Backyard Hens and the Changing Geography of Human-Chicken Relations in Toronto

Cultivating Care: Backyard Hens and the Changing Geography of Human-Chicken Relations in Toronto

Stephanie Christine Demetriou

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) Department of Geography and Planning University of Toronto

Cultivating Care: Backyard Hens and the Changing Geography of Human-Chicken Relations in Toronto

Stephanie Demetriou

Master of Arts (MA)

Department of Geography and Planning University of Toronto

2021 Abstract

This project examines the changing geography of human-chicken relationships in Toronto,

Ontario. Anchoring my project to themes of care and belonging, I first explore the city’s historical live animal debates through textual news media to highlight how arguments about the inhumane treatment and slaughter of urban chickens informed the expulsion of farm animals from residential and market spaces in the late-twentieth century. I then use contemporary media, documents, and semi-structured interviews with participants of the municipal pilot

UrbanHensTO to consider how chickens are making a visible return to Toronto. My study shows that urban chicken-keeping is working in the city in transformative and subversive ways; it is allowing residents to cultivate a companionable ethic of care that brings the individuality, lifeworlds, joy, and suffering of chickens into focus. Importantly, these companionable backyard relations are challenging the ethical invisibility of farm animals while making chickens matter as more-than-producers and other-than-food.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my sister, my parents, and my two bunnies, for always being there and for inspiring me in different ways.

Thank you to my Supervisor, Dr. Sarah Wakefield, for guiding and supporting me throughout this project, and for encouraging me to find my academic voice. And, to the FEAST research group, I enjoyed our weekly conversations and learned so much from each of you.

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the chicken-keepers who took interest in my project and introduced me to their caring and endearing human/chicken worlds.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the birds whose ongoing presence and historical legacy in our city has made this research project possible.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... iii

Table of Contents ...... iv

List of Figures ...... vii

List of Appendices ...... viii

1 Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Chapter Summaries ...... 3

2 Literature Review ...... 7

2.1 Animal Domestication and Exploitation ...... 8

2.1.1 Making and Unmaking Chickens through Domestication ...... 8

2.1.2 Domesticates in Relation ...... 10

2.1.3 Exploitation and Suffering in Factory Farming ...... 12

2.1.4 Animal Welfare and Expertized Care ...... 15

2.1.5 Seeking Alternatives: Contributions of Care Ethics ...... 18

2.2 Urban Chickens: Historical and Contemporary Farm Animal Geographies ...... 23

2.2.1 Urban Histories of Animal Farming ...... 23

2.2.2 Return of Chickens: Backyard Urban Coops ...... 25

3 Methods and Methodology ...... 29

3.1 Research Design ...... 29

3.2 Case Selection, Context, and Background ...... 30

3.3 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis ...... 31

3.3.1 Historical Media Analysis ...... 32

3.3.2 Contemporary Media and Document Analysis ...... 34

3.3.3 Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 36

4 Historical Perspectives: Media Analysis (1970-1989) ...... 39

4.1 The Suffering of Animals at Live Markets ...... 40 iv

4.1.1 Bearing Witness to Cruelty ...... 41

4.1.2 Preventing Animal Suffering: The Role of the Humane Society ...... 46

4.2 The Prospect of (Inhumane) Slaughter ...... 50

4.2.1 Places and Practices of Slaughter ...... 51

4.2.2 Pets versus Meat: Issues of Care in/and Killing ...... 53

4.3 The Place of Farm Animals in Canadian Society ...... 55

4.3.1 Animals in Agri-Business ...... 55

4.3.2 Diminishing Cruelty: Distance, Difference and Animal Welfare ...... 58

4.4 Chapter Conclusion ...... 62

5 Contemporary Practices and Perspectives, Part I: Media and Document Analysis (2001- 2020) ...... 65

5.1 The Oppositional Voice Revisited: The “Proper” Place and Care of Farm Animals ...... 66

5.1.1 An Imagined Paradox: Urban Density and the Farm Animal Multitude ...... 66

5.1.2 Questions of Care-Related Competencies ...... 69

5.2 The Human/Hen Counter-Voice: Stories of Care and Belonging from Toronto’s Urban Coops ...... 72

5.2.1 Chickens Belong Here: Making Space for (a few) Hens ...... 73

5.2.2 Humane Cities and Ethical Urban Farmers ...... 76

5.2.3 Hens Aren’t Food: Urban Chickens as Productive Backyard Pets ...... 78

5.2.4 Seeing, Thinking, and Feeling with (Pet) Chickens ...... 81

5.3 Chapter Conclusion ...... 85

6 Contemporary Perspectives and Practices, Part II: Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 87

6.1 Motivations of Chicken-Keepers ...... 88

6.1.1 Farm Animal Encounters ...... 88

6.1.2 Beyond Eggs: Seeing and Caring for Chickens ...... 90

6.1.3 Knowing “Where” Food Comes From ...... 91

6.2 Human-Chicken Relationality: Hens as Outdoor Pets, Producers, and Farm Animals ..... 92 v

6.2.1 Sociability, Familiarity and Attachment ...... 92

6.2.2 Handling and Hygiene ...... 95

6.2.3 Work, Cooperation and Exchange ...... 97

6.3 Practices of Care and Knowledge-Building ...... 100

6.3.1 Learning the Language of Chickens ...... 100

6.3.2 Friends, Strangers and Neighbours ...... 103

6.3.3 Predation, Pests, and Protection ...... 104

6.3.4 Creature Comforts: Coops, Enclosures and Spaces to Roam ...... 108

6.3.5 Hen Health and Veterinary Support ...... 112

6.4 Impacts of Companionable Human-Hen Relationships ...... 113

6.4.1 Care versus Expertise ...... 113

6.4.2 Community Connections ...... 116

6.4.3 Empathetic Entanglements ...... 117

6.5 Chapter Conclusion ...... 121

7 Conclusion ...... 125

References ...... 130

Appendix A ...... 140

Appendix B ...... 145

List of Figures

Figure 1: Seizure of chickens at Kensington Market...... 42 Figure 2: Rabbit on top of cage at Stouffville Farmers’ Market...... 43 Figure 3: Merchant handling chicken at Kensington Market...... 43 Figure 4: Caged chickens at Ottawa experimental farm...... 61 Figure 5: Backyard chicken coop in Toronto...... 74 Figure 6: Blair, Julep and Zazu...... 81 Figure 7: Aleggsandra Hamilton’s backyard coop...... 109 Figure 8: Mel’s backyard coop...... 109 Figure 9: Sam’s backyard coop...... 110

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List of Appendices

Appendix A: Interview Guide...... 140 Appendix B: Information Letter...... 145

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1 Introduction

Chickens and other domesticated species that fall under the category of farm animals are not commonplace in Canada’s urban landscapes. Rather, these animals tend to experience their lives in agricultural spaces that are physically and socially distanced from the country’s largest urban areas; they may be reared on small- to medium-sized rural farms, or, as is more common in Canada, in high-density, large-scale facilities known as factory farms. These forms of distancing prevent members of the public from learning firsthand about farm animals, their lives and experiences, and about the particularities of their care. As some scholars have cautioned, this lack of familiarity can impede the public’s understanding of what it means to treat the animals in our food system humanely (Bock and Buller, 2013), and can encourage demands for welfare reformist measures that are incapable of effectively addressing the severe forms of suffering that animals on factory farms continue to endure (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011; Donovan, 2007). Recently, however, these longtime processes of distancing and animal erasure have started to come undone. In fact, chickens are becoming more visible in daily urban life, providing an opportunity for urban dwellers to get to know these animals on new relational terms around the intimate sphere of the home.

