lives are. There's only 26 billion at one one time, but they kill lots more than that every year. Fuckers.

They comprise 70% of all birds on the planet by weight. Um, he does go into, into the horrors of, of chicken production, um, male chicks being sent to the macerator. How roosters are just not, uh, are just too much for the modern world, he says, and you know, nobody wants a rooster. I mean, the real reason so many male chicks are killed is because they're not good to raise for, um, eggs, obviously, or, or well, they, I mean, they are raised and they're raised for meat, but you know, they're killed so young. They're not, they don't really become roosters yet. Um, they're still peeping.

Uh, but you know, in backyard chicken, um, raising, apparently they kill the roosters too because they're against the law because they, you know, cockadoodledoo uh. And he, he found, he found Tove Danovich's identification with her chickens moving.

She apparently really loves her chickens. Talks about depression and anxiety and how spending time with the chickens going outside in the fresh air and sunlight put her in, put her in a better mood. Like who the fuck cares? Sorry. She did adopt rescue chickens, so good for her. That's better. Um, but you know, it's this, it's this, uh, the thing that drives me crazy about, about backyard chicken people, even the ones who rescue chickens, is that they know. And she has said in interviews we couldn't possibly raise raise eggs at, or chicken... I mean, I don't think she eats chickens, at least anymore. Um, at this rate, at the rate we eat them. So the conclusion is, Well, I can eat them because, you know, I have backyard chickens, but you know the rest of you. Fuck you.

Um, I'm, I have to stop, I have to stop cursing. I really do. I think I've mentioned before, I find my cursing annoying now that everybody does it. So they, they're following me, I know. Um, alright, so she adopted the chickens, which is good. And uh, you know, it does talk a bit about how disabled the chickens are, uh, particularly their beaks having been cut off.

But how and how at first they're very listless and then they kind of like after a while, turn into chickens. Um, alright, uh, what else did he, he talks about the whole urban agriculture scene. This book Hatched, which, uh, is by this woman, Gina Warren, who sees raising chickens as an act of resistance, of people reclaiming autonomy and agency with their consumer identities.

Yeah. She kills her chickens. Um, you know. She's tough. You know, these tough women who can bring themselves to, to murder animals. It's, it's just noble. That's all I can say. It's just noble.

Her point has nothing to do with fashion though. I love this. It's entirely political and environmental. It's not about fashion. Oh my God. These people.

The quote here, anything that reminds us we have agency is worthwhile. Really anything? Anything that we have reminds us we have agency? Uh, this, if nothing else, is one of the simplest lessons of the backyard chicken movement. Individuals can raise livestock and produce eggs just steps from their kitchen.

Oh my God. Oh my God. There's lots of things that we can do that that shows us that we have agency that are really, really evil. We could murder somebody, that would give us agency. We could murder a chicken, that would also give us agency. It's not good agency. Agency is is choices. You can then, you can choose to do something good with your agency or bad with your agency.

Nothing to do with fashion. It's everything to do with fashion! Um. Then he, he ends with this poignant, uh, poignant story of how he was driving. You know, it's always the only place ever anybody ever sees chickens is on the highway. Um, so they always write about that. And he was riding on this, uh, four lane road in eastern Arkansas when a chicken truck passed by carrying broiler hens from the mass prison where they'd been raised to the factory where they would be slaughtered.

Yeah, like, like, good talk. I know it's good that they're talking like this, but the idea that they can talk like this without doing anything about it just makes me insane. Uh, they were in wire cages stacked one on top of the other. The birds looked like individually sorted white feather hats on their way to a bargain basement.

Oh, good, you found a cute turn of phrase. Their cages were designed to be too small to allow them to stand up so they would not fall over and injure themselves during stops and starts. In a few moments, the chickens and I were aligned. I look closely at them. They all faced forward and they kept their heads down.

They journeyed uncomplainingly toward whatever development awaited them. They looked almost heroic to me. You know what? Fuck you.

Tell people to not eat chicken. There's nothing in this that implies that people shouldn't eat chicken. In fact, it apparently gives you agency. All right, that's my main thing I'm gonna talk about today, you'll be glad to hear.

Obviously I'm in a mood, but I have a bunch of stories i'm just gonna mention briefly. Um, something in Sentient Media, which we should all be aware of in case anybody we know, uh, eats those bodies of, uh, poor benighted chickens in Costco. Those tiny little chickens, uh, who are, you know, treated horrifically.

We've talked about that before. Uh, Costco chicken processing plant keeps failing tests for salmonella. This is by, uh, Sophie Kevany for, um, Sentient Media. And that's something that people actually care about, you know, if they'll get sick. Uh, so apparently, um.... oh, it's not, I don't think this is the rotisserie chickens.

This might be the raw chicken. Anyway, uh, Farm Forward has done a, a report there, um, since their Fremont plant opened in 2019, it has consistently failed the USDA's monthly rolling tests for salmonella, receiving the worst category three rating 92% of the time. Over a more recent period from September, 2023 through July, 2025, the Fremont plant received a category three rating one hundred percent of the time. Just something to tell your friends and family if they're eating chicken.

