"A Chip in a Fuzzy Ear" - February 13, 2006 |
February 13, 2006
A Chip in a Fuzzy Ear
Greetings Friends of the Farm,
When word reached Aunt Penny and Tootie about the proposed National Animal Identification System, they were mighty confused. First of all, the rhetoric spoke of "mad cow" disease. This ID system would be yet another means of tracking any cow so infected. Well, that sounds good, but the hens don't know what a "cow" is; never have they seen one. Oh, they know opossoms, raccoons, hawks, cats and dogs, and they are appropriately fearful of all of these animals, but a cow? What does a cow have to do with them?
It was explained to them that the NAIS would be a marketing tool for selling deceased animals to Japan. Again, what does all of this have to do with their little farm? No deceased hens on the farm are ever sold to whatever "Japan" is. Instead, they are buried under the pecan trees with the appropriate sendoff.
First I certify that the hen is indeed dead. She may have had a heart attack during the night and fallen off the perch onto the predator-exclusion wire, a terrible place, incidently, on which to breathe one's last, as deposits of poop cling to the wires. Or, in the case of a really weakened chicken, the hen may merely have sat upon the ground for a few days, her head drooping, until her heart finally stopped.
Whatever the manner of death, I bend over, surrounded by hens wondering if I have found something to eat on the ground, something which unbelievably, they have neglected to find, and pick up the expired flock member by her legs. At this maneuver, the hens suddenly back away in alarm.
Why, their cousin is DEAD! How could they have missed that fact? Well, they've been hard at work--focused solely on the next edible morsel. I carry the hen out, as the others stare, some jumping out of the way in alarm. Outside of the pen, I lay the deceased gently upon the soil, fetch a shovel, and excavate a hole. At this point, all the hens swarm the fence, as the shovel is their friend, a machine capable of turning up tons of worms. However, the hen is tucked in, with the wasted worms, and covered up with a silent thank-you for her presence on the farm.
No thought ever, of sending her to Japan, wrapped in styrofoam and plastic. So, the hens cackle that there is no real reason why they would be involved in either cow diseases or foreign markets. Why then would the regulators include tiny farms, back yard flocks, the granny with one pet hen, the rider with two horses, the misfit with one goat, in this massive bearucratic, national registration and surveillance system?
"Technology, " I explain to Auntie and Tootie. Finally there will not only be satellite surveillance of pastures, backyards, barns and coops, but, miraculously, mechanisms that can be installed in their bodies -- for a reasonable price perhaps, since we're talking about billions of chips -- that can track their every movement. Up on the perch, at the feed pan, out the Hen House gate, to the back field, to the farm stand, under the fig trees.Anywhere they go, someone in Washington will be able to say, "Oh, there goes No.3456789234567890, aka, Tootie Tootum." Naturally, if Tootie leaves the farm, say to make a special appearance at a social soiree, she would have to give those in charge a 24-hour notice, and then re-notify the regulators once back at the farm. It's a matter of homeland security. If notice is not given, and someone searching for miscreants, doesn't find her on the farm, then, you know, there has to be a fine. A big one.
And what if the hens don't want to be a part of this strange system? Well, first of all, their carcasses will not be welcome in Japan, and furthermore, there will have to be hefty non-compliance penalties; a thousand dollars a day has been mentioned. Once "cowed" into the fold, they can be relieved of the presumed "terrorist" label.
Blackly, i consider that perhaps this is all a ploy to discourage small producers in providing healthful meat, dairy and eggs to their local communities. For the proposed plan places onerous paperwork, costs, as well as insult, upon small farms, and backyard enthusiasts, whose every hen and every pig and every cow and every horse and every goat have to each be identified and monitored, while granting exemptions and the abililty to identify flocks of 30,000 chickens with just one number to the concentration-camp factory farms. The burden falls on the people humanely producing real food, while the facimile wranglers skate free. Many small animal product producers will go out of business over this loss of freedom.
"Well, what's the upside?" the hens ask. "You get a 'chip' inserted in your fuzzy ear," I reply. "Will it match my beauteous plumage?" inquires Aunt Penny. Tootie wants to know if it will look good with her gold-rim glasses. "But, will it hurt?" they both worry. Well, there is a 'gun' involved that sticks the chip underneath the skin . But maybe it's just like a sharp peck.