NPR’s blog “The Salt” recently did a story about chicken diapers, in which I was interviewed. The headline was “Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines.” It was a light-hearted article which quietly poked fun at the notion of diapering a chicken…a fair criticism to be sure. The comments overwhelming indicated NPR readers felt pampering poultry was just another indicator of America’s consumer based insanity.

Now, surprisingly, I’m inclined to be the first to agree. In my personal quest for simplicity in an agrarian based lifestyle, the fact I’m encouraging and promoting such decadent frivolousness as clothing for what should be food seems contradictory.  After all, half the world is starving and I’m marketing, as the article says “lingerie for your chicken.”

However, the Backyard Chicken Movement I believe is a revolution of sorts. And just like any revolution, it takes all kinds to make the kind of impact that truly brings forth change. The end game I believe in all of this chicken craze is to help our society collectively “wake up” and understand the inherit evil in our current food systems and the crimes we are all collectively committing in the blind eye we are continuing to afford the practice of factory farming.

All kinds of people with different agendas and different solutions are currently working together (although perhaps unconsciously) toward what has become in the last 10 years the Backyard Chicken Movement.

Animal activists work hard at exposing the horrors, the dreadful conditions in poultry houses where millions of birds are kept and workers wear gas masks when they enter, to the artificial solutions pumped into the meat etc, etc. Breeders are working at saving heritage breeds and promoting qualities that do not focus exclusively on meat or egg production. Political activists are changing zoning laws and city ordinances allowing small backyard flocks to flourish in environments outside of traditional farms. And I, along with others, spreading the word that chickens are can more than just dinner…they can be a valued part of the family. The result, America is starting to listen.

Anything that starts to awaken the cultural consciousness to bring us closer to nature and the source of our food, I believe is playing a key role in the end game, the elimination of factory farms for all animals.

By presenting poultry fashion to the market, I truly believe I am supporting those who treat their chickens as pets, but I’m also helping to bring awareness to non-poultry lovers that chickens are more than a breast or an egg. All chickens deserve more humane treatment then what it is afforded them in commercial poultry operations, where they are not a bird, a part of nature, but purely a commodity. While part of our lives, even if their fate is to be our dinner, all poultry deserves to be pampered.