Got chickens? We know where you live…
It’s Monday morning, it’s unexpectedly snowing rather heavily, we’ve just had two large tom-cats unknown to us declaring war on each other at the bottom of the garden, the chickens ’shouted’ at me because I let them out and then fed them (instead of what I usually do, which is put down the food and water and then let them out). At time of writing this it’s only 8.35am. Welcome to my world!
At the weekend my beloved and I discovered that there is a poultry feed supplier in our local area. It doesn’t just sell stuff for chickens, but for all farm livestock and domestic pets as well, and at a significantly lower price than your average pet shop. All well and good, and very convenient. We went in there for cat litter, some seeds for the cockatiels, and to have a browse. I spotted near the counter a massive bag of organic layers mash—the sand-like stuff chickens are usually fed, and for the same price as the standard variety, around £7.50. I remarked on it, and the guy who ran the shop pointed to a sign displayed on the counter to the effect that all fowl-keepers have to provide their names and addresses when buying feed. I told him that I wasn’t asked at the other feed supplier last weekend, when we got the chickens. He told me the regulations only came into force this week.
Nothing on the news, of course. Only a tiny percentage of newsworthy stories ever make it into the mass media.
I got into conversation with the man, and he believes the new rule is a bit daft. He said it would do nothing to prevent the spread of bird flu, to which I replied, no, but it means that if there ever is a break-out then the government can quickly round-up all the chickens and ducks in people’s back gardens and kill ‘em. Not nice, especially when you consider that domestic fowl can far more easily be brought indoors than in a commercial set-up. I find the latest move, in common with much data collection rife in our society today, somewhat sinister.
The information is stored by the company and not passed on to anyone until such time as central government requests it. We haven’t had to provide our details yet as we have enough feed for another two weeks or more—but come the time we need to buy more, we will have no choice as chickens must, of course, eat.
Governments are notoriously heavy-handed when it comes to disease control, in the past slaughtering millions of cows to stop foot-and-mouth in its tracks, only for this butchery to be later denounced by independent inquiry as ‘completely unnecessary’. It’s the classic out goes the baby along with the bathwater. We’re left with the fear at the back of our minds that the day may come when our (presumably at the time) disease-free and healthy chickens will be taken away from us by the Men in Black.
Large intensive farm concerns such as Bernard Matthews get major outbreaks of bird flu, in part I am convinced due to the cramped conditions the animals have to endure, plus the fact that the birds are imported from areas that have had previous outbreaks, and the government dishes up compensation from the pockets of the people. Home farmers, however, can expect no hand-outs in the event that our chickens and ducks and whatever are taken away. Besides, how would you ever explain to your kids that Big Brother took their pets away and killed them, then burned the bodies?
Of course, it can be argued that the reason for the change is to prevent domestic fowl from being rushed into garages and sheds at the first sign of a bird flu outbreak, to be hidden away from danger and government interference. That might happen. But personally I’d want to get our hens checked out, and if they had the virus, I’d have them put down because it’s an awful thing for a bird to die from.
The problem with that approach, entirely reasonable to the home farmer, is that successive governments have tended to go for the ‘destroy all’ solution, despite diseases of all kinds coming back time and again even with wholesale slaughter operations. Those cows in their millions that died? We still have foot-and-mouth, and bluetongue as well. Most of those cows were disease-free but their meat ended up in burning pyres across the countryside. In the event of a bird flu epidemic, it seems likely that all birds raised for meat and eggs in any given area will be wiped out. But what about the sparrows, skylarks, seagulls, blue tits, etc? Are we to expect Men in Black parading our high streets with shot-guns raised in the air to shoot every bird in the UK? Will old ladies be seen weeping on their doorsteps as their budgies are carted off, their cages still covered in lovely floral-print PVC night-covers?
I refuse to get hysterical about the risk to humans from bird flu, which is currently minimal and confined to those working with birds in unsanitary conditions, in large quantities, and all of the time, in the Far East. Yet there are some in the UK who have already abandoned the idea of eating eggs, from which there is no risk of catching bird flu for anyone. At the opposite end of the psychological spectrum we have millions still happy to buy cheap chicken raised in Hell and forced to swim in its own muck and that produced by its thousand-plus neighbours in the shed. And whatever views people have on bird flu, they consume all manner of chemical additives in shop-bought food products without even reading the ingredients labels, let alone comprehending how the contents affect their bodies and minds.
