A Holocaust Museum for Chickens?

You have to give those wacky folks who run People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) credit for their ability to attract media attention (see, even I'm doing it). Their latest stunt is a letter to Virginia's governor asking to rent a closed down prison as a chicken empathy museum. I can't say it any better than PETA's press release, so here goes:

Roanoke, Va. -- This morning, PETA sent a letter to Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine offering to rent the Botetourt Correctional Center building, which is slated to close because of budget concerns, and turn it into America's first chicken empathy museum.

The museum could feature exhibits that include video footage from research conducted at Bristol University in the U.K.--research that showed how chickens are intelligent animals with mental abilities comparable to cats, dogs, and even primates. It could also feature a restaurant that would serve heart-friendly and delicious faux-chicken drumsticks and chickenless pot pie and a gift shop that could provide free plush chickens for kids, with tags reading, "I Am Not a Nugget!" The museum would feature interactive displays, including one in which visitors have weighted backpacks strapped to their backs to simulate how large chickens' upper bodies can grow in proportion to their legs. The museum would also provide area residents with much-needed jobs.

"In addition to creating jobs, the museum would convert a building that was built for the purpose of incarceration into a tribute to liberation," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Chickens are sensitive, smart animals who have feelings just as we do--they deserve better than to be treated like mere meat machines."

My extensive personal experience watching over hundreds of chickens (and stealing their eggs) strongly suggests that the U.K. researchers are exaggerating. But given the assertion that chickens are about as smart as dogs, I guess one can update PETA President Ingrid Newkirk's infamous mantra to:

A rat is a pig is a dog is a chicken is a boy

Comments

[Doug]

Chickens deserve to be eaten.

[!]

I never developed a craving for dog like the one I have for chicken.

Never had to shoot rocksalt at a chicken in my yard either, but that's a different thread.

[B.P.]

I see they side-stepped the comparison of a chicken's intelligence to that of a PETA member.

[CoyoteBlue]

I'm with Doug. I've been around chickens and they are dumber than rocks and quite tasty.
Their deaths serve a higher purpose.

[!]

Their deaths serve a higher purpose.

Like topping my salad!

[Foghorn Leghorn]

sounds like a good place to put a Chik-Fil-A next to.

[Rich]

... visitors have weighted backpacks strapped to their backs to simulate how large chickens' upper bodies can grow in proportion to their legs.

Hey, don't need the backpacks for many visitors. (The National Center for Health Statistics claim 34 percent of Americans are obese and 32.7 percent are overweight.) Prob'ly from eating chicken.

[MEAT MACHINE IS THE NAME OF MY]

"The museum could feature exhibits that include video footage from research conducted at Bristol University in the U.K.--research that showed how chickens are intelligent animals with mental abilities comparable to cats, dogs, and even primates."

Can we download this anywhere??? I need!! I need!

[BeesInTheBrain]

I'm not seeing the problem. If they can afford the rent then I'm all for it.

[!]

sounds like a good place to put a Chik-Fil-A next to.

Or a Popeye's!

[!]

I'm not seeing the problem. If they can afford the rent then I'm all for it.

The government should not be renting stuff out. That is unfair to the commercial property market.

[DX]

I would speculate that they have no intention of renting the place. That's a lot of money for a dozen annual visitors. And look at the publicity they got for the cost of a stamp and press release. Libertarians should be taking notes.

[GILMORE]

This reminds me... time for lunch.

[FrBunny]

Chickens may not be smart, but they sure as hell ain't quitters.

[Xeones]

I sure could go for some Chic-Fil-A right now.

[Baylen Linnekin]

I'd love to go if the museum's food court has a Chick-fil-A. Empathy should taste good, after all.

[!]

Do they taste better after winning or losing a fight?

[?]

MEAT MACHINE IS THE NAME OF MY DEATH METAL BAND

That's a grindcore name, not a death metal name.

Metal is for nerds. They care.

[Art-P.O.G.]

The name would work for a slowcore/industrial band, too.

[Troy]

Chicken makes me glad that I am on top of the food chain. A 20 pack of those McNuggets sounds pretty good. And my chicken cattatorie rocks.

[J sub D]

The museum could feature exhibits that include video footage from research conducted at Bristol University in the U.K.--research that showed how chickens are intelligent animals with mental abilities comparable to cats, dogs, and even primates.

This is a practicaljoke, right? Someone is spoofing PETA.

Chickens (and PETA members?) are about as smart as your aveage barnacle.

[Brave Sir Robin]

...who had nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol...

[Brandybuck]

...research that showed how chickens are intelligent animals with mental abilities comparable to cats, dogs, and even primates.

What the fudge? Chickens are the second dumbest animal on the farm (with turkeys being the first). Cats, dogs, pigs and horses are light years ahead of them. True, they're smarter than the average PETA member, but that's not saying much.

