Free range and cage free, that is good enough for you?

Your idea of "free range" was different?

Cage free and free range it says on   your organic egg carton - oh, yes, and you do in fact care. Here is the price of your eggs in images: we all pay for the commercial poultry industry and their waste products with our taxes, polluted environment and its clean-up, antibiotic resistance - and the loss of our soul allowing and supporting the suffering of these sentient creatures.
This image spares you the pecked ones, the dead ones, the sick ones, the transport and the cruel deaths.  ....

When are we going to be done supporting it?

All you need to officially be allowed to say 'free range' is a door that opens to the outside with a specific sized grass area. It's a loophole. Few chickens ever go out that gate, they are too scared - and too many. But since they have the 'option' -> it's called free range ...that sells much better to the unsuspecting customer who has not delved into the mass animal keeping realities too much, who still trusts what "they" tell you.

Healthy foods - money, comfort & convenience & addiction to junk

Yesterday I asked someone - who is eating eggs in their household - if they would be interested in soy free organic free range fresh garden eggs ...offered for the same community price we pay but cheaper than in the store for those kinds of eggs. The answer was ...I don't want to pay that for eggs .....

Sad ....

Not a bad person, quite the opposite, one on a long time spiritual path,  not a poor household, but it has to be the cheap eggs from abused hens ...when another $ 2/week/dozen eggs  would pay for the  best eggs you can get from chickens as happy as they can be.

Just a chicken ....

Maybe I AM missing a point - about the general condition of the planet and the humans on it - maybe it really IS going down and 600 plus years of dark ages await us, all new age awakenings not withstanding - and it really is too late to do anything about it. The humans who run the show do so because they are genetically missing some empathy genes .....

Maybe real awakening permits this to be because it just IS ....

So you know about the tortured suffering animals, you know about the health hazard of eating conventional & precessed  foods - and yet, despite your intentions and conviction, you still eat them? Ya, I know ...lets see:

no time to shop, the kids gotta go to practice, there is nothing else in the house, it is more expensive - and oh, it tastes so good ...the junk .... no time to get the good stuff, no time to cook ....

Taste ...pleasure - comfort foods, feel good foods & bad eating habit.... and habits are hard to break.

In my mind's eye I can see the stalls of the calves taken from their mothers at birth - so we can have the milk - dairy cows are some of the most abused mothers on this planet, and yet, at times, I too dring milk, I still eat butter - I have not managed yet to go to see the farm where I may be getting milk in the future....but mostly I HAVE switched to tea - and that goes without milk.

As far as your food is concerned, living in integrity with your highest knowing IS inconvenient and costs more money, even though it should not.....
Our comfort, laziness and habits keep us on track of doing something not compatible with our highest knowing. ....
And according to a new recommendation from Harvard - milk is NOT on the recommended good and healthy food list ...that was all from the industry for money. It was all a lie.

We don't want to pay that much for eggs .... sad, unaware, unhealthy - especially if you can afford it.

The general population really is unaware of the animal suffering in industrial farming. ...and in fact, it does not matter to them. And even if they "know", there are the realities of daily life and human weakness - there is comfort and convenience and habit and perceived lack of money - and we give in - only the image with the calf or his mother is haunting .... but that means, you have to LOOK at it.

I am writing about milk because - I am guilty too - I know better - and still have some dairy products .....maybe not for long - but I do not know. There is the reality of daily life and what is available. But I will keep at it - and one of these days soon I will get out to the farm ..... and maybe I'll just switch to tea .....

One of these days there is standing strong, yet soft, clear flowing right action and words  and embodied compassion.


What are soy free, organic, free range kept chicken eggs worth?
To answer the question: priceless once you know all that it takes - Like with many things, you can't actually pay for those eggs, the price just covers the hard costs ....

The other answer: whatever the customer is willing to pay for them ...

I would like to find people on this path to whom animal welfare does matter enough to no longer support large commercial animal keeping - but who, for some reason or another - are not vegan ...... I would like to keep chickens for them too.