In cities across Canada, backyard chicken-keeping is becoming a more common activity and one that many municipalities are beginning to support (Blecha & Leitner, 2014; Butler, 2012; McClintock, Pallana & Wooten, 2014; Pollock, Stephen, Skuridina & Kosatsky, 2012). These non-commercial backyard practices are making chickens—particularly egg-laying hens—visible in cities, and they provide opportunities for urban families to build relationships with these animals in ways that have not always been possible at this scale. Scholars have observed that these new relationships appear to be unlike those common in commercial agriculture, as some policy frameworks promote the keeping of hens as hybrids—as both “livestock” and as “pets” (Bartling, 2012; Huang & Drescher, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012). Although not all chicken-keepers may be taking up this practice as a subversive or political act, scholars in the fields of animal geographies (Wolch & Emel, 1998) and in the feminist tradition in animal ethics (Donovan & Adams, 2007) remind us that processes that challenge “the ethical invisibility of the individual non-human other” (Jones, 2000, p. 271, emphasis in original) are inherently political and have a spatial-ethical resonance that warrants context-sensitive study.

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That is, practices that make individual members of hidden-from-view species (like chickens) visible and knowable in society can serve to challenge dominant, exploitative relations of power—relations that often dictate the value of an animal’s life and the moral implications of their mistreatment.

In this context, research that explores ways of living differently in relation with farm animals can be framed as part of a timely and necessary political-ethical project. This is because the world is at a critical juncture where demand for cheap meat, dairy and eggs is placing unprecedented pressures on farmers and the animals they raise, particularly chickens, which are one of the world’s most widely consumed and affordable sources of meat. The sheer volume of chicken bones discarded each year has led some to declare that the Earth has entered the “Age of Chicken” (Gorman, 2018, p. IN3). If current patterns continue, scholars posit that mummified chicken bones from the 65 billion or so birds killed each year across the globe (with around 750 million birds dying each year in Canada) might become one of our society’s most significant geological markers, shaping an unsettling “tale of our time” (Gorman, 2018, p. IN3).

Following the call of animal geographers and feminist scholars to investigate the dynamics of human-animal relationships and their ethical “freight” (Jones, 2000, p. 270), my research looks at how people’s relationships with chickens are changing in urban space through the growing practice of backyard chicken-keeping. My project focuses on Toronto, Ontario, where a chicken- keeping pilot project, UrbanHensTO, is underway, and where backyard chickens have been a topic of ongoing and heated debate for decades. This focus lends itself to producing an in-depth analysis of Toronto’s recent history with urban hens—from the persistent popularity of these birds in the early twentieth century and their near-complete erasure from urban space just decades later, to the recent public debates that marked chickens’ formal, though temporary, return to city backyards in 2018. Toronto makes an appropriate case selection for exploring the changing geography of human-chicken relations in Canada.

My work can be distinguished from most existing scholarship on backyard chickens (for example, Bartling, 2012; Gaynor, 2012; Huang & Drescher, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012) since I am approaching the topic from the combined perspective of animal geographies and the feminist care tradition in animal ethics. As well, I am primarily interested in understanding how perspectives on animal care and belonging have influenced the geography of

3 human-chicken relations in Toronto over time. By the term belonging, I am referring both to the physical spaces where animals are seen as in place or out of place (Philo & Wilbert, 2000), and the categories (e.g., food) to which they are assigned. My research indicates that these thematic threads have been under-examined in the scholarly literature on urban chickens, comprising a gap in our understanding of human-animal histories and urban farm animal geographies. To this end, I look to historical and contemporary perspectives and practices in Toronto through media, policy-related documents and interviews, to answer the following research questions:

1. How have perspectives on animal care and belonging shaped the geography of human- chicken relations in Toronto? Are historical perspectives still dominant today?

2. What kinds of relations are emerging in and around Toronto’s urban coops?

By looking first at archival materials, specifically textual news media, I was able to analyze how chickens and their keepers were regarded in Toronto leading up to and following their eventual ban in 1983. Based on this historical media analysis, I argue that, despite the lack of scholarly attention received so far, concerns about animal suffering and inhumane care played a significant role in expelling chickens from cities, and in shaping our broader understanding of where and with whom chickens and other farm animals belong and how they should be cared for. I then turn to contemporary news media and policy-related documents, as well as one-on-one interviews that I hosted with urban chicken-keepers, to show how ideas around animal care and belonging are being reframed today, including how perspectives that were once dominant are being challenged and dismantled. Overall, my work suggests that people in Toronto are cultivating new ethical relationships with chickens in ways that matter within and beyond the urban coop.

1.1 Chapter Summaries

This thesis is organized into seven chapters. Following the current introduction, my literature review in Chapter Two provides a high-level treatment of the histories of domestication (with a view to chickens) and the ways in which animals have been socially defined, as this provides important context for my analysis. More specifically, this literature serves to foreground the spatial-ethical resonances (Jones, 2000) of how animals are ordered in conceptual and material space, which creates inclusions and exclusions wherein some animals belong in particular contexts and others do not. I pay particular attention to the categories of “farm animal” and

“pet”, since these are most relevant to my study. From here, I move on to discuss the spaces where most chickens exist today: factory farms. This discussion addresses: the unethical treatment that chickens face in these environments; the perspective of animal welfare as an expertized and scientized “care”; and, the shortcomings of welfare reformist measures when it comes to addressing systems of animal exploitation and suffering. Critically, I highlight alternative ethics in the feminist care tradition in order to pintpoint a useful relational concept, entangled empathy (Gruen, 2015), that helps to frame my empirical work and overarching argument. In the third and final section of my literature review, I shift my attention to the topic of farm animals in the city to provide relevant historical background and to contextualize my study in the urban chicken-keeping literature. This allows me to identify the gaps that I aim to fill from a feminist oriented, care-centred position in animal geographies.

Chapter Three describes my methods and methodology. I first present my case study approach and my rationale for focusing on Toronto, where a backyard chicken-keeping program is underway and under review by the city. I then describe how I sourced and analyzed my empirical data, which includes historical media (i.e., textual news media), current media and policy-related documents, and data from interviews held with eight chicken-keepers. For my media and document analyses, I worked from a final, refined dataset of 150 historical newspaper articles (from 1970-1989), 95 current news articles (since 2001), and more than two dozen policy-related documents. I also reflect on my interview process, including my recruitment and interview methods, and the steps I followed to transcribe, code and analyze my data. This range of methods and materials, combined with my historical and contemporary focus, provided me with a well- rounded dataset for investigating human-chicken relationships in Toronto through the lenses of care and belonging.

