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Chickens take dust baths!

carriesuepepper • Oct 06, 2012

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I noticed a new brand of eggs on the shelf.  “Comfort Coop” eggs.  The label read, “More space to stretch, perch, groom and nest.” The fact that someone is promoting that they give their hens all the room they need to stretch, perch, groom and nest – that they are actually given enough room to flap their wings, instead of being jammed in a tiny cage so small where they cannot move, flap, groom—or nest, naturally—turned up my internal temperature a few degrees, I’ll tell you.  Are we supposed to read that and think, Oh, my, how wonderful that these “comfort coop” eggs are coming from chickens that are treated with TLC and actually allowed to MOVE around an inch or two.  Their website is even equipped with video cameras so you can watch the chickens as they move about in their Oh-so-spacious (right) quarters. 

Please!  Whatever happened to chickens that are OUT OF THE CAGE altogether, roaming around the barnyard, stretching, grooming, strutting their stuff as they pluck worms and bugs from the ground and poke about in the remnants of last year’s garden?  How do you think chickens “groom” anyway?  By taking baths in dirt!  Read this quote from a local chicken farm: Hens love to give themselves dust baths. When it is warm outside, your hens will look for a new place and scratch down until they reach nice, fine dirt. They’ll flop onto their backs, close their eyes and just roll around. They get the dirt way down into their feathers until it reaches their skin. When they are done, they’ll shake it all off and feel fresh and clean. Now, can you tell me how these “comfort coop” hens are going to do that living their lives in a tiny metal cage? Hens are about the easiest and most care-free animals to keep and they seriously require no care aside from a little corn, a nesting box full of straw and a source of water.  These “comfort coop” eggs and the message they send to the consumer is just another way of trying to get over by making their product—and their methods—sound better than the rest.  Get together with a friend, build a little chicken coop – and make your coop one that chickens can truly live in the way God intended.

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By Carrie Pepper • 30 Nov, 2023
Out on my morning walk, street signs acted as memory joggers. Perhaps they were nudges so that I could remember, and be grateful for, these two women who were there for me as a kid. BRADFORD was the first sign. Grammy Bradford. I never called her anything else and I have no idea what her first name was, but I do remember she was there to tend to me when I was little while my mother went off to work at her government job "in procurement," which she hated. I know nothing, really, of what she did there, but I do remember the room. It seemed there were hundreds of desks in this huge room, no partitions. Dark grey desks and heavy black telephones. I visited her there a few times and she'd give me tablets and pens to keep me busy. I was ALWAYS thrilled to have a tablet and a pen! What she did there is a mystery to me, but when she and my father would argue, which was often, she'd always say, "I want my own money," and so off she went to work every morning at the Defense General Supply Center. He told her she didn't need to work, that he could support her, but, again, she wanted her own money. Back to Mrs. Bradford, Grammy. She was a bit on the heavy side (which I thought made for the best, most cuddly hugs) with long grey hair that she wore up with tons of bobby pins. She always wore a floral bib apron with large pockets and she'd fill them with pears when we'd go to that special corner of our back yard. Oh the smell! Those yellow pears and the carpet of yellow leaves. Memories of Grammy Bradford brought back memories of Thelma Massenburg. She looked exactly like Aunt Jemima (OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, we can't say Aunt Jemima anymore!) Recently a friend told me he'd made pancakes and I asked what kind of syrup he used. When he said, "Pearl Milling," I thought it sounded kinda cool, but when I looked it up I found out it was the new name for Aunt Jemima syrup. SERIOUSLY? Anyway, she was wonderful. She cleaned our house, scrubbed the floors and walls and worked harder than anyone I'd ever seen. I loved her. She always wore a bandana tied around her head. She lived in a tiny reddish tar papered house with ten children. Who knows where they all slept! She was diabetic and I was a little stinker and liked to tease her with Hershey Bars. I'd wave one in front of her nose and she'd smile and say," "You bad, chile." The last time I saw her she was in the hospital and her eyes were very, very yellow. Liver disease. The scarf that was always wrapped around her head was gone and I am sure that I could hear her say, "You bad, chile," although she probably didn't. Thank you my sweet Thelma. My Aunt Jemima.
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