Loosing another chicken - what is the lesson?

He was a sweet big guy - the most trusting of the buffs

This blog is not about predators threatening the free range flock or some disease or other that takes them from us - it is about  - loosing a chicken - as in: it is no longer part of your flock, you will never see it again - whether it is dead or went to live somewhere else - it is OUT OF YOUR life.

In the last couple of years I have lost 2 dogs and in the last few months - it was chickens.The first losses were young roos lost to predators, then there was culling, and shipping to new homes, someone coming to pick one of them up and sending more of them off for culling, then there was sweet Runti last week.
This morning,  a predator got one of the 2 remaining buff boys. I could see from the feathers in several spots that he tried to get away. Of the buff boys, he was the sweetest and most trusting. ...and again - I wonder, as I did with the others: did he suffer? - hoping he didn't, recalling the state I was in when I had a car accident - and if it is anything like that - then there is no suffering. Certainly - it would be less scary than having to travel in a crate and be put into a cone? --- but, and here is the thing - when I found what was left of him - he was already dead - he was gone. WHATEVER suffering may or may not have gone on was no more. It was done. Where did he go? Whether he went back to God or dissolved into the premordial Being - he'd be fine in either case. In fact - he would have vanished without a trace of individuality. And if he has an eternal soul - he would carry the love and his earth time with him. Either way, he'd be okay. And if he was just some mechanical scripted sentient machine - he was now kaput to the degree that he was no more in the sense that the life, the spirit that moves through all things, no longer moved through him and the body was in the process for disintegrating.

So I observed my reaction, what I did with his body, and was put back into the space-time when ancient homo sapiens walked the earth and their magical thinking about death, ancestors and even why cannibals eat humans, why eating the heart of an animal was magical etc.

There is a mystery.

...but back to this one: he is gone, they will all go sooner or later and all I ever can think of is: may they have a good life. This is their only life. ....and that is true for humans too: as this particular human - no matter how much we are all the same - and how similar it all is: it is none the less it's only life ever....ever .... and while they are alive - they are sentient.

And after the chickens are gone, they are so totally gone ...there is this realization that all they had was the moment of their life ..and all I could ever do to them was right then in their life - and only then did it make a difference to the totality of BEING itself - only in that 1 moment of the NOW can you ever do any good or harm. Now he is no more. Grief is literally pointless, even though sentient beings seem to go through it in stages.

Okay, it seems I didn't do a real good job explaining. There is always only the now.

If this sweet roo ceased to exist as an individual roo, having melted back into the light, it may not matter now that I love him simply because he is no more ... it only mattered in the moment - that I gave him an extra treat that day ...in that moment it mattered, not before or afterwards. He no longer suffers now, like Runti.

So I catch myself thinking about him, going back over things and realizing: there is no point. Holding on is pointless because he is gone, forever - and all I  ever had, all anyone ever has -  is NOW - this very moment.

Having connected with him eye to eye - what is it that connected?

More and more this here is realized as truth (for the moment): I had nothing but myself with which to make the world.

It is somehow comforting to imagine that they - animals as well as humans - have a soul and that the love stays with them, or,  that karma will catch up with them one way or the other, but really, if they do not then - get this ....it is only in the moment that anything matters, that the love added to the totality of Being .........

okay fine - I can't explain it....but these repeated losses  have been driving something home ...about impermanence, uniqueness as well as non-separation of everything and the only difference we can ever make is NOW - and this feeling realization is slowly changing me.

Oh well, enough - there are many more aspects to this. Some say it does get easier with the chickens - but I wonder ..... because each one is unique ....and it'll likely be the same. ..... and all I can hope to do is love them, give them the opportunity to let them be who they are and do my best so they don't suffer.

Then there is that whole issue about consciousness and life forms .... including plants - but that is a whole other story as well as: it is all energy and vibration ....hm ....

So the lesson - can't be described.

The words sound maybe something like this: Your responsibility is NOW. Your life and their life is only NOW.

