August 2021

While at the Colorado State Fair with my father and two sisters, I realized this was the last trip we’re taking for a livestock show together, with my lambs in the trailer. The usual show-dad brain shortage was happening so I figured I had the best opportunity to pick my old man’s brain about what goes through his mind. Here are my findings. For professional reasons, I’ll refer to him as “Mr. Chadborn” for this paper.  

Growing up, Mr. Chadborn spent a lot of time with his father and grandfather; either at the racetrack dealing with thoroughbreds or in the poultry yards caring for his family’s lineage of game roosters. He figured out how to engineer a coke-machine into an incubator for the fertile eggs to hatch in. When he grew up, he hatched three daughters and continued his grandfather’s prestigious game fowl lines alongside them. He’s a volunteer 4-H poultry superintendent in his home county of La Plata, Colorado; and a die-hard advocate for poultry and their producers. Being incorporated in the poultry industry, is a sure-fire way to involve yourself in the animal rights movement—if you want to or not. Being involved with poultry also meant early mornings to poultry shows, many late nights candling eggs to look at embryos, and always being able to tell the good egg from the bad egg with a cup of water (if it sinks: it’s good).

Mr. Chadborn sighs, lays on the creaky hotel bed and mutters about how the animal rights movements, specifically “PETA people”, put unnecessary stress on the poultry industry. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shines a ton of negative light on the poultry industry—from transportation, slaughter, eggs, and show. While the images of crippled birds and animal mistreatment irks any agriculturalists, Mr. Chadborn says, “people must understand that there are good people in this industry, and 99% (not an actual statistic) of farmers aren’t like that”. Much of the animal right’s activism has made its way to congress, where he feels as though congress doesn’t listen to the actual producers. “The bills being presented are unrealistic—you can’t free-range chickens. Predators exist. That’s more unfair to the animals than putting them in a coop.” We both recall all the times we had to skunk hunt in the dark, and all the times the dogs would get sprayed. “Congress shouldn’t be telling producers how to raise their animals, the producers know their animals, the farmers are the only professionals when it comes to animal husbandry”. He believes that congress needs to talk to producers and really listen before the poultry industry dies out.  

We all know the cute hatchery chicks that the feed stores start to carry in the spring. The hens that go onto small back-yard coops for morning scrambles. New animal rights bills may stop that all-together, according to Mr. Chadborn.  If the prevention of USPS from shipping birds continues “you can kiss the pure-bred poultry lines good-bye, if not poultry sales everywhere”. “Hatchery chicks aren’t purebred, and that’s what is causing show poultry to die out”, I know this upsets him as his 4-H “poultry kids” thin out as the years go on. He enjoys teaching the young-ins and is known for his presentations and always looks forward to his annual poultry-wash before the fair. I know he’s disheartened by the exponential decrease in 4-H poultry projects by the way sighs and rubs his forehead. He also blames animal rights activists for this, because of their influence on congress and lawmakers; show birds are becoming desolate. Exploring an animal right’s website is hard to stomach gruesome images of bloody animals and horror stories that beat Stephen King cover every page, it’s hard not to believe what they say. 

Being an 80’s baby, Mr. Chadborn’s whole life has been evolving technology, for better or for worse in many aspects. From his perspective, social media “helps get the word out about shows and helps connect people in the poultry industry that wouldn’t be connected otherwise. We’ve been able to build this nation-wide community, which is definitely super cool.” Through social media, poultry producers from backyards to hatcheries get to connect and exchange knowledge, which is super important for people trying to improve their flock. However, social media has also given animal rights organizations a much larger platform than ever, “they spread so much misinformation, it’s honestly quite horrifying some of the PETA sponsored messages I see that are just plain wrong—and how many people are actually dumb enough to believe that stuff.” All these effects consumers, who are no longer wanting to support poultry production or livestock production. We all know that when consumers are uncomfortable, law makers will do whatever they can to comfort them. Except, the producer isn’t even contacted until it’s too late. Mr. Chadborn sites a recent case he’s involved with: (to put it simply) the government and ASPCA have ‘teamed up’ and stripped a game-fowl producer the ability to raise his own animals. They have taken all his birds from him and have been holding them from him. There are currently trials happening in New York to determine the future of this flock.  

On a brighter note, technology has made the production process much easier. “I’m able to just purchase an awesome incubator from a website, instead of having to build one or jump through loop-holes.” These incubators also rotate manually, to ensure the chick on the inside doesn’t cook (or at least it cooks evenly) There are also other technological tools that aid in efficient and convenient production, such as apps that help operators keep track of their flock, and security systems that can be monitored straight from a smart phone. This is both a blessing and a curse, because there’s always an eye on the chicken-cams, and nothing else at times. However, we always know the culprit for a missing hen or eggs (typically a racoon or skunk).