After discussing my methods and methodology, Chapter Four presents the findings from my historical media analysis (1970-1989) and includes a concluding discussion that grounds my findings in the literature. In this chapter I aim to show the extent to which the erasure of chickens from Toronto’s urban landscape was informed by public perspectives on animal care and inhumane treatment, which have been under-examined to date. These perspectives manifested in the vociferous response of members of the public as well as animal protection and advocacy groups, who were equally aghast at the sight of chickens and other animals suffering at live markets in and around Toronto, and at the prospect of urban farm animals’ inhumane at-home

5 slaughter. As much as these efforts were aimed at addressing actual and imagined animal suffering, they helped to fuel a ban that effectively severed people’s proximate relationships with chickens. I also highlight in my historical analysis how conceptual distinctions between pets and farm animals helped to weave a potent narrative of urban un-belonging with respect to animals that did not fit easily within the pet category; human/pet relations, which were reshaping the city, affected the ultimate place of farm animals.

In Chapters Five and Six, I present empirical findings from my contemporary media and document analysis (2001-2020) and from semi-structured interviews that I held with eight participants of the chicken-keeping pilot UrbanHensTO. Looking first at media and policy- related documents published since the early 2000s, Chapter Five provides a treatment of oppositional perspectives, including arguments about humane care that have been used to undermine the legitimacy of urban residents as competent farm-animal keepers. I then explore the perspectives and practices of actual chicken-keepers (perceptible in the media), to show how these arguments are being challenged, and how chickens are being framed in a new, subversive light. I argue that chicken-keepers are emerging in media stories as urban farmer/pet-owner hybrids, connecting urban citizens to animal care knowledge and experience in both domains; meanwhile, chickens have their own visibility in the media as “pets-with-benefits”, and as endearing individuals that can be effectively cared for in cities. In Chapter Six I build on these and other findings using data from semi-structured interviews that I hosted with registered chicken-keepers. These interviews supported the premise that chickens are, indeed, returning to the city on new, companionable terms. As I argue, urban chicken-keeping in Toronto appears to be cultivating a companionable ethic of care that disrupts dominant perspectives on where and with whom chickens belong, and the life that these animals are owed in Canadian society. Importantly, these practices are challenging the ethical invisibility of farm animals and their dominant use as food.

In Chapter Seven, I summarize my main findings and conclusions and identify areas for future research. I also highlight what I perceive as the opportunities and challenges of current practices in Toronto under UrbanHensTO in an effort to contribute to policy dialogues about possible human-hen futures in the city. I foreground the view that urban discussion and debate on backyard chicken-keeping needs to better account for the fact that chickens are not merely a means to acquiring fresh eggs. My findings show that chicken-keepers are driven by an interest

6 in caring for farm animals, and are building small but meaningful connections to chickens as both producers and as pets, with the latter generally taking precedence when animals’ productive abilities begin to wane. As interview participants expressed, chickens are not “Sunday dinner”; they matter as other-than-food and as more-than-producers. In fact, chickens are being cared for through what appears, in many ways, to align with an emerging concept in care ethics known as “entangled empathy” (Gruen, 2015). Therefore, these are not relationships to ignore, restrict or trivialize. Rather, they warrant the attention of policy-makers, researchers, and the public as they have the potential to alleviate forms of distancing and spark ethical conversations about our (human) relationships with, and moral obligations to, the hundreds of millions of animals currently exploited in our food system.

2 Literature Review

In Canada, chickens are typically viewed as farm animals. This well-known social category is used to frame and define our relations with animals that are agriculturally productive, and often delineates the spaces where such animals are encountered—that is to say, in rural or agricultural areas. However, chickens are beginning to appear outside of these agricultural spaces, in urbanized areas, and not exclusively under the label of farm animal. What is indeed distinct about the emergence of chickens in cities like Toronto is the shift in social categorization that is beginning to occur from productive farm animal to companion animal or productive urban pet (Bartling, 2012; Langford, 2020). This new “placing” of chickens, and the public debates that it sparks, warrants the attention of scholars, particularly in the field of animal geographies, a subfield within human geography that focuses today on human-animal relations and their “complex entanglings…with space, place, location, environment and landscape” (Philo & Wilbert, 2000, p. 4). New animal geographers working in what has been coined as the third wave of animal geographies—an area with which my work aligns—tend to focus on the political and ethical questions that surround the placing of animals in human society as food, pet, and otherwise (Wolch and Emel, 1995; Philo & Wilbert, 2000). As Philo and Wilbert (2000) describe:

One of the things a new animal geography seeks to do…is to follow how animals have been socially defined, used as food, labelled as pets and pests, as useful or not, classed as sentient, as fish, as insect, or as irrational ‘others’…it thereby endeavours to discern the many ways in which animals are ‘placed’ by human societies in their local material spaces (settlements, fields, farms, factories, and so on) as well as in a host of imaginary, literary, psychological and even virtual spaces. (p. 5)

Owain Jones (2000) observes that these social classifications have a spatial-ethical resonance— that is, definitions like “pet”, “food” and “farm animal” not only tell us where animals belong (i.e., in our homes; on our plates; on farms), but also inform how animals within these categories are valued and treated. Some animals become killable and edible, and their suffering becomes a point of negotiation; others are kept affectionately as members of urban households and are supposed to be allowed to live out their natural lifespans. Since my research shows that urban chicken-keeping disrupts these divisions, I begin this literature review from the critical point of departure of social classification. I consider, briefly, how chickens emerged in society under the label of farm animals, and how this intimate relation has been distorted over time through

7 8 intensifying systems of domestication and exploitation. I then look more closely at these systems today, specifically at the factory farms that are responsible for supplying the majority of eggs and chicken consumed in Canada, which provides a point of comparison and contrast to the practices that are emerging in Toronto. I argue, like others, that factory farms are exploitative sites of severe animal mistreatment. From this position I align myself in the second part of this chapter with the work of scholars in the care tradition in animal ethics to suggest that addressing these exploitative systems requires that we move beyond welfare policy and reform to demand and enact dramatically different relationships with the animals in our food system. Since I ultimately argue that backyard chicken-keeping can cultivate an alternative urban ethic with farm animals, I turn in the third part of this chapter to the literature on backyard chickens and urban farm animals, which I explore in historical and contemporary terms, and primarily in the North American context. This provides pertinent background and allows me to highlight gaps in the scholarship that my research fills.

2.1 Animal Domestication and Exploitation

2.1.1 Making and Unmaking Chickens through Domestication

Chickens are the most populous farm animal on Earth and the second most popular meat source globally (FAO, 2021). They are also viewed as some of the least interesting or charismatic animals among domesticates (Marino, 2017). To better understand how and why this is so requires a brief discussion of our history with chickens and other farm animals. Chickens and humans entered each other’s orbits some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago as cohabitants in new farming settlements in eastern Asia (Craig & Swanson, 1994; Hai Xiang et al, 2014; Marino, 2017). Scholars posit that Red Jungle Fowl (the modern hen’s ancestor) were attracted to these settlements by potential food sources, like “kitchen scraps, animal dung, and crop-processing waste” (Larson & Fuller, 2014, p. 123). During the first few thousand years of human and fowl living side-by-side, the relationship was one of commensality (Larson & Fuller, 2014). That is to say, the research suggests that unlike other animals that became “farm” animals after being over hunted and enclosed to avoid extirpation, chickens were not the targets of hunters, nor does it appear that they were subject to other mechanisms of control early on in their relationship with humans. Rather, early human-fowl relations are believed to have caused no harm to humans or animals, and likely benefited fowl by providing these birds with a proximate source of food. Humans and fowl, as the research suggests, were enrolled in a “reciprocal relationship” for some

9 time; however, scholars believe that around 4,000 years ago, these dynamics began to change. Practices of domestication grew out of reciprocal relations, and became increasingly exploitative with the rise of capitalism. In fact, living in proximity for thousands of years “laid the foundation for domestication, including captivity and human-controlled breeding” (Larson & Fuller, 2014, p. 117). These forms of control made it possible for chickens, like other animals cast as “livestock”, to become the world’s first form of capital as they were transformed into commodities during early regimes of colonial expansion (Armstrong, 2018). Certain species (like sheep) were especially central to the growth of exploitative and oppressive global systems (Armstrong, 2018).

