I Know Why the Caged Birds Scream

(Originally published in Satya Magazine, February 2006)

Three women walked past the electrified fence and onto the Happy Hens Egg World compound, which confines 220,000 hens in rusty cages 60 miles west of Melbourne, Australia. As the women began documenting the deplorable conditions in the sheds, videotaping the sights and sounds of crowded birds in constant misery, they were set upon by seven male employees of the egg factory, demanding they leave. The women agreed to leave voluntarily but the men attacked them anyway, pushing and shoving them through the dim and dusty shed.

Patty Mark and Debra Tranter just after the assault

Hearing her comrade cry out in distress, one of the activists grabbed the wall of the shed and said that she would not leave without her friend. The youngest worker grabbed both her breasts and squeezed them hard, putting his mouth next to her ear and snarling, “that made you move, didn’t it?” She screamed and fell on the floor. The men grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her body along the length of the grimy walkway.

Crossing the Mammalian-Avian Line

(Originally published in the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of Satya Magazine)

Glancing out the window, I see two elderly roosters drinking from a water bowl in the front yard. Fauna has lived with us since 2001, when he arrived in the midst of a colorful crew of roosters who had been evicted from a Pennsylvania farm. Soon after, he struck a love match with Flora, a former egg factory inmate who was one of a group of hens we called “the Anarchists” in honor of their knack for jumping over fences and redistributing wealth.

Flora and Fauna were a devoted couple until she died prematurely, her body weakened by her experiences at the factory farm. Like many aging widowers, Fauna grew socially isolated, spending more and more time indoors and less and less time doing the things he used to love to do.