[tekende]

After reading the letter, the governor of Virginia, craving chicken, cancelled his mid-afternoon appointments, ran to his car, and sped down the road to the nearest KFC.

[Dagny T.]

a gift shop that could provide free plush chickens for kids, with tags reading, "I Am Not a Nugget!"

Because your little vegetarian child isn't already getting picked on enough.

[ed]

free plush chickens for kids, with tags reading, "I Am Not a Nugget!"

If I ever get a pet chicken, I am so naming it "Nugget."

[Douglas Fletcher]

If it weren't for people raising and eating them, chickens would just be another jungle fowl. Instead, they're loved and appreciated by humans worldwide, unlike their jungle dwelling cousins pecking about and hoping some python doesn't drop out of a tree and chow down.

And screw KFC, give me Popeye's any day.

[SugarFree]

The only kid I know being raised a vegetarian is also the sickliest little kid I've ever seen.

Yes, my anecdote doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but it's still sad when he watches most of his Halloween candy being thrown away because it has gelatin in it.

[Michael]

Now ist time on Sprockets ven vee dance!

I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn't be harming anything...

[SugarFree]

Also, I'd like to once again point out that the vice president of PETA is an insulin defendant diabetic and owes her hypocritical turd of a life to extensive animal testing.

[SugarFree]

"dependent"

Be more smarter, spellcheck!

[Meat Is Good]

You know, I would stop raping and beheading joggers I catch in the park at night, but it just feels so good. Mmmm, rape.

[Citizen Nothing]

Mike the Headless Chicken/Palin in 2012!

[ed]

She probably defends insulin, too, when it's still in the pig.

[Your Average Barnacle]

Chickens (and PETA members?) are about as smart as your aveage barnacle.

You take that back! We are so much smarter than chickens. You see anybody raising us on factory farms for slaughter? Hell, no! We just ride along, seeing the world on the hulls of ships or hanging back on a pier and watching it all go by, debating Clausewitz and brownie recipes and working up new anti-queenfish strategies.

Ask a chicken about Clausewitz. Go ahead. See what you get. "Cluck?" That's what you'll get. Chickens. Huh. Don't talk to me about chickens.

Do you think a PETA member could, you know, stand really still in a tide pool? For a really long time? Because then we could put them to a useful purpose.

[Dagny T.]

it's still sad when he watches most of his Halloween candy being thrown away because it has gelatin in it.

Damn, Sug. My retarded parents decided to go kinda vegetarian when I was little- (we had eggs, dairy and fish but no chicken or red meat. Random enough?) but even they weren't that retarded.

The only upside is that now I get a forbidden thrill when savoring a delicious, bloody steak.

[PapayaSF]

Once again everyone falls for the latest PETA PR stunt. Remember "sea kittens"? The gory Happy Meals thing? It seems like once a month, they come up with some absurd idea, and and get millions of dollars worth of "Haha, look at this!" media attention. Maybe if we ignored them they would go away....

[alan]

. "Chickens are sensitive, smart animals who have feelings just as we do--they deserve better than to be treated like mere meat machines."

That is hilarious. I raise guinea hens, and my ladies produced thirteen chicks late last Spring. Just a few weeks ago, they were at the right size and plumpness for my edification.

What did I do. PETA ladies, this one is a horror story worthy of a Rob Zombie production, so you may want to sit down. I have a vase shaped device which has a ceramic funnel at the end. I put the chicks upside down in it, and then I cut off their heads with a pair of sheers and I let the blood drain out. I did this to nine of them, and kept the rest for reproduction purposes.

What do the momma hens do? They came around sniffing for feed, ignoring the little baby chick heads as they cluck and ate away-- Bwahahaha!

[The Wise One]

I think it is a great idea. Why should chickens be slaughtered just to feed humans? You don't think God provided antelope for lions or dear for wolves do you? You morons, life should not feed on life!!! I am going to buy in with PETA and my group HETA is going to put a lettuce museum in there also. Do you realize what it is like to watch a cute little baby head of lettuce grow to a big, beautiful, full head by the end of summer just to watch your mother savagely chop it into a hundred pieces just to feed us greedy humans?!?!?!? I am scared for life from it. All life should be protected. What right do you have to cut grass to the size YOU choose? Why can't you let it live and take its natural course???

By the way HETA is the Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Agriculture.

[SW]

Ahh, the knee-jerk response from people confronted by their consciences. Did you jokers know a team of UK researchers also determined that libertarians are herd animals, just like liberals and conservatives? Carry on.

[alan]

Can I carry on, SW? Can I? Are you giving me permission to carry on? If you are sure, now, I'll go ahead. Mind if I whistle past my conscience, while on the way? I certainly wouldn't want to confront my conscience over something like cutting the heads off of birds. Do I have your permission? Oh, I have to face my conscience. MMM, That is not going to work for me. Could you put your head down, over there. Just like that, yeah, that's it.