All right, another one, um, Help protect the US from African swine fever from Pork Business. This is one of their newer, you know, the newer diseases that they're worried about. Uh, there's a lot of diseases that they're worried about. It's hard to keep up with them all. Uh, so... biosecurity is the best defense to keep foreign animal disease out, USDA wants to see how you put it into practice.

And so what they're doing here. This is their approach to African swine fever at the USDA. Um, I'm not saying it's the only thing they do, but honestly, uh, they want us swine producers, small farms and pig owners to participate in the I Protect Pigs photo contest, as part of this Year's Protect Our Pigs campaign. It reinforces steps all pig owners can take to help protect our nation's swine industry. So just take a picture of what you are doing to prevent African swine fever. That's that, that that'll work, for sure. Um, alright from wattpoultry.com, Prison time for cultivated meat sellers.

This is an Arizona bill. I think there are other states that also have prison time. Yeah, I think Florida's does. State Rep, Lupe Diaz who introduced the legislation says he does not trust the product or the way it is made. Well, good for, uh, Representative Diaz, who is a Republican of Benson. Um, and, uh, you know, if he doesn't understand it, then we probably shouldn't do it.

That's, that's my standard. Just ask Lupe. It's just a bill at the moment. But it, yeah, it would, it would mandate prison time for people who try to sell cultivated chicken. Uh, all right. From, uh, Drover's, Legislation to delist the Mexican wolf advances. So you are worried that Congress isn't doing anything these days, that they're, they're emasculated, well, that's the wrong word 'cause they're not all men, but you know what I mean? Emasculated in the sense that, uh, it, it, it refers to everybody. That they're, they're not functioning. That they're letting our country fall into pieces and, um, letting that madman, um, just, just destroy America. But no, they're doing something!

They're moving forward legislation bipartisan, on a bipartisan, uh, basis to kill wolves, Mexican wolves. They say, uh, according to the meat industry, Mexican wolves have sufficiently recovered, and so now we should start killing them. Um, also in a quote in here, this makes clear it's not just Mexican wolves, that's what they're working on at the moment, but they also wanna go after to gray wolves and grizzly bears.

They think that all of these animals are sufficiently recovered, and we should make the world safe for cattle ranchers to make money by protecting their cattle, who shouldn't be there in the first place. Um, all right. All right. All right. What's next? From Feedstuffs, Grants awarded to explore cattle methane mitigation innovation.

I don't think these grants are from the government, but you know, you never know. There's often government money behind, um, industry things. But as far as I know. This is from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the Innovation Center for US Dairy. Um, and I just don't know their funding sources, but they're awarding all these grants to develop scalable and commercially feasible innovations that reduce enteric methane emissions, which cattle release by burping or exhaling as part of the natural digestive process. Uh, great. I have another solution.

They're obviously worried about this though. I mean, this is definitely a legit rising anxieties, uh, uh, article because they would not be spending this money. It's not that it's a fortune for them. I mean, you know, it's in the, but it's in the millions of dollars and, uh, they're worried. They know.

All right, finally, in case again, you are worried that your legislators aren't doing anything. Well, this is specifically for Georgia legislatures, but they're obviously hard at work because from Watt Poultry, we learned that Georgia could soon have an official chicken wing flavor. Five state representatives hope the rest of the state will join them in celebrating the greatness of the lemon pepper wing.

Yeah. Our, our, our, our government at work. Georgians have, according to this article, elevated chicken wings into a cultural experience, giving birth to unique local flavors and traditions.

All right. Uh, for those listening, not watching, I just gave a silent scream and that's where I'm, that's, that's where I'm gonna end it.

Uh, before I do, I'll just remind you that, uh, last Friday's interview was with Laura Lee Cascada on the Aquaculture Accountability Project. She's doing great work. Um.

On Thursday, of course, we'll have The Hen Report. This Friday I'm gonna be doing the Animal Law podcast. I haven't recorded it yet, but it's with Wayne Hsiung and Steffan Seitz about Wayne's appeal from his conviction in the open rescue case in, um, in Sonoma, so that should be really good. I am looking forward to that conversation.

So thank you for joining me today. I hope, I hope it wasn't too painful. I mean, I am really beside myself, but it was good to talk about, you know, stuff and be... it was good to get my inner sarcasm out.

I mean, you can't be sarcastic about what's happening in the rest of the country. Uh, you know, what's happening in Minnesota, what's happening with the government sponsored murders, like the whole thing. You can't be sarcastic about it. It's just, it, it's just too horrifying. I, it just, I wanna cry.

So thank you for putting up with me today. And don't forget to, you know, do all the things, subscribe, like, comment, and follow us. Uh, ' cause that helps us, and I'm supposed to say that before I let you go. I love you guys.