You’d think that changing the bedding of the young chicks would be a fairly routine, mundane affair. You’d think the chicks would remember all the other time’s you’ve done it. You’d think they’d get their little brains at least halfway to being reconciled to the fact that there are reasonable alternatives to living in your own shit. But no. There must be trauma and there must be drama. It’s not you who is helping them. It’s not you, the Feeder of All Chickens Large and Small. No, the personification of Death itself must be putting its hand into the cage. And, of course, everyone knows you have given up cheetos and have started sucking the marrow from live little chick legs. Screaming and a retarded attempt at escape are the only possibilities. So whoever is being picked up and transferred to the temporary cage must squeak and thrash and warn the others. And it’s not two or three little chicks who fling themselves into these throes of terror. No, it’s twenty-nine of them. Twenty-nine, one at a time, holy god. And once their cage is clean, they all have to go back. Yeah, one at a time, all over again.