Re-sharing this one, made in 2002 - it is only part 1 - I chose it because of what the teacher says: they only have this one life .... but it really is quite a remarkable teacher and class and I recommend you watch all 5 parts.

How Chickens changed my Life

It was suggested to me a short time after getting my first chickens to write about: How Chickens changed my life. At the time, I was thinking: hm ...they have not really changed it, but I started writing some posts on another site anyway. I do know however that those words were not "just" said for no reason ....so I kept an open mind and heart - and - I am in the midst of that change .... or rather  A change ..... the learning about earth realities that involve suffering of sentient beings of all kinds has hit home in ways I "sort of knew" in my head before .... but now it is a different way of feeling and seeing .... and it is causing great tourmoil  - and change. Not sure of what or how ....one can't always tell in the facing another act boss monster event what is gonna happen and where you will find yourself afterwards. I am keeping track of some of all this in writing about the chicken adventure, but it really is affecting my in other ways .....

There is this (part of a quote I read somewhere): learn to carry the weight of the Universe or be crushed by it

and

....you feel it (the pain) more and it bothers you less - It is time to access the: "bother me less" part. Urthgame ...

Funny how what I am realizing myself, in the vein of personal experience personally experienced - I recognize saints and sages having said it all along, some of them thousands of years ago.

In this here video, the teacher says one thing: ...this is the only life they will have ....

Paleo or vegan - what will it be?

Paleo or vegan? Those choices seem to totally contradict each other - the meat based hunter-gather vs the grain-grower we can't ever hurt an animal purely non animal, non animal product eaters....each claiming their way is categorically the only or best healthy one ....hahahaha...

Both have drawbacks in terms of high cost to the environment, and yes, nutritionally, carbohydrates have been detrimental to human health, but that is because taken in excess. Meat ...yes, can be the healthiest thing to eat ...as long as you don't get a dose of mixed antibiotics with them and hormones ...as well as the substances released by the abject fear and horror of the now dead sentient being you are eating. For your soul, how well can it be to eat a tortured sentient being .... Confined industrial animal keeping is destructive all the way around. Lean is best for longevity, meaning - loose weight, eat consciously. Realize that the soul of G-D, the Absolute, Being ...is looking at you through the eyes of all animals you dare to look in the eyes. It might offer itself for your nourishment, for transformation, for transmutation - but does it? In any case - first: DO NO HARM. Do not cause it suffering in life or death. Compassion is meant for ALL sentient beings. And who knows what will be revealed about the consciousness of plants some day. "I had nothing buy myself with which to make this world" G-D.

Learn to kill it yourself.

What you can't kill, don't eat.

Do not be controlled by money making brainwashing schemes...which do not have your health at heart. Think about it: the rich USA has one of the most unhealthy populations on the planet,  and - you don't need meat or milk or coconut oil... and the processed foods that are poisoning you and the children - slowly, and the environment: rapidly.

You do need certain proteins and oils/fats as well as other micro-nutrients.

And for those plant eaters: get off your high horse, especially if you are promoting GMO crops....that is INSANE. They and the resulting increased use opf herbicides and pesticides will kill the planet's life. Destroying life forms is not leading to sustainable living. Are your vegan crop plots round-up treated? If so ...you don't care about those soil animals killed, you know ...the little invertebrates? Or for that matter, GMO or not, do you know about the highly social intelligent field rodents killed by the thousands at harvest of the "vegan" foods, or the destruction of the rain forests in Asia for palm oil etc??

Ultimately ... go local ...not a single pretty lawn anywhere, not a vacant city pot anywhere. Investigate truly sustainable ways to eat for more than a few homesteaders ...and yes, this may include fish in the aquaponic systems, which incidentally means a mostly plant based diet. In any case, for this one here ... don't champion any method unless it can be done by all, give life and dignity to all involved and stuarts the earth and environment into health and long term sustainability. With enough love - awareness, compassion - it can be done....please see video below.

