I had chickens in Africa.

I had chickens in Africa.

Moses and me, there are my chickens and Moses's chickens.

Body #1: Chicken we are eat

Nice chicken

When you see chicken restaurant’s advertisements on TV or with pictures whatever, what do you think of? I am sure you would imagine eating yummy chicken and had got greedy like kind of want to call a chicken restaurant to order nice chicken. When we go shopping to buy some uncooked chicken, we just scan some shelves and pick some well packed chicken which looks normally fresh and clean. Recently many people in Korea like to describe the chicken as peace, justice or even a god.

I had chickens in Africa

Actually, I had chickens in Africa. I lived in a country side of Tanzania. There was no nice mart sort of all furnished. So when I wanted to eat chicken I had to go to a market and choose a chicken in a cage and see the moment the chicken is killed. It was tiresome and the price is even more expensive than Korea. So I decided to buy a native chicken for raising that. Raising chickens is not that difficult. Once putting a chicken or more in a small place which has just a roof, and making them sleep a night, then surprisingly they consider that place their house. So in the morning, they go outside, walk around, feed themselves and when sun goes down, they go back to their house. I didn’t have to give them food. And my hen produced sons and daughters and later they could recognize me. So when I was coming back my home, my chickens ran to me and welcomed me. I loved them. But one day I wanted to eat chicken and I slaughtered some. Even though they were nice to me, I cut their necks. Raising chickens wasn’t hard but eating chicken took a long time because I had to clean them up. Whenever I killed chickens, I had to see their blood and I felt like they tell me "don’t kill me! please." In order to eat chicken, I had to deal with reality of how we get meat. Since then, I have thought about how people eat animals.

I was killing some chickens....

Body #2: Large-scale Slaughter

Start of eating animals

Mankind has eaten animals from the Paleolithic era to now. At the Paleolithic era, people had no many options for surviving because they didn’t know how to do agriculture. As time went on, people could accumulate many hunting techniques and even be familiar with many animals. And finally people learned how to make some animals domesticated about 10,000 years ago at that time human had already started agriculture.

Animals under control

And then now for some reason, the domesticated animals are being produced under industrialized conditions. Even though I can’t compare exactly between 10,000 years ago and now because there is not enough evidence, I think no one denies that the present age consumes the most amount of meat and will demand more meat in the future even though I am not sure people would control livestock well against the nature power such that contagious diseases or climate changes.

My hen was protecting her babies.

Large-scale slaughter

Anyway, consuming a lot of meat means that we are killing a lot of animals. According to a book, eating animals, published in 2009, people ate or killed 50 billion chickens a year. Suppose that the all chickens are produced in mechanized hatcheries, another 50 billion male chicks are killed immediately after their birth, because chickens sold in markets usually are hens so roosters are useless for business people. If we remember that other than chicken, people like to eat other various meats, it is a really large-scale slaughter.

How are chicks treated in mechanized hatcheries.

Conclusion

The effects of industrialization have brought us good things, but we have become inhuman as the horrible realities hide. I think the way of considering animals just literally goods leads to an inhumane livestock industry. So we shouldn’t forget that any meat we eat comes from other lives.

In Tanzania, people usually don't lock chikens into a small cage.

**I wrote this for giving a speech at Toastmasters meeting on June, 2015.