Badgers are on the hit-list again, with many calling for a mass cull of these beautiful creatures because they allegedly spread tuberculosis to cattle. Previous culls have apparently only spread the virus, because the badgers cotton on to the fact that they’re being hunted and become refugees as it were, moving from their established homes to new ones. For a cull to succeed in eradicating the problem, it would have to be a sustained act of genocide, wiping badgers out completely. No more badgers in the UK. This cannot happen. If push comes to shove, which has the greater right to exist—man-made cattle pumped up with chemicals, or creatures that are native to the UK and have evolved over millennia to succeed in their habitats? I’m not saying we should have to make the choice. I am saying some would argue that we do need to make it, and that the badger should lose out. We just can’t stop tinkering with the natural world. One inevitable consequence is disease.
In common with many, I was taught at school about the web of life, the food chain, and the interdependency of all things. I don’t know if they teach this stuff in schools today, but I do know that you can’t wipe out one species, moral issues of doing that aside, and not expect to see bad things happen to other creatures as a result. A simple, easy-to-understand example is the ladybird. A pretty bug, liked irrespective of the fact that it does a damn fine job of dealing with aphids. But if ladybirds were killed off, as they often are through use of indiscriminate pesticides, then the aphid population would (and does) explode in number.
I’m not sure what the solution to the problems of bird flu, tuberculosis in cattle, and other disease/livestock issues of this type might be. I only know that you don’t solve complex problems by dropping lead weights onto them. Sadly, our politicians from all parties tend these days to lack intelligence (or they don’t seem to display any in the things they come out with). They’d rather adopt ostensibly easy fixes, irrespective of whether they will actually work, than sit down and hear expert testimony from a wide variety of sources. They also prefer not to discuss the things for which there are no fixes available to peddle whether efficacious or not. Did you, for example, know that the entire world currently has only nine weeks’ stock of grain in reserve? That another bad year—likely, given the increasingly freaky weather worldwide—could see the biggest shortage ever?
So, if we have to prioritise, which is to be? An expensive and immoral cull on badgers, tracking domestic livestock owners so that their animals can all be killed if one chicken sneezes within a hundred-mile radius, or efforts put in place to ensure we all still have bread on the table in a year’s time (and can afford to pay for it)? My vote is for the grain crisis to be addressed. Bird flu is, for the time being, and possibly forever, for the birds. And as for the badgers, we cannot kill them all and killing a relative few has dubious benefits if any—so why not investigate if there are other things that can be done, hopefully to provide protection to both badgers and cattle?
tags: animals, badgers, bird flu, chickens, culling, databases, disease control, government
3 comments on “Got chickens? We know where you live…”
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
So, when the time comes, give them the required information. And then start practicing the following:
“Chickens? Oh, no, not any more - we ate the last one weeks ago. So, no problems here. What? No, you can’t come in and search the house!”
And you might want to have a look at this article in Discover magazine:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/14-dna-pollution-may-be-spawning-killer-microbes
Jami’s last blog post..You can’t spell LGBT with HRC
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Do you have to bring ID to confirm your name & address? Just give them a false one if not!
On a slightly related note, i was at a workshop for squatters last year and they get around legal problems for electricity etc by simply using a false name when opening an account. So long as the bill is being paid, it’s perfectly legal, and they’re right, when I moved not one utility company needed proof of my identity. Even BT just opened a new account, and their bills are often accepted as proof of identity!
Caspar’s last blog post..Broadway Market & Angel
March 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hi guys. I’m not sure about the ID part. But I don’t know what the penalties for lying would be, either, if any. I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of using deception to buy food for pets–it’s insane that we live in a world where I could even write this sentence. I’m not in favour of adhering to unfair laws, and will never be a person who says ‘the law is the law’ and never questions it, but the implied criminality of lying just to be able to feed the chickens is just obscene, I mean, it’s obscene that they’ve done this, put us into this position…
Casp, I did know about the utlities. They’re so keen to sign us up they don’t check our details! We’ve been signed up before by doorstep callers faking our signatures–a clever move if they’d had our names to start off with, but, haha, they didn’t. Which made it all very easy, if annoying, to correct and get some compensation for.
Jami, that article was truly terrifying but thank you for sharing it. Always better to have eyes and minds opened and not closed… x
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