On Guns and Chickens

My husband is a character.  He's been a shooter since he was a boy of around twelve.  He grew up shooting in Australia where they have much stricter gun legislation than they do here in the U.S.  My personal opinion is that there is too much gun control in Australia and not enough here in the U.S. For example, in Australia, guns for home defense is a no no.  The reason this is significant is because the husband told me on more than one occasion that he wasn't interested in owning guns here in the U.S. He was quite adamant in fact.  I was surprised but not terribly invested in whether or not he owned a gun.


Shortly before heading over here, he began researching the laws covering hunting in Virginia.  Our first night in the U.S. as we relaxed in our hotel room in Hawaii, we came upon a show called Sons of Guns, and the next thing I knew the husband was talking about how it would be good to get a gun.  For the next week, he kept bringing this up.  It took awhile for it to sink in to me that he had changed his mind.  I was hesitant.  We're starting out on a limited budget as we've moved over here before our house has sold in Australia.


As this was going on, about day three after we arrived, we went shopping for some food.  While in the store, we picked up some chicken.  We live in a very small town so the only choices for primary grocery shopping are Food Lion and Walmart.  To get to the fancier shops involves driving at least forty minutes in any one direction.


While checking out the meat section in Walmart, the husband zeroed in on a brand of chicken that I refuse to support.  I told him we wouldn't be buying their chicken because they're evil and that I couldn't remember the details of why but he would just have to trust me.  He humors me at moments like these rather than trying to have a rational debate in the middle of the poultry section, but we both knew he'd be researching my claims later.  He settled on a brand I hadn't heard of and off we went.


As we headed home, with the husband practicing driving on the right side of the road, I looked ahead and saw a truck filled with a white, fluffy substance.  As we got closer, I realized that much of the fluffy substance was moving. 


"Are those chickens?" I asked in horror.  The husband looked and agreed that they were, indeed, chickens.  On the hottest day on record, we were driving behind a truck jam packed with half dead chickens.  It was truly horrifying.  Both of us thought about the chicken in the back seat that we had just purchased, and we were filled with revulsion.


I'll point out here that both of us are hunters, and both of us enjoy meat a lot.  Neither of us are interested in becoming vegetarians.  My philosophy is simple. I like animals to lead happy free lives and then end up on my dinner table.  I prefer this to them living in wretched conditions jammed into cages with no ability to move, carted off to slaughter in any kind of weather, and then forced to witness as the members of their group are brutally killed.  We could debate this subject, but I'm not trying to convert anyone or judge anyone.  I am simply explaining in short hand what some of my beliefs are.  And my husband agrees.  I won't even bother going into the health benefits, to us, of eating animals that run around getting exercise and sunshine.


Within less than an hour of seeing this truck full of chickens, we'd decided we should purchase our own chickens and raise them for their eggs and meat. We got home.  The husband immediately jumped online and began researching chicken breeds, chicken coops, predators in the area, etc. 


He then declared that in addition to building a coop that would protect the chickens, he was going to need a gun... when we left the gun shop with our shiny new .17 air rifle, the husband announced that it might be a good idea for the three of us (my mother, the husband and I) to sign up for a conceal and carry course.  He followed this up with a comment about embracing his new life in America.  Like I said, he's a character.


We now have three Rhode Island Reds, four Buff Orpingtons, one white Leghorn one mystery black rooster and an air rifle.  More on that in my next post...