As scholars have argued, these systems have grown even more severe with time, dismantling farm animals’ social relationships with herd or flock while sequestering animals from the outdoor environments to which they adapted over hundreds of years (Armstrong, 2018; Buller, 2013; Emel & Neo, 2015). In turn, processes of domestication, and the practices of control they entail, have precipitated impairments to farm animals’ spatial memory, cognition and intra- species communications (among other social and physiological impacts) (Armstrong, 2018; Marino, 2017; Porcher, 2017). These human-caused impairments have contributed to the overarching perspective in popular discourse that farm animals are unintelligent, socially inept, and uncharismatic as compared with other domesticates or wild animals (Armstrong, 2018; Anderson, 1997; Philo & Wilbert, 2000; Porcher, 2017). Looking to chickens, Lori Marino (2017) observes that the valuation of these farm animals as nothing other than uncharismatic food commodities has stripped these animals of their “authenticity as a real animal with an evolutionary history and phylogenetic context” (p. 127, emphasis added). After reviewing the scientific literature on chickens, Marino found that the majority of studies on these animals are aimed at understanding and improving chickens in the context of meat and egg production: “The scientific literature on chicken cognition and behavior is relatively sparse in many areas, and dominated by applied themes, artificial settings, and methodologies relating to their ‘‘management’’ as a food source” (pp. 127-128). Other scholars have drawn similar conclusions in other fields, noting, for instance that farm animals in general are “the orphans of ethology” (Fontenay 2010, as cited in Buller, 2013, p. 157), and are rarely of interest to scholars inquiring about the lives and lifeworlds of nonhuman animals. In turn, we can observe how processes of domestication and farming, which have grown increasingly exploitative under industrial

10 capitalism (Porcher, 2017), have contributed to both the making and unmaking of chickens, pigeonholing these (and other) farm animals as less worthy of scholarly inquiry, and as undeserving of moral consideration: “…to be concerned about the welfare of chickens or lambs is to be concerned about the most trivial of domesticated (feminized) nature” (Anderson, 1997, p. 480).

2.1.2 Domesticates in Relation

Although animal domestication evolved over centuries to include increasingly exploitative systems of breeding and enclosure, scholars in political philosophy and animal ethics remind us that not all relationships grounded in domestication are exploitative, oppressive, or harmful (Clement, 2011; Donaldson and Kymlicka, 2011; Luke, 2007; Gruen, 2015; Engster, 2006 & 2007). Indeed, relationships forged through domestication can be fluid and complex, if at times contradictory. This is because, as Kay Anderson (1997) and others (for example, Clutton-Brock, 1992) have argued, animal domestication is not a simple or discrete event; it has been and continues to be an “experimental” process that engages “a mix of moralities; of care and control, as well as mastery and paternalism” (Anderson, 1997, p. 478):

Depending on how a species is defined — whether it is deemed edible, palatable, useful, good company, vermin, nice to touch, intelligent and so on — domestication has entailed impulses that range from consummate affection towards individual domesticates to unscrupulous exploitation of whole species. (Anderson, 1997, p. 478)

The boundaries that run between different species are ultimately unfixed and porous, which has drawn the attention of researchers working within and beyond animal geographies, such as Jones (2000), Clement (2011), Fox (2006), Philo & Wilbert (2000), Jerolmack (2008), Holmberg (2015), and Srinivasan (2011). These scholars have observed how members of the same animal species have transgressed between different social categories, and how these categories and the relationships through which they are embodied have shifted over time. For instance, with respect to pets, Fox writes that:

...whilst pets have shared human homes for centuries, the late twentieth and early twenty- first centuries have seen animals move further within the confines of domestic space [...] Where once dogs were kept outside in kennels and cats put out at night to fulfill their purpose of catching rodents, today animals are often allowed access to the most intimate areas of the home environment, including human bedrooms and furniture” (p. 71)

Along with pets moving further into the home environment (Fox, 2018), Fox (2018) and Fox and Gee (2016) have described how these relationships have been medicalized: “whereas once animals were only taken to the vet in case of illness or for major procedures […] appropriate care is now seen as involving medical interventions at all stages of life” (Fox, 2018, p. 70). Additionally, to “live in close-embodied proximity to humans, animals are often subject to increasing modification of their behaviour and physicality” (p. 72), which include not only medical treatments (like vaccinations), but also practices (like crate training) that are aimed at controlling where animals are allowed to be, especially when unsupervised in the home.

But just as some domesticates, like pets, have become accepted and absorbed into the most intimate spaces and relations of the residential sphere in recent decades, others (like farm animals) have been ejected from residential and urban environments. This has resulted in the severing of proximate human-animal relations, producing what Bulliet (2005) refers to as “postdomesticity”. Geographers Jody Emel and Harvey Neo offer a succinct summary of Bulliet’s thesis:

Bulliet distinguishes between what he calls domesticity and ‘postdomesticity’. He claims that domesticity refers to the social, economic and intellectual dimensions of communities in which most members have daily contact with domestic animals (other than pets), and postdomesticity is a situation in which most people live far away from the animals exploited for food, fibre and other goods […] (Emel & Neo, 2015, p. 5)

The ethical concerns with postdomesticity are many, as it is through this relation that animals become “lesser subjects than humans and therefore worthy of complete domination” (Emel & Neo, 2015, p. 5). Post-domesticity might be seen then as both reflecting and exacerbating the human-animal divide—a divide that has given way to “the wielding of an oppressive, dominating power by humans over animals” for centuries (Philo & Wilbert, 2000, p. 4). Drawing on the work of Noske (1997, as cited in Emel and Neo, 2015), Emel and Neo (2015) argue that farm animals under today’s oppressive, postdomestic regimes have also lost their “biolegitimacy”, becoming “de-animalized, socially deprived, alienated from their own products and from the outdoors” (p. 6). One might also argue that people, too, have lost something akin to social “legitimacy” as keepers and caretakers of farm animals outside of the oppressive, sequestered environments of agri-business—environments that I introduce below to contextualize the treatment of chickens and other farm animals in Canadian society.

