Hatching chicks and ducks at nurseries/schools.

[Yellowrosesmakemehappy]

AIBU to really hate this activity and I wish it was banned? Toddlers nursery is doing it currently and my heart sank when I saw it.

I just feel it’s so wrong for them to be created for no reason and not even have a mum to keep them safe and cosy and comforted.

The reasoning behind it is to teach the kids about wildlife but we can do that for our child without this, I think it’s old fashioned and mean and not very forward thinking. 😭

I’m probs a massive hypocrite as I’m not vegan but this just seems so pointless.

It's not the same.

But it's not better. They've had a terrible life and been killed. I'm not sure they much care that they're then eaten. Do you?

If they serve up the nursery chickens for lunch would that be ok?

Funny how when farm is applied to humans: baby farm, funny farm we all know it's describing something horrific.

But it's all cute hijinks when it comes to animals you like to eat.

Reminds me of the episode of Mongrols with the petting zoo!

it never ceases to amaze me how people start to try to pick holes with posts like mine.
As it happens i live in a village with a farm that sells milk from their herd of dairy cows.
They keep the young ones for a while then they are either sold to be raised for beef (2 villages over) or kept for dairy stock. As it happens they bring them in from the field twice a day to milk them. (it has already been pasturised when we get it)

I have been known to buy milk from supermarkets and it does bother me. But the more people who put pressure on the chicken farms and dairy farms the better it will be.

they are ducks usually… she has a large pond in the farm grounds

I’ve met her, she is a nice lady.

its a small nursery so they don’t usually have many - this year it’s two. I think it was three last year

I am not saying this doesn’t happen, but this nursery genuinely have a good relationship with a nice family in the village… you don’t need to try and pick holes in what I know to be true

nice people do exist!

So tell him the truth about the nursery ones. Let him tell his classmates, that'll probably be the end of the scheme!

I'm sure she is a lovely lady @CoconutDrunk. But multiple drakes in a flock of ducks is not great either. Being lovely means making hard decisions for the benefit of all the animals and that means killing the males.

And if they’re not going to be killed then what gives us the right to not let them have a mum in the first few weeks of their life?

Chicken is just the tip of the shiteheap, OP. 🥛

tbh if it makes more people think more about the meat/dairy industry, that's good, isn't it?

It amazes you that in a thread where we're discussing the ethics around using animals for our own purposes to the massive detriment of the animals someone mentioned dairy farming?! Really? You were amazed? Blimey.

But it's all cute hijinks when it comes to animals you like to eat

But flips to bad again with pets...

Puppy Farm = Bad
Dairy Farm = Good

The recent uproar about octopus farming baffles me though. People bleating about how intelligent they are and the poor pigs are just like... What about us?

Yep it’s horrific… it says to the kids look at these cute fluffy chicks and then they get sent off and killed or raised for meat. It’s horrible. My brothers school (that he is head teacher of) currently have chicks and I was so shocked that they have them. Also was shocked to at as head teacher he felt it was okay!!!

I’d be interested to know if the people who usually pick holes in posts like this actually have experience living rurally or just accept what they hear about industrial farming as “every single farm ever”

because smallholdings with people that genuinely look after their animals with kindness exist. - I fundamentally disagree with killing something that doesn’t want to be killed but there’s a big difference between an animal that is well looked after during its life and one that isn’t

I used to hatch chicks at primary schools and nurseries regularly.

All resulting chicks were looked after by me, were handled under my supervision, and after a few days would return to me. Using the same equipment I used to hatch at home. My chickens were a specific breed, so we’re reared on for sale or to keep, and the males would be reared for meat for our own consumption (obviously not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you keep chickens this is as humane as it gets).

The whole process (for primary school) started with an egg talk, showing different types of eggs and how to tell if they’re fertile or not.
I’d set the eggs and explain about why they need to turn and about humidity. I’d return weekly to candle the eggs with the children, then be handy in case of hatching issues (which were rare), then back twice daily for the rest of the week to take care of the chicks.

It was an amazing experience for all involved. Nursery age is a little young I think, they loved the chicks but lost interest in the incubation phase. The best hatches I did were for yr 4+, they always had great questions and got so much out of it. I was always very honest about what happens to the chicks, and during the time I did this only ever had excellent feedback.

Children learn far more from hands on experience than by looking at life cycle books.

I was always interested to hear feedback from children, and sometimes afterwards from families, and it was only ever positive. Talking about the reality of hatching chicks (which I was doing anyway whether it was in a school or not) brought up interesting conversations, more than learning from a board or a book, and the teachers always commented on how engaged the children were.

It was an amazing experience for all involved.
Did you survey the chickens afterwards then?

They were my own chickens, who lived free range on my own smallholding, apart from those we sold to private customers who I knew through the specific breed group.

They had/have amazing lives.
So as much as my chicken language skills are limited, going by their health, behaviour and longevity, the survey was positive for all involved. If I was a chicken I’d want to live with me.

Dairy industry has been using sexed semen for years

If I was a chicken I would want to live with you too.
However, the vast majority of these chicks raised in schools won’t be

@NuffSaidSam the technology to sex the chick in the egg before hatching so the males are never hatched does now exist and it's very new. It's in use in a handful of European countries, of which Germany is one. The UK is not, so male chicks are dispatched at a day old.

There's a guy near me that sells pedigree hens and as a sideline rents out incubators to schools - it's birds he'd be hatching anyway for his business.

For farms though I can't believe they'd put layers back in with the flock because of bio security. Personally I am against it in most circumstances. We hatched some chicks at home a couple of years ago - yes we kept them all as pets, males included. It's very stressful and there is a lot that can go wrong, such as if you get the humidity wrong, the chick gets shrink wrapped and can't get out, and dies in the egg - there are a lot of situations where you might need to cull the chick.

I would be against my children being taught that we can bring new life into the world just to look at it for ten days for our education, and that's enough to justify whatever happens next. I'd rather the school got a batch of rescue hens and made the kids look after them or something if they wanted an animal project.

https://www.peta.org/teachkind/humane-classroom/chick-hatching-project/

You don’t have to be a vegan to abhor animal cruelty and that’s what this is. People will make up excuses to justify doing it, but it’s still cruel.

Through working in that area (I did other animal/school experiences) I’ve got to know many people who do the same, we all have the same or very similar set up.

Of course some are less conscientious about the welfare of the animals, but these were in the minority, and in the area I covered (a few years ago now) those of us who did it right were the ones brought into schools.

It’s not exactly a big money earner, and the people who choose to do this tend to be very passionate about doing it right, all the way through the process.

We were held to a higher standard than farm visitor centres - some of which are amazing, some are terrible. Probably because we were going into schools and engaging with the children ourselves.

My sons 1 and has had meat since 6 months. Nothing wrong with it. He loves it. No way there's going to be no meat in this house.

They're just as dead either way. Better to never exist in the first place than to be bred just to be killed (whether they're eaten or not).