Peer-Reviewed Scientific Article Concludes that Chickens Are Behaviorally, Cognitively and Emotionally Complex Individuals

In early March, we received a call about a couple of chickens roaming around a rest stop. Knowing how dangerous it is for chickens to be loose and unprotected, we immediately set out to see if we could locate them. After a long and thorough search of the area where they were spotted, we still hadn’t located the birds. We were close to giving up, fearing the worst, when we noticed a small, white ball of fluff in a dense patch of trees and brush.

Bessie, Satchmo, and Bird spent the first four months of their lives in an aquarium on a third-floor apartment balcony in Los Angeles County.

It was the Thursday before Memorial Day, one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, when we got the call: 60 “broiler” chickens had fallen off a transport truck headed for a Brooklyn live market.

Officers who stopped a truck in Glendale, CA, in early October thought they had a routine traffic violation on their hands.

We almost didn’t meet Jane. Last week, she was on her way to slaughter, along with dozens of other “broiler” chickens.

With the skyrocketing popularity of the backyard chicken coops, more people are raising chickens for meat at home — some as a hobby and others, with good intentions, hoping to circumvent the ills of the factory farm system.

All of the baby turkeys were underweight and partially bald. Several were afflicted with enlarged joints and curled toes — signs of malnourishment.

On May 15, 2011, an exuberant throng of vegetarians, many wielding signs and more than a few in full costume, marched through New York City in its fourth annual Veggie Pride Parade.

Clementine could not be blamed for her initial distrust of humans. She was, after all, recently imperiled by a bit of ill-conceived human mischief.