by PrkStRangr@aol.com
Easter eggs are a way to involve our children in art,
but why put a chicken
through that torture when there are better ways to teach our children
art?
Teach your children the joys of watercolors. Or involve the whole family
in
decorating Styrofoam eggs. Styrofoam can be colored with marking pens,
glittered, sequined, decaled, and have bits of fabric pinned or glued to
them.
They are memories that will last a lifetime and can be stored to bring
out at
future holidays when the children are grown.
In their natural state chickens produce about 30 eggs a
year. In the chicken
factory farms that produce eggs for our country, chickens produce an egg
a
day, ten times the natural rate. In order to do this, chickens are fed a
diet of
antibiotics, newspaper for filler, chicken manure, ground up chickens
and
other animals, and some grains (grains are a bit more expensive than re-
cycled newspapers and chemicals, so chicken ranchers try to limit those
expensive natural feeds).
Chickens are cramped in small metal cages about 3 to 4
in a small cage,
with no room to even spread their wings. Their beaks are cut off to keep
them from pecking other chickens and the cages are stacked in huge
warehouses so that the urine and feces fall unto the chickens in the
cages
below. Sleep depravation from lights left on constantly to simulate
daylight
and increase egg production is also common. There have even been some
animal testing studies that suggest that the mental illnesses that
chickens
suffer from are passed on to humans, chemicals involved in schizophrenia
and depression. Is that really something you want to pass on to your
children? Not to mention the saturated fat and cholesterol.
This year why not hide plastic eggs with little treats
inside? And keep those
plastic eggs for hiding again next year.
Go on to Rabbits at
Easter
Return to 31 March 1999 Issue
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