The Right Kind of Chick Pix
As an antidote to the pornographic images we’ve been discussing (here and here), here are the long-awaited pictures of the chicks here at the sanctuary.
These chicks all came from a school hatching project. Such projects use live animals as objects ostensibly to teach children about growth and development. Instead, they teach children that animals are disposable objects to be brought into the world at whim and disposed of when they are no longer amusing or useful. Often, because of irregularities in incubation, the chicks end up deformed. Even when all goes well during that phase, the poor motherless chicks end up in a classroom terrarium with none of the nurturing or natural surroundings that they need for healthy physical and social development. Then, when they get too big or the children tire of them, they are sent to a farm where they are either killed immediately by a farmer who has no economic use for them or confined and fattened up for slaughter at a young age.
You can read more about the hazards of hatching projects at United Poultry Concerns. If a teacher in your school district is still using cruel and outmoded hatching projects with live animals, share your concerns in person. Bring along this Eastern Shore Sanctuary handout listing alternative lesson plans and relevant online resources. United Poultry Concerns also has a page on alternatives to hatching projects.
And now, the pictures. These chicks were saved by a concerned parent who took responsibility for them and brought them to sanctuary. So, instead of confinement, boredom, and an early death, here they are…
…mobbing a treat…
…exploring the world…
…cooling off with a drink…
…filling their crops with healthy greens…
…enjoying each other’s company…
…and wondering what that giant mammal is up to now.
And here are a couple of bonus shots of other birds here at the sanctuary:
This adolescent hen loves to go onto the roof of the coop in the early evening.
And this is one of the “broiler” hens who loves to munch plantain every evening before bed.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:10 am
[...] While we don’t have any pictures from this summer up online yet, you can get an idea from these pictures posted on SuperWeed last summer. (You can read all of the SuperWeed posts about the sanctuary [...]