Besides - the powers at work are working on population control you won't get to vote on .... so it all may become a more or less mute point and in the end - it is your life and conscience - and what you have done to the least of the creatures, you have done to yourself. The religions may have gotten a lot wrong in their institutionalized power hungry structures - but the message still is: relief of suffering of sentient beings - loving-kindness as a practice.

Maybe some folks do not have a soul - maybe some do ...and maybe some are governed by evil entities - those you have to watch out for.

To answer the question in the title: NEITHER - it needs to be sustainable, kind and health promoting  ...grow your own or know your grower. Take the extra steps it takes ....

And watch this: - amazing

"I don't build gardens with fences - ----   You have to engage the community"

c.

Pretty pictures and the other truth

A lot of people love the pretty pictures - hardly anyone sees or comments on the other stuff ...like this one

Wake the hell up and vote with your money .... take the time, get out of your comfort zone if you care anything about your children or grandchildren - ..... if not life on this beautiful earth.

Natural chicken eggs - truth in chicken keeping

In May of 2012, I got my first chickens - 1 day old chicks, a straight run - and it has been an amazing journey. I LOVE my chickens, I LOVE birds in general.

So, this post is about the eggs of my sweet girls, or rather, the egg laying. Some would call this a rant - but actually, it is the truth about what humans have done to chickens.
It has been 10 months and in the last few days, somethink else happened: I see those hens, the little ones and the big ones and notice: there are times - when they have yolks to fertilize inside - that they attract roosters more than others - and every day, all year - leading to wear and tear of their poor backs...but more importantly - I see them laying eggs: sometimes patiently, sometimes agitated and restless before, sometimes literally screaming when the

egg passes, and very often panting as if in labor - which they are.  Some will sit for a few minutes on the nest with remnants of their "nest-fixing" behavior, only to leave the nest. Broodiness has been bred out of  egg layers.

They are working hard - every day, and  attention from roosters every afternoon all year long - no break - so no wonder we have to cut the number of roosters..

THE WHOLE THING IS UNNATURAL. The entire: "lay an egg a day thing" is actually abusive. It is not quite like GMO chickens, but still, abnormal chickens. I feel bad for them ....

....  having to lay an egg a day and the resources that must consume in their bodies - they can't even forage enough food to sustain it. 

A first egg

Every day all year going through labor ....sweet little girls ...they don't seem to care much, and they don't know better - but it is NOT NATURAL....it IS using them and all the proud: OH she laid an egg a day all year  - is really being proud of having succeeded in perfect abuse. And the hens are spent spent spent after a couple of years as the number of yolks is limited.

It would be more "natural" to get meat from them, come to think of it, to let them be, let them be broody once a year after maybe stealing a few eggs for yourself and let them raise a clutch of chicks, and, unless you have a balanced predator control on your property, you are gonna have to cull - and get meat - not eggs. In the end, if you are not willing to cull, you can't keep chickens the natural way - and one option is to keep a few rescue hens, which will allow you to enjoy the birds, and maybe an occasional egg.

One of the reasons  we have Easter eggs is: there were no available eggs in Winter, otherwise we'd have had Christmas eggs.

So - I enjoy eggs - and I see that my girls have been bred to be living abnormal lives - abused by being forced to lay an egg almost every  day. At the very least, I owe them a decent chicken life.
I suppose you call it "progress" for humans, not being so dependent on the seasonal fluctuations of food supply ....the "problem" is: we are using breathing living beings for this, beings who feel - and who only have this one life to live on earth.

Once my current flock has lived out its days, all I can ever keep is rescue chickens. At least, I won;t be getting any more chicken from a hatchery. IF I were able to cull appropriately - I'd breed them back to normalcy....for truly natural chicken breeds....and I bet ya that you would be able to keep many more roosters to the hens.

Knowing what it takes to get eggs, and seeing the relative indifference with which people treat those precious perfect creations seals the deal: my answer to more chickens for eggs is NO.... unless they are rescue hens....don't ask me what I will do if one of the hens goes broody, I got a non-broody breed for a reason ... it made sense at the time.