2.1.3 Exploitation and Suffering in Factory Farming

Approximately 80 million chickens die for their flesh each year in Ontario based on government statistics, and more than twelve million laying hens can be found in the province at any given time. The majority of these birds exist on factory farms (or Confined Animal Feeding Operations)—large-scale, intensive, industrialized agricultural systems that have served to make chicken the world’s most ubiquitous and affordable source of meat. Yet, despite tens of millions of chickens occupying physical space in Ontario, and billions more existing around the world in similar conditions, the situation is such that these animals—though populous—are rarely seen in their lively form. In fact, most people residing in cities may never interact with a live chicken; likewise, Michael Carolan (2008) remarks that farm animals are rarely observed in the countryside now, despite these spaces being symbolic of animal farming and rural life. The simultaneous ubiquity and invisibility of these animals is the outcome of industrialized farming, and increasing powerful mechanisms of distancing and dissociation. Chickens are at once everywhere and nowhere to be seen: “[s]patially removed and hidden from sight, they are isolated and ignored by most of society unless there is a health scare […]” (Emel & Neo, 2015, p. 6). Feminist scholar, Carol J. Adams (2010, as cited in Coulter, 2016) writes that this unsettling reality is both a consequence of “the physical placement and construction of buildings” in industrialized farming, which has located the opaque structures where animals are raised away from dense urban areas, and the “discursive obfuscation” that results from the use of mass terms like “meat” that allow people to dissociate from the animals they consume (p. 210). Likewise, slaughterhouses, although found in urban areas, have been described as strategically sequestered spaces that hide the bodies of animals (and their institutionalized killing) in clear view (Pachirat, 2013). These forms of separation and distancing are being discussed and problematized by scholars working across the social sciences and call attention to how factory farming systems work to conceal from public view the life, death and suffering of farm animals.

Jocelyne Porcher (2017), for instance, argues that today’s industrialized, production-oriented farming systems are an extreme distortion of and departure from animal husbandry practices that were more common less than two centuries ago; she warns that these intensive systems erase from the public imaginary the possibility for alternative (ethical) modes of living and working with farm animals. Similarly, Owain Jones (2000) observes it is precisely spaces like these, “spaces which are customarily closed off from conventional ethical gaze” (p. 269) that warrant

13 the urgent attention of scholars and the public alike. Since the early 2000s, scholars in animal geographies and related fields of study have responded to calls like these, giving greater attention to the material realities of animals in factory farming in order to shed light on the suffering that is now synonymous with these “closed-off” spaces (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011; Emel & Neo, 2015; Engster, 2006; Gruen, 2011). Thinking specifically about the experiences of chickens, feminist philosopher and animal activist Lori Gruen (2011) has detailed how these animals tend to experience these dense, industrialized environments:

In addition to the billions of chickens who are killed globally, there are an estimated five billion laying hens in the world, each producing roughly 300 eggs per year. Most of these hens are kept in small wire cages, called “battery cages,” with between three and eight other hens. The battery cages are stacked on top of each other indoors in sheds that can contain upwards of 100,000 hens. The battery cage is so small that the hens are unable to stretch their wings or turn around. Because of the stress, boredom, fear, and close quarters, hens will peck at each other, so most are routinely debeaked, a process that involves a hot blade cutting of the tip of the beak through a thick layer of highly sensitive tissue. (p. 83)

The experiences of battery hens has led some scholars to remark that egg farming is one of the most oppressive manifestations of factory farming (Gruen, 2011; Luke, 2007). In these systems, animals are treated as machine-like units of production and reproduction; fatalities on the farm, such as those caused by stress-induced cannibalism, trampling or disease in the small cages within which egg-laying hens are normally kept, are acceptable and planned-for industry losses (Gruen, 2011; Luke, 2007). Reflecting on such standardized industry calculations, Henry Buller (2013) has written at length about the ways in which factory farming positions animals as part of an undifferentiated (and morally undervalued) animalian mass—as identical and interchangeable units that only differ from the flock or herd when they fail to conform to normative assumptions about health or production, for example. In other words, only if a chicken dies early from exhaustion or stops laying eggs does it become distinct from the otherwise productive mass, and from what might be referred to as the ideal standard animal (Buller, 2013; Gruen, 2011). Through the lens of standardization, individuality and difference are eliminated; farm animals are un-made, reformed and refined using science and technology until the “individual farm animal becomes a statistical entry point in what is a summative concern for flock, herd, or housing unit welfare” (Buller, 2013, p. 162).

Along with reducing chickens and other species to standardized production units, factory farming disrupts the kinds of intra-species relationships that farm animals (and all human and nonhuman animals) are inclined to experience. As Buller (2013) writes, social relations are disrupted on factory farms: “...these are artificial, re-constituted groups: most modern herds, flocks, units are grouped by gender, by age group and by position within a reproductive cycle - not by any sense of inherent social organization” (p. 162). In the contemporary context, farmed animals are not often given the opportunity to determine, cultivate or maintain interpersonal relations; instead they are organized and reorganized as their reproductive cycles change. For some scholars, these realities have raised questions about how animals’ reproductive labour (sometimes framed as care work) is exploited and undervalued in industrial agriculture and society more broadly (Coulter, 2016; Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2015; Porcher, 2017). Coulter (2016) for example argues that the social lives of animals and their reproductive labours are wholly undermined in intensive farming systems:

There is now a simultaneous institutionalized and industrialized exploitation of the processes of reproduction, alongside the repression or complete elimination of the caring and social reproductive labours that should follow once babies are born. To add insult to injury, the suffering animals experience as a result is widely denied, ignored, or simply condoned. (p. 208)

Scholars like Jocelyne Porcher (2010; 2017) and Kendra Coulter (2016) have explored how farm animals indeed “work”, both in terms of the care work that animals are inclined to carry out with their young (Coulter, 2016), and the work that manifests as agency and decision-making, which farm animals have demonstrated in small-scale production systems (Porcher, 2010 and 2017). However, these same scholars also remind us of the challenges faced when trying to conceptualize farm animal work and human-animal partnership in modern-day farming (Despret, 2016; Porcher, 2010 & 2017; Porcher and Schmitt, 2012). These challenges stem from the fact that, in most cases, farm animals are oppressed in industrialized systems (i.e., factory farms) that deny animals’ subjectivity and agency. For example, in “What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions”, Vinciane Despret (2016) reflects on the novel and transformative research that Jocelyne Porcher carried out on the cooperative work of cows and farmers in small-scale farming; she notes that “the proposition of thinking that animals work is not easy” (p. 179). This is because: “as Porcher learned [...] the only place where she could ask it is precisely the place where the meaning of exploitation alone prevails” (p. 179). Porcher has argued as well that this

15 exploitation extends to farmers and farm workers, inhibiting the critical, intimate role that farm animal keepers once played in relational practices of animal husbandry.

Ultimately, these current human/animal realities beg the question of how and why such systems have become both commonplace and acceptable features of our contemporary food system. As I explore in the section below, the expertization of farm animal welfare in the mid-twentieth- century had a role to play in making intensive, large-scale farming systems more amenable to the public and policymakers; likewise, I show through evidence later in this thesis that erasing farm animals from cities, and severing our proximate relations with them, also contributed to (and continues to support) factory farming’s foothold.

