As I predicted:
Throughout Missouri and probably the nation, people are deciding that they want to raise chickens in their suburban and urban backyards (see stories in St. Louis and Springfield). These people are doing it as part of an environmental nutbar fad and they’re doing it with a bit of Internet research and without any experience in farming or treating livestock qua livestock instead of livestock qua food-providing-pet.
Ergo, when their circumstances change, when they get tired of them, or when they reach the end of the hens’ productive years, people are going to need to get rid of these damn birds. Are they going to slaughter them? Of course not! They’d just as soon slay their bichon frise or lifestyle accessory only child.
In 2013, the New York Post reports "Hipster urban farmers learn that chickens are hard to raise, animal shelters inundated with unwanted hens":
Raising chickens in backyard coops is all the rage with nostalgia-loving hipsters but apparently the facial hair obsessed faux farmers often don’t realize that raising hens is loud, labor intensive work because animal shelters are now inundated with hundreds of unwanted urban fowl.
From California to New York, animal shelters are having a hard time coping with the hundreds of chickens being dropped off, sometimes dozens at a time, by bleary-eyed pet owners who might not have realized that chickens lay eggs for only two years but live for a decade or more.
Amazing how the forward-leaning and forward looking don’t see very far forward, ainna?
(Link via Ed Driscoll.)