Fucking maroon.

[Your Average Barnacle]

Mmmmm...CONscience. Delicious, delicious conscience.

Served with chicken is best. With steamed rice. And water chestnuts.

[Joel]

Note to self: Change name back to default before posting.

[Random person from a county ne]

I actually live near the city where the proposed. Were this museum to actually come into existence, which is highly unlikely, I would most definitely visit it. In fact, I would smuggle in a box of chicken McNuggets and have a wonderful afternoon. Do they still sell boxes of 20?

[SW]

Alan: Yes, you have my permission. I like you - you seem to be the dimmest member of the herd. Please continue.

[Craig]

sounds like a good place to put a Chik-Fil-A next to.

Not necessarily. PETA is planning to try the Chik-Fil-A cows (of "Eat Mor Chikn" fame) for genocide.

[M o n k e e]

man
just emigrated to Africa
the meat is something else
I'm living on an uber-carnivorous diet
Africans basically BBQ everything
no shit
without exaggerating
the whole place just smells like charcoal and BBQed meat
Its like a sweet smell that lingers everywhere
you can't walk down the street without smelling it

Africa is like PETA's Auschwitz

[Maurkov]

"It could also feature a restaurant that would serve heart-friendly and delicious faux-chicken drumsticks and chickenless pot pie."

If I follow the metaphor correctly, isn't that like stocking the Treblinka gift shop with faux-human skin lamps?

[J.P.]

let em' have it... the rent will help the Commonwealth's budget deficit.

[GILMORE]

alan | September 15, 2009, 4:59pm | #

What do the momma hens do? They came around sniffing for feed, ignoring the little baby chick heads as they cluck and ate away-- Bwahahaha!

"I know why the caged chicken clucks
The caged chicken clucks because
Its really, really, fucking stupid"

[Big Green Monkey]

The real news for me in this is that a prison is closing down, due to budgetary reasons. I'm I the only one cheerfully blown away by this tid bit?

[SIV]

Will the Chicken Atrocity Museum have a pit?
I wouldn't mind seeing this just once, for the laughs.

[alan]

SW | September 15, 2009, 5:33pm | #
Alan: Yes, you have my permission. I like you - you seem to be the dimmest member of the herd. Please continue.

Well, thanks SW, that is mighty white meat of you.

[Jimbo]

Does anyone who has ever actually worked with chickens have any respect for them at all?

As a kid we raised chickens on our farm each summer. I hated the chickens because they a) ate up countless hours of my summer vacation and b) were miserable, stupid and mean. The satisfaction I got from watching them die each fall was soon gone as I realized I still had to pluck and butcher them.

I was telling my chicken horror stories to a co-worker once when he told me that he had a job crating chickens at a big time chicken farm so they could be transported to the slaughter house. This guy was as nice and gentle as anyone I have ever met, so I was really surprised at the crazy gleam in his eye when he told how you had to jam something like 10 birds into a small crate. Then he told me how on his first day at this job he was trying to treat the chickens somewhat decently but kept getting pecked and scratched. Finally, he said, he just lost it and started ruthlessly packing them in just like everyone else.

Neither of us will eat chicken voluntarily to this day.

On the other hand, I might give chicken farming a whirl again if I could afford one of these. I'd want a reverse button too, though.

[AC]

SW is right. Forget chickens, the commenters here are a bunch of sheep. Yep, that's YOU. Baa-aa-aa!

Challenge yourselves, guys!

PS In response to this comment, why not try to use (uh) "reason", rather than insult? It will make you look cleverer.

[!]

Remember "sea kittens"?

Yes and I thought it was funny that they were trying to lump Japanese quisine in with Korean.

[alan]

AC | September 16, 2009, 3:05am | #
SW is right. Forget chickens, the commenters here are a bunch of sheep. Yep, that's YOU. Baa-aa-aa!

Challenge yourselves, guys!

PS In response to this comment, why not try to use (uh) "reason", rather than insult? It will make you look cleverer.

I don't see how that is possible, AC. From the wit displayed in your post and that of SW, it seem the two of you must be hoarding all the IQ points among yourselves. What chance do we mere libertarian have against such gray matter fire power? You with your incredible Donne like mix of strenuous argument and meter, and SW with his allusive T. S. Elliot compositional skills that managed to critique our very existence in a erudite fashion that extended far beyond the tiny mental capacity we as libertarians, nay, because we are libertarians, have to understand any of it. Yes, and the two of you did all of this rather than insult because you are like giants who stride forth among intellectual midgets. I must humbly bow out in the face of such finesse.

[juris imprudent]

...who had nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol...

Yeah, but ya soiled your armor in Act II.

[yoyomama]

If we're not supposed to eat chickens, why are they made of meat?

[mark]

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[mark]

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