Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

When my son was a baby, and then a toddler, I used to read to him, and one of our favorites was a book called Chicka chicka boom boom. The story had something to do with the letter A telling B and B telling C “I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree”. Of course each letter continues to tell the next until…….yup….

Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room?

Of course disaster follows, with letters winding up battered and bruised but all’s well that ends well.

THAT’S a fairy tale!

I’ve been reading a book called Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and ‘chicka chicka boom boom’ runs through my head everytime I read about ‘broilers and layers’ (betcha didn’t know there are basically only two types of chickens being ‘raised’ these days!)

The layers are obviously only female, but since these factory farms haven’t (though I’m sure they are hard at work on it) figured out how to get them to just ‘lay’ females, what to do with the male layers (since they serve no purpose) arises.

So, these male layers are simply…………..destroyed.

That’s right, half of all the layer chickens born in the United States, more than 250 million chicks a year…..are destroyed (page 48 of Eating Animals – source).

How are they destroyed, you might ask, and isn’t that a ‘harsh’ word?

You tell me.

Again, I quote:
Most male layers are destroyed by being sucked through a series of pipes onto an electrified plate. Other layer chicks are destroyed in other ways, and it’s impossible to call these animals more or less fortunate. Some are tossed into large plastic containers. The weak are trampled to the bottom, where they suffocate slowly. The strong suffocate slowly at the top. Others are sent fully conscious through macerators (picture a wood chipper filled with chicks).

Reading this book is akin to watching a train wreck.

I grew up a butcher’s daughter.
We might not have had furniture in our living room (seriously, what purpose does a living room have anyway – we had more fun using the baseboards as goals for shooting hockey cards into) but we always had meat on the table. I wonder now, if the reason my father didn’t ‘dig in’ as heartedly as the rest of us, was because he had gotten ‘up close and personal’ with his food. I never thought twice about bringing chicken hearts, eyes and other offal to school for ‘show and tell’. I never thought about it, period. I don’t think I fully realized where these formaldehyde containered parts once existed.

So now that I know – now what?

I do like my meat, a lot in fact. If I stop eating chicken, will that make a difference? Does it matter?
Is it enough to just understand ‘how’ the food that we serve to our children (and ourselves) is ‘harvested’ and ‘readied’ for our consumption?

I honestly don’t know.

I’m only ½ thru the book. What other revelations will unfold? I’ve read that pigs are as smart as dogs (as are birds) and that man is cruel.

Not all man.

There are those (the author included) that snuck into some factory farms, either to rescue a cow or chicken near death or slit their throat (in order to be ‘less’ cruel) and supply food and water (it is lawful to supply to any domestic animal that is held without food and water for more than 12 consecutive hours, though NOT lawful to remove such animal).

The animal books I devoured (for lack of a better word) growing up, were my friends. Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web, Winnie the Pooh, The Call of the Wild, The Velveteen Rabbit, and so many more.

Chicka Chicka Boom boom indeed.