Oberlin Public Library Chick Hatching Display

From: Kathryn Lezenby
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2023 6:17 PM
To: dfausnaugh@oberlinlibrary.org
Subject: Oberlin Public Library Chick Hatching Display

Dear Mr. Fausnaugh,

I am writing to ask you to please discontinue future chick hatching displays at your library and replace them with ones that do not use live animals. To someone who has grown up in a farming state, the normalcy of animal exploitation has surely blinded you to the cruelty of chick hatching projects, but I hope you are open to rethinking them from the chicks' perspective.

Chickens are birds and share all the same natural instincts and capacities for pleasure and pain as birds in the wild. That their genetics have been tampered with by humans to make them better egg or meat producers has no more changed their basic needs, desires, and social instincts than human breeding of dogs for certain traits has changed the basic nature of dogs.

Although chickens on farms are denied the ability to perform any of their natural behaviors, rescued chickens that end up at sanctuaries act just like chickens in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia from which they are descended. Roosters adopt and watch over a flock of hens, search out food for them, and alert them to danger. Hens seek privacy and optimum conditions to build nests and otherwise spend their time in the company of a flock, choosing friends amongst them for closer companionship. Both roosters and hens enjoy pecking the ground in search of food, dust bathing, and exploring, and seek out places off the ground to roost at night.

When hens have the chance to mate with roosters and keep their eggs, they start communicating with chicks while they are still in their shells, assist them with hatching, shelter them under their wings, call to them when they stray away, and fight fiercely risking their own lives to save them from predators. Historically, chickens have been known to be iconic for protective parenting.

On farms, chicks and their mother are separated as soon as a hen lays her eggs. It is one aspect of the completely unnatural life farms force these birds to endure. It causes both mother and chicks to suffer, and should not be used as a model for compassionate treatment of these birds; it is a reason instead to stop endorsing the egg industry.

It makes sense that chicks hatching without their mothers would be as scared, vulnerable, and lonely as any orphaned baby animal. Separation of chicks from their mothers, alone, makes a chick hatching project cruel.

Beyond this essential mistreatment, chick hatching projects harbor other forms of cruelty. Baby chicks, like most baby animals, are delicate and especially at risk of injury and disease. Their best caretaker is their mother-in her absence, a compassionate bird expert. Chicks used in past displays at your library showed signs of physical distress but were never given proper care and a number died.

In addition, exposing the chicks to humans when they have no mother to protect them, and preventing them from sleeping would also naturally be extremely stressful for these baby animals.

Finally, the fate of chicks used in chick hatching projects is grim. Any place but a sanctuary is going to end up sending them to slaughter, and those sent back to farms to be raised for meat or eggs will suffer many kinds of abuse over their greatly shortened lives; one has to also include in this equation of suffering, the abuse of the chickens who lay the eggs used for the project. I urge you to watch a few undercover videos taken at farms and slaughterhouses to witness how chickens at these places are manhandled and subjected to all kinds of unimaginable violence at the hands of workers.

The way humans defend and show indifference to the abuse of animals exploited for food parallels the way we do the same to members of own species exploited for labor. A societal norm doesn't make it any more ethical. Since many plant alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy are widely available in the developed world, it's within our power to end the misery and enslavement farming animals entails here. I hope for a future where the only chickens on this planet are those livng freely in the jungles that are their natural home.

I went to Antioch College which, like Oberlin, was known for its pursuit of social justice. We students were encouraged to question the status quo. I would hope that the Oberlin library would be open to rethinking animal exploitation. At the very least, please don't perpetuate the suffering hatching projects cause.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Lezenby
klezenby@outlook.com

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Help Us Shut Down Oberlin Public Library's CRUEL Chick Hatching Events!