Thursday, May 4 is International Respect for Chickens Day! This day was declared in 2005 to promote compassion and respectful treatment of chickens and other domestic fowl.

Before you begin to guffaw at a day dedicated to fowl, please take a minute to learn about the conscious awareness and capacities of chickens. Educating ourselves about animal sentience and fully looking at our actions toward them can lead to greater compassion and action that helps our health, the animals, and ultimately the health of the planet as well. Please join me today in considering the following:

What you may not know about chickens and their abilities

Chickens can recognize more than 100 faces of both humans and other chickens — even in photos! Chickens even remember positive or negative experiences with the faces they recognize and pass that information on to members of their flocks.

Hens chirp to their babies while they’re in the eggs, and the chicks chirp back. They also sound about 30 different calls to communicate with each other, expressing everything from “thanks for the food” to “there’s a predator in the coop.”

Chickens use past experiences to inform their decisions. They will remember enjoying certain foods or what brought danger to their flock and make decisions based on those experiences. They pass down knowledge from generation to generation, if given the chance.

Chickens are dreamers just like us, and they can experience rapid eye movement during sleep.

Chickens can solve puzzles by pecking the pieces with their beaks to let their human helpers know which ones go where. Chickens also have been caught on tape finding treats hidden under cups. They have mirror neurons in their brains, just like humans.

Chickens can see all colors just like we do; they have full-color vision.

When a chicken is happy, cozy, and safe, they will close their eyes and purr softly.

What we do to chickens

Aboutd9.22 billion chickens are slaughtered in America every year to satisfy people’s conditioned belief they need to eat animals, or their byproducts, for protein.

All male chickens in the egg-laying industry are horrifically killed by grinding them up alive or suffocation in a bag within days of their birth — this includes baby males born to supply baby hens for backyard farmers.

No animals willingly allow us to slaughter them for food. The pain is the same for every living being as it is for us. Chickens have the same pain receptors in their brains that we do.

What is happening with bird flu and eggs

Did you wonder why those dozen eggs are four times the price they were a few years ago? In 2022, over 22 million chickens were killed in the U.S. alone due to fear of the spread of bird flu. In Iowa, Rembrandt factory farm burned alive 5.3 million chickens via ventilation shutdown plus, in 24 hours. This is why eggs are so expensive. Not enough unsick, or non-flu exposed, healthy birds to supply the eggs. The bird flu has now jumped to mammals such as mountain lions and bears, as of early 2023. Numerous zoonotic poultry diseases are on the rise and the bird flu continues flourishing unchecked today.

How you can observe International Respect for Chickens Day

Chickens are amazing birds that can be raised as pets. They are smart, curious, and loving. On this day, you can start to raise one as a pet and not as a food source, and you too can hear the purr of a happy chicken!

Go plant based with your diet. A plant-based lifestyle is characterized by choosing not to use animal products. This is a day to choose and commit to a plant-based life and say no to meat and other animal-derived foods — for your health and the planet’s health.

Encourage any local animal farmers you know to transition to plant crops. The fast growing Transfarmation movement finds former animal farmers profitably growing chickpeas, mushrooms, hazelnuts, and many more crops in our Northeast region, in place of laboring at bankrupting animal agriculture. There are supportive resources available for farmers to make this change, including grants, and soon as we continue to lobby for federal subsidy monies as well.

Do your own deep dive research into what really happens day in and day out in the egg-laying and meat industries so that you can know the truth about what has been going on behind closed doors to inform your decisions.

Kim Clark lives in Greenfield.

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