PETS

from Sai Kung April 2021

SAI KUNG SECRETS

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Dr Pauline Taylor on the cruel reality of our favourite Easter animals

With Easter upon us we are inundated with pictures of cute, happy little chickens and baby rabbits. Rabbits make lovely pets and there are over 300 global breeds, from Netherland Dwarf to Flemish Giants, all descended by selective breeding from the European rabbit. Chickens are also much loved as pets in many parts of the world and can become very attached to the family they live with. However, because of the demands of our food chain, billions of these animals do not have a life worth living nowadays.

Because of the many farming practices employed globally, sadly, billions of these cute animals are born to live a life totally dedicated to feeding and supporting humans around the planet, kept in small cages many consider inhumane with total disregard for ethical farm practices. Once culled, sometimes in horrific slaughtering circumstances, rabbit skins become fur coats and bags.

Chicken meat, red and white, feeds countless humans and animals, their feathers fill down jackets and pillows and their excrement, mixed with protein and other ingredients, is processed into concentrated food to feed other animals including fattening cattle to help them grow, so they too can in turn be killed for human consumption when they have put on sufficient weight.

Fun facts about chickens

Chickens, like birds, were first noticed and painted on pottery around 8000 years ago in areas of Southeast Asia and originated from a member of the pheasant family, a bird called the red junglefowl. A male is called a rooster or cockerel and is distinguished from the female hen by its colourful plumage and head comb. Free range chickens are omnivores, pecking their food from the soil as they strut around in flocks, raising broods of young that hatch after a 21-day incubation period from multi coloured eggs. The egg colour is determined by the genetics of the hen. They are very social, inquisitive and exhibit interesting behaviour, who feel pain and distress. According to PETA, more chickens are killed for food than all other land mammals combined and 245 million are caged to produce eggs for the food chain.

Chickens have a complex but strict social pecking order where every flock member knows its place. They see in full colour vision and can recognise at least 100 other chickens in a flock of their own species. They like to sunbathe where they sleep and scientific studies support the fact that they dream like us. They sleep with one eye open and one side of their brain alert as a prey species, so they are always on guard for predators.

Fun facts about rabbits

‘Easter bunnies’ associated with the beginning of Spring and easter are found wild all over the world except in Antarctica. Descended from the European rabbit native to the Iberian Peninsula, its introduction has often had devastating effects on local biodiversity, causing problems with the environment and ecosystems.

Wild rabbits live in underground burrows where females give birth (after 30 days of gestation) to hairless and blind young rabbits called kittens. A lot is not known about these prey animals, but some facts are. Rabbits have many predators including cats, badgers, ferrets, stoats, weasel, fox and rats, who especially go after the young.

Rabbits eat a variety of grasses favouring young, succulent nutritious leaves. Their ear flaps can turn almost 360 degrees to pick up threatening sounds and guard duty rabbits thump their feet to alert the family to danger when they are grazing above ground.

Their fur has much colour variation and texture hence its popularity in the fur industry while rabbit meat is enjoyed in many places around the world. Many famous rabbit characters exist in our story books and most kids growing up in Western countries hear from stories about Peter the Rabbit, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh, White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and Bugs Bunny to name a few.