2.1.4 Animal Welfare and Expertized Care

With an awareness of the conditions that animals face on factory farms, it is important to consider how these systems have avoided widespread ethical and political backlash. Many scholars argue that industry has worked strategically to build narratives around farm animal care and welfare standards, making it out to be “expert” in these domains. For context, animal welfare is an area of research, policy and practice that attends, in part, to how animals are kept and cared for within systems like factory farming. The concept of farm animal welfare emerged in the United Kingdom in the 1960s at a time when intensifying forms of animal agriculture were becoming matters of serious moral concern and the subject of incisive, expository works like Ruth Harrison’s famous book “Animal Machines” (1964, as cited in Woods, 2011). This outcry prompted the government to commission a formal investigation into the treatment of intensively- farmed animals (Woods, 2011). Although the term “welfare” was already used in relation to animals (by groups such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), it emerged as a formal area of farm policy and practice in the United Kingdom following the government-commissioned investigation and publication of the Brambell Report (Bock & Buller, 2013; Johnston, 2015; Woods, 2011). This foundational report is said to have established the first “mainstream” definition of the term “welfare”:

The attachment of the term ‘welfare’ to the work of the Brambell committee precipitated its entry into mainstream discourse. Its 1965 report offered one of the first definitions of welfare: ‘a wide term that embraces both the physical and mental wellbeing of the animal’. (Woods, 2011, p. 18)

Despite the fact that the report recognized both the physical and mental wellbeing of animals in its definition of welfare, Woods writes that the meaning of farm animal welfare rapidly narrowed in scope as it was adopted by government and industry, becoming less about “mental wellbeing” and more about “physical health”. This aligned the concept of welfare with health-oriented practices of veterinary science and helped to maintain the industry view that productivity was a hallmark of a healthy animal, and that animal care was the domain of experts. When the British government established through legislation that the responsibility of managing farm animal welfare would be with veterinarians, the relationship between animal welfare, animal health and medical expertise further solidified. As Woods describes, this decision legitimated the perspectives of veterinarians as “experts in welfare, thereby cementing its connection with health” (Woods, p. 19). This conception of an expertized (and scientized) form of welfare extended across the globe, growing into a broad field that until recent decades maintained a health-oriented view of farm animal wellbeing (Fraser, 2008; Bock & Buller, 2013).

The historical expertization and scientization of farm animal welfare not only made physical signs of health the most important signifiers of an animal’s wellbeing; it also undermined non- expertized and non-scientized perspectives in animal care, and this continues to be the norm today. As Philo and Wilbert (2000) observe with respect to the treatment of animals in society more generally, “it might be claimed that the legitimate spokespersons for animals have become the biological sciences” (p. 9). Similarly, Brian Luke has concluded that groups associated with agri-business (like producers’ associations representing factory farmers) claim to be the spokespersons for farm animals, and use strategic marketing and communication measures to delegitimize those who promote alternative, ethical value positions. This delegitimization occurs not only through industry’s influence on policy and their control over day-to-day practices of animal care, but also through meta-narratives and marketing campaigns that promote the message of industry and their affiliates as welfare experts above all. For example, this is captured in the following quote from the National Pork Producers Council in the United States:

Our research shows that we can prevent long-term erosion of public support for the livestock industry. … We’ve got to do a better job of communicating with consumers, and letting them know that we, not the animal rights groups, are the animal welfare experts. (Luke, 2007, p. 142).

To this end, scholars working in various fields of animal-oriented study have argued that the scientization and expertization of particular forms of knowledge (like farm animal welfare) can

17 result in social exclusions, as some voices are heard and trusted while others are ignored and their perspectives made not to matter to broader dialogues (for example, Fox, 2006; Hinchliffe & Whatmore, 2006; Holmberg, 2015; Philo & Wilbert, 2000; Nadasdy, 2011). For farm animals, this has meant that welfare remains, in part, best determined by the professionalized voices of science and industry—voices that are ultimately working to limit rather than eliminate farm animal suffering. In the United Kingdom, the influence of industry on broader conceptions of welfare and humane care have led Bettina Bock and Henry Buller (2013) to levy the critique that today’s animal welfare policy is “an inevitable and necessary cosmopolitical assembly that belies both the simplicity of scientific calculation and the anthropocentrism of normative approaches to animal health and wellbeing” (p. 391). In other words, at the policy level, animal welfare comprises a mix of reductive measures that ultimately serve the dominant interests of industry, rather than the interests of animals or their caretakers. Overall, we might observe how the rise of farm animal welfare as a formal area of research, policy and practice has, therefore, been a paradoxical one. It emerged in the late twentieth-century to address public concern about animal mistreatment in intensifying farming systems; yet, it also helped to legitimize and grow an industry that institutionalizes farm animal suffering and erases animal life (and death) from public view.

Although animal protection groups have made (and continue to make) important contributions to animal welfare policy discussions in Canada, industry remains in the proverbial driver’s seat, and public participation in welfare dialogues is relatively low (Bradley & MacRae, 2011). Moreover, as David Fraser of the University of British Columbia’s animal welfare program has argued, to change what we (as a society) expect of farm animal welfare requires that our demands “make a reasonable fit to the major value positions about what constitutes a good life for animals” (Fraser, 2008). Since industry’s value position is most dominant at present, animal welfare policy is not granted latitude to perform in the best interest of animals, as noted earlier. As a consequence, one might conclude that animal welfare is ultimately complicit in systems of farm animal oppression because it cannot address the underlying structures that precipitate suffering and exploitation. Writing in political philosophy and animal rights, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (2011) capture this concern in reference to the broader landscape of animal welfare policy and practice in Canada:

Welfarism may prevent some truly gratuitous forms of cruelty—literally senseless acts of violence or abuse—but it becomes largely ineffective when confronted with cases of animal exploitation for which there is some recognizable human interest at stake, even the most trivial (such as testing cosmetics), or the most venal (such as saving a few pennies in factory farming). (p. 3)

Similarly, Jocelyne Porcher (2017) has observed that even after decades of research into animal welfare and policy development, the conditions that farm animals face have “become considerably worse” (p. xiii). This is because animal welfare continues to operate under the thumb of industry, which aims at increasing productivity rather than eliminating suffering, thereby prioritizing economics over ethics. Although Porcher’s work reflects on human/farm- animal relations in the European context and on industrial capitalism’s troubling seizure of “work relations with animals from animal husbandry” (2017, p. xii), it resonates with the reality of animal agriculture in Canada historically and today. As in France, we in Canada have “effectively passed from visible suffering to invisible suffering hidden behind good intentions and technological innovations […] behind misery-hiding legislation” (pp. xiii-xiv). As much as welfare reform has prevented some grotesque forms of animal suffering—and as much as it is important for members of the public to be aware of and engaged in welfare reform-related dialogues—it has also helped to conceal and legitimize suffering, and is therefore incapable of addressing the systems of exploitation that precipitate institutionalized forms of farm animal (and human) mistreatment (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011, Porcher, 2017), as will be explored in greater depth in the following section. Therefore, it is important that we consider how the care and treatment of farm animals is also being addressed using other concepts and theories. The feminist care tradition, in particular, has made critical contributions in this regard, some of which are especially relevant to my research.

