A question of relationships

I am thinking about relationships. Specifically, the relationship between humans and animals.

Two hens started this thought process. I’m writing this in the early morning, and outside the window I can see our two hens scratching the bedding plants out of a flower bed – bedding plants my wife planted only yesterday.

These hens were escapees from when we reared point-of-lay pullets and, at first glance, they seem to live an idyllic life. They come and go wherever they choose and roost where they like. We don’t feed them, but there’s plenty of food about.

They live the sort of life all hens should live, but it isn’t as simple as that. There are downsides – the biggest being the fox. We used to have four hens, but the fox had two. I expect, eventually, it will have these two as well. I should shut them up at night, but I like the free lifestyle they enjoy.

Poultry production better outdoors?

The consumption of eggs and poultry meat has never been higher. My preferred breakfast of two poached eggs on toast was a 10 out of 10 healthy breakfast in our newspaper recently. If all egg production were left to hens that lived their lives like mine, it just wouldn’t work. As the nights start to draw in, egg production will drop and probably be nil for about four months.

Our hens look, by their very red combs, like they are in full lay, but you’ve got to find their eggs first to get any benefit. The children often come in with lots of eggs, but they have a feeling of age to them. The compromise (for compromise it is), if we are to fill this high demand for eggs, is large-scale free-range egg production.

I am told 70% of birds  kept like this never go outside the shed, but at least they have the chance. The majority seem to prefer to live their lives in close proximity to their food, water and within shelter.

The widespread perception of poultry meat production is very poor, yet there is an almost inevitable desire for its output. We’ve cut the stocking rate in our broiler sheds and more room seems to be a step in the right direction.

A lot of people would like to see table poultry production outdoors and free, like my hens, but we would not get the sort of production people obviously want. If you opened the doors to broiler sheds, only a minority percentage would go outside.

Even the manure produced by intensive poultry is stigmatised. I’ve heard it described locally as “industrial toxic waste” – yet it is the most wonderful manure. Since we’ve used it we have cut our purchases of artificial manure by a third and the earthworm population has doubled. When I tell people this, they don’t want to listen.

There’s little point in according human aspirations to animals that live in intensive facilities, but for individual animals, it’s a different matter.

Animal talk

In the past I have criticised people who humanise animals. However, there’s no worse offender than me. When I milked regularly, I talked to the cows all the time; they rarely reacted. When I kept pigs, I talked to them; pigs are very attentive listeners.

The closest animal relationship I had was with my dog, Mert. He used to go everywhere with me; he doesn’t now as he’s too old and I miss him. He loved going with me in my 4×4, I talked to him and I am sure he knew what I was saying. He had a big thing about joggers and cyclists – he didn’t like them. If we came across them on our travels, as we approached, I would say to him: “Look at the state of these two.” He would leap to his feet, ascertain the side of the car they would be, plunge his head out of the window and bark. The joggers would cower back at the hedge and as we passed them, his swapping tail would miss them by inches.

He didn’t always need my bidding. One day I was driving down a track and two ramblers popped over a stile just in front of me, one asked: “Is this your field and new fence? You’ve blocked the public footpath.” He started waving his arms about aggressively. My window was open; so was the one behind me. His arm came quite close and just avoided a canine snap. Anyway, they had not read their map properly – the stile was still there, but elsewhere in the field.

So, I hold my hands up – I talk to animals, but I still come across examples of humanising animals that confound me.

Recently we acquired, through a vet, a pet dog for my youngest granddaughter. The owners were having difficulty coping with it because they were at work all day. When we collected it, we were given two big boxes of doggy accoutrements, most of which I never knew existed. The dog’s owners were genuinely sorry to see him go, but said he had to spend too much time on his own. To help with this they said they took him to “playschool” – I had never heard of that before.

My sister has a story that is even more bizarre. She was in hospital and the lady in the next bed would say goodnight to her dog every night via Skype. It was quite funny the first time, but after a week it wasn’t so amusing, especially as saying goodnight to her dog usually took an hour.