This is a tribute to the 99.999999999999% of chicks who don’t have a mother. Who are hatched in mechanical incubators, rushed to broilers and laying barns, and grow up never spending a night snuggled under a mother’s warm feathers.

This is a tribute to the 99.999999999999% of laying hens who never get to hatch a single one of the many hundreds of eggs they lay. Who never get to express their love for little chicks.

A melodramatic, sentimental tribute, and yet, perhaps the fact that we don’t even stop to consider that chicks do need a mother, and think it quaint that there are still places that have mother hens raising chicks, speaks more about what has happened to us humans than anything.

A mother hen teaches the chicks manners. She teaches them to be confident in the presence of other hens, and to mingle with the rest of the flock.

Happy Mother’s Day! The chicks who have mothers sure adore them.
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