2.1.5 Seeking Alternatives: Contributions of Care Ethics

Care ethics emerged as part of the feminist tradition in the 1980s through the works of Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, who argued for caring as “a unique mode of relating to others and solving problems” (Engster, 2007, p. 2; Donovans & Adams, 2007). Since that time, scholars have extended the reach of this theory into the moral and philosophical realm of animal ethics. In this context, an ethic-of-care has emerged to foreground “animals as individuals who do have feelings, who can communicate those feelings, and to whom therefore humans have moral obligations” (Donovan & Adams, 2007, pp. 2-3). Those working within and otherwise engaging

19 with this concept have applied it to discussions of animal welfare (Donovan & Adams, 2007; Donovan, 2007; Engster, 2006). For example, echoing the perspectives of scholars cited previously, Daniel Engster (2006) argues that animal welfare, as it exists today, is incapable of promoting ethical human-animal relationships and ensuring that a high standard of care is provided to animals. This is because the systems it serves are fundamentally opposed to care ethics:

Having made billions of animals dependent upon us for their survival and basic wellbeing, we deprive them of some of their basic needs (including a clean environment and nutritious diet), thwart the development of their basic capabilities (such as movement and nesting), and inflict unnecessary pain upon them. The care provided to these animals is so inadequate as to seem the very antithesis of caring: in many cases, it seems to approximate a form of torture. (Engster, p. 530, emphasis added)

Other scholars engaging with care theory have also engaged with this perspective (for example, Coulter, 2016; Gruen, 2011; Luke, 2007); like Engster, they have argued that factory farming is a fundamentally uncaring system that allows for the welfare of domesticated animals, approached as a non-individuated mass, to be assessed in different moral terms than with pets:

Animals under our care ought at least to be provided adequate food, water, and shelter, enjoy a clean and healthy environment, have the opportunity to develop and practice their basic capabilities for movement, sensation, companionship and the like, and live as much as possible free from pain. If we recognize this principle as valid in the treatment of pets—as we should—then we should also consistently apply it to chickens, pigs, cows, and other farm animals. The only practical way to achieve this goal, however, would be to abolish factory farming. (Engster, 2006, p. 530)

In this vein of critical thought, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams (2007) make two important distinctions between the reformist measures of animal welfare and an ethic-of-care, pointing to the latter’s potential to reshape the relationships people have with farm animals. First, they note that an ethic-of-care is concerned with individual animal suffering, unlike animal welfare, which remains focused on the flock, herd or animalian mass (Buller, 2013). Second, they observe that care ethics gives “attention to the political and economic systems that are causing the suffering” in question. In other words, rather than accepting and working within oppressive systems of factory farming to promote the welfare of animals, “ethic-of-care theory insists that these causal systems be addressed” (Donovan & Adams, 2007, p. 3). This involves thinking carefully about our (human) relationships with and moral obligations to domesticated animals more broadly while exploring and practicing alternative relations:

Care ethics offers a unique approach to the moral treatment of animals that grounds our moral duties to animals not in rights or utilitarian considerations but in our sympathy for animals and relationships with them. By grounding moral duties in sympathy and relationships, care ethics avoids some of the more problematic elements of other animal welfare positions. [...] Perhaps most importantly, care ethics capitalizes on the already existing moral sentiments that many human beings feel toward their pets and other animals. Formalizing the principle of care most people already recognize toward dogs, cats, and other companion animals, care ethics suggests that we have a duty to provide at least a modicum of decent care to all animals whom we have made inescapably dependent upon us. (Engster, 2006, p. 533-534, emphasis added)

As Engster makes clear, our human capacity for sympathy and our existing bonds with companion animals are critical to care ethics, and to addressing and dismantling exploitative systems like factory farming. Working with these ideas, Josephine Donovan (2007) defines sympathy not as an emotional response (as some theorists outside the feminist tradition have argued to undermine its validity) but rather as a legitimate way of knowing: “... sympathy is in fact a form of knowledge that includes a cognitive dimension. It is not, therefore, whimsical and erratic, nor does it entail obliteration of the thinking or feeling self” (p. 185). Similarly, Brian Luke (2007) reflects on sympathy as a potent facet of care ethics and legitimate form of knowledge to argue against liberationist arguments that “give low estimation to the human capacity to sympathize with nonhumans” (p. 134). Moreover, Luke argues that:

The disposition to care for animals is not the unreliable quirk of a few, but rather the normal state of humans generally [...] If we shift our attention away from animal exploitation to other cultural phenomena, we can see the strength and depth of the human-animal bond.

Animal rescue, therapy animals and human/companion animal relationships, for example, are indicative of humans’ capacity to feel and connect with other animals (Luke, 2007). To this point, Luke adds that:

People are generally inclined against harming animals: otherwise, there would be no need for social mechanisms that make killing somewhat more bearable—the exploitation of animals would be as straightforward as, say, drinking water or breathing air. (pp. 134 & 136)

In other words, farm animal exploitation exists “not because people fail to care, but in spite of the fact that they do care” (Luke, p. 134). In fact, “[e]normous amounts of social energy are expended to forestall, undermine, and override our sympathies for animals'' (Luke, p. 136) in order for systems like factory farming to continue to exist. Similarly, Carol J. Adams expresses

21 this point, noting that people tend to have a visceral response to suffering that evokes human sympathies and sparks anger, but “a speciest culture generally keeps people from being exposed to this information” (p. 211). Speciesism helps to further institutionalize animal suffering while hiding these daily realities from the public.

While many have argued that sympathy as a moral perception and cognitive tool can be used effectively to guide our relationships with animals who, at present, are oppressed and mistreated in society, it has also received some criticism, including from within the feminist tradition (Gruen, 2015). In fact, eco-feminist scholar Lori Gruen (2015) has argued that an alternative and more encompassing care ethic is required. Gruen (2015) argues that “sympathy is a response to something bad, untoward, unfortunate, or unpleasant happening to someone else [...] There is usually no feeling with the other” (p. 44, emphasis added). Gruen adds that “[w]hile we’re being sympathetic, we attempt to be disconnected from others. Empathy, however, recognizes connection with and understanding of the circumstances of the other” (p. 45), even if such understanding remains partial. She urges an encompassing approach—one that engages with but moves beyond existing conceptions of sympathetic perception. Gruen suggests that empathy, rather than sympathy, be used to address the ethics of oppressive and exploitative animal realities. This nuanced perspective or “shift” in how we look through the lens of care towards exploited animals is one that resonates strongly with my research and does important theoretical work in later chapters. Gruen presents her alternative—the concept of entangled empathy—as:

[A] type of caring perception focused on attending to another’s experience of wellbeing. An experiential process involving a blend of emotions and cognition in which we recognize we are in relationships with others and are called upon to be responsive and responsible in these relationships by attending to another’s needs, interests, desires, vulnerabilities, hopes, and sensitivities. (p. 3)

This encompassing form of empathy is predicated on “gaining as much knowledge about the way the other lives,” and moving “between our own and the other’s point of view” (p. 66), which might help us understand what scholars have referred to as animals’ atmospheres or lifeworlds (Lorimer, Hodgetts & Barua, 2019). This involves not only feeling for other animals, but also feeling with them through an intimate knowing of the other, and through an ongoing awareness of the effects of proximity and distance:

Entangled empathy with other animals involves reflecting on proximity and distance. To do it well we have to try to understand the individual’s species-specific behaviours and

her individual personality over a period of time. Very often, this is not easy to do without expertise and observation. Many, perhaps most, current discussions on what we owe animals fail to attend to the particularity of individual animal lives and the very different sorts of relationships we are in with them. […] Entangled empathy keeps us mindful of differences in context and differences in particular experiences […] (p. 67)

Importantly, Gruen adds that distanced relationships can also be modulated through small, but meaningful, engagements:

Once one’s perception is altered, other relations move to the foreground. Entangled empathy can occur with those who are more distant. We are all in relationships of all kinds with many, many animals and we may never have the opportunity to meet them or look into their eyes. But once we are attuned to some of them [...] we can begin to understand our relationships with and responsibilities to many others differently. (p. 79)

As Gruen describes, knowing some can help us to know many others. However, it is equally critical in my view that we remain mindful of who those “some” are. In other words, as animals continue to be socially defined (e.g., as pets, as food, etcetera) in contemporary society, it is imperative that the connections we build—that the “some” we get to know in intimate terms— are farm animals, and that these animals are able to transgress social boundaries to be perceived as something other than food. Seeing and feeling with animals in proximity might also contribute to what Kendra Coulter (2016) refers to as “interspecies solidarity”, a way of “thinking and acting” as both individuals and multi-species collectives. This form of solidarity, argues Coulter, involves drawing on qualities like empathy and respect, and might help us construct “non- exploitative cooperative relationships” with the animals currently in our food system (p. 212). Ultimately, such proximate, cooperative and visible human-animal entanglements might force us to engage more meaningfully as a society with questions of animal treatment and animal use— especially concerning the farm animals we otherwise use, conceal and exploit as food.

