LettersLetter From Jenny Moxham about Chickens being Condemned to monotony
Letters From All-Creatures.org and The Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman Family Foundation

Letter From Jenny Moxham as published on The Daily Examiner
October 19, 2018

Birds are born to fly–that’s why they have wings–yet, tragically, 4.2 million birds in Australia are never permitted to experience the joy of flying. They are never permitted to know the exhilaration of swooping and swirling above the treetops with their flock.

Instead they are condemned to a sad life of boredom and monotony in a wire cage. I recently came across a cockatoo who had never been permitted to leave his small cage and could do nothing but shuffle a few steps on his perch. And there was an exotic parrot who was confined in an upstairs room and was alone for most of the day.

Given that next week is National Bird Week it seems like a fitting time to reflect on our practice of caging birds and robbing them of the joy of flight for nothing but human entertainment. We wouldn’t like to live in a cage and I’m sure birds don’t either.

Jenny Moxham
Monbulk

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