Overall, the concept of empathetic human/animal engagement frames my final analysis of how people in Toronto are relating to, and getting to know, chickens as farm animals and as pets; this concept also buttresses my closing argument that chicken-keeping is about more than local food supply or fresh eggs (Bartling, 2012). It is (for some) an ethical practice that, through small connections and gradual change, is cultivating care and may work to alter our perception and thus our relationships with farm animals beyond the backyard urban coop. Entangled empathy as a concept helps to lay the groundwork for considering, in my research, how urban citizens are building intimate, proximate and caring relationships with chickens—relationships that involve

23 bringing these animals into focus as individuals, learning about their distinct behaviours, personalities, fears, desires and quirks, taking ownership of care-related knowledge and practice (challenging narratives of “expert” knowledge in the process), and relating these personal experiences to the farm animals that remain concealed but connected to us through Canada’s broader food system.

2.2 Urban Chickens: Historical and Contemporary Farm Animal Geographies

2.2.1 Urban Histories of Animal Farming

Shifting gears in this third and final part of my literature review, I turn my attention to research on urban chickens and urban farm animals. With a view to the Canadian context, where possible, I consider how chickens and other farm animals were once ubiquitous in cities, why they were removed, and how they (chickens) are returning today. This provides background context for my study and allows me to identify gaps in the literature, which I then aim to fill through both my historical and contemporary analyses in later chapters.

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, chickens and other domesticated animals like cows, sheep, pigs, horses and goats were prominent features of urban life in North America’s growing cities (Brinkley & Vitiello, 2014; Kheraj, 2015). Farm animals fulfilled a myriad of urban needs and functions, from providing city dwellers with labour, income and a proximate food source, to cleaning up urban waste and food scraps and maintaining natural landscapes and common spaces (Smit, Nasr & Ratta, 2001; Steel, 2009; Butler, 2012; Brinkley & Vitiello, 2014; Kheraj, 2015). At the same time, these beneficial functions were countered by what became characterized and regulated as animal nuisances (Philo, 1995; Butler, 2012; Brinkley & Vitiello, 2014; Kheraj, 2015). Brinkley and Vitiello (2014) succinctly capture the historical ubiquity and utility of farm animals in the context of early North American cities—and the regular challenges of this multispecies urban arrangement:

Horses were the fastest means of transport. Hogs cleaned up household slop. Chickens scratched at the waste that the pigs left behind. Sheep and goats grazed on the commons, keeping the grasses short. Many urban families kept or boarded dairy cows for a supply of fresh milk. Cattle were driven from ports, and later rail stations, to markets and slaughterhouses throughout the city. Animals were everywhere, as were the nuisances that they created as they bellowed, kicked up dust, dropped manure, and knocked over passersby. (pp. 113-114)

The acceptance of animals as both beneficial and burdensome to the function of cities prevailed until the late nineteenth century, when policy makers and planners began to respond to concerns of urban congestion and public health by implementing municipal ordinances that prohibited animal keeping in urban spaces (Philo, 1995; Bartling, 2012; Butler, 2012; Blecha, 2007; Blecha & Leitner, 2014; Kheraj, 2015; Brinkley and Vitiello, 2014). Butler (2012) and others have cited noise complaints, animal waste, odours, zoonotic disease risks, congestion, and tramplings as primary animal nuisances that threatened public health. Although largely free-roaming animals were once a part of urban landscapes, regulatory change in response to these concerns along with shifting public perceptions around city life and urban space management led to animals being excised from these urban areas (Blecha, 2007; Butler, 2012; Kheraj, 2015; Brinkley & Vitiello, 2014). By the early twentieth century, farm animals (particularly larger species, like cows and pigs), were absent from many cities. Scholars have also described the ways in which pervasive ideas around the modern city as clean, orderly, sophisticated and separate from rural life contributed to the gradual removal of farm animals, whose presence disrupted this vision (Bartling, 2012; Butler, 2012; Philo, 1995; Steel, 2009). Philo (1995) demonstrates how the rejection of urban farming practices was also linked to the growing view of agriculture as an illicit, immoral activity for urban dwellers to engage in, and thus ill-suited to burgeoning visions of urbanity. These pervasive perceptions of the modern city contributed to growing and solidifying an urban-rural divide in historical contexts.

While public health concerns and powerful ideas about modernity did in fact fuel municipal- level regulatory changes that reshaped city life, the industrialization of farming and the globalization of the world food system were additional driving forces that exaggerated the urban- rural divide and contributed to the displacement of farm animals from cities (Bartling, 2012; Boyd, 2001; Steel, 2009; Albritton, 2012). Focusing on how these industrializing systems leveraged science and technology, scholars have described how increasing mechanization, standardization and stocking densities coupled with new breeding and processing technologies produced dramatic changes in animal agriculture; these changes dispersed farm animals across broad networks that distanced consumers from the processes of food production (Boyd, 2001; Albritton, 2012; Butler, 2012; Bartling, 2012; Gunderson, 2011). This displacement of animals from urban areas had a distancing effect that obscured from public view the daily lives of domesticated food animals and the processes involved in transforming them into edible

25 commodities (Philo, 1995; Boyd, 2001; Gunderson, 2011; Butler, 2012; Blecha & Leitner, 2014). However, it is important to note that chickens remained in some cities (in relatively small numbers), typically as part of informal and non-commercial chicken-keeping practices. As Hugh Bartling (2012) observed in a historical study of farm animals in Chicago, for example:

By the twentieth century as operations for processing large animals such as pigs and cattle were confined to distinct exurban districts, smaller animals like chickens remained a presence in cities. In some locales, chicken-keeping was presented as a part-time endeavour that could supplement wage work and simultaneously be a leisurely diversion from the stress of urban life [...] This presence, however, was contested. (p. 26)

Yet, as Bartling also notes above, the place of chickens was contested. The “noise and smell” of small-scale and backyard operations drew criticism. Similarly, the sight (and odour) of large- scale poultry operations in the urban fringe upset suburban households and attracted negative media attention. In turn, chickens in these spatial contexts would become the subjects of municipal ordinances that prohibited their presence in the city. Class biases and cultural tensions also fuelled public debate about backyard chickens, contributing to municipal policy change (Bartling, 2012). Taking up a similar study in Australia, Andrea Gaynor adds that the decline of chickens in Australian suburbs had as much to do with nuisance complaints and public health concerns as it did with the changing sensibilities of suburban residents. Peter Atkins (2012) offers a succinct summary of Gaynor’s key findings, noting that “the ‘modern outlook’ that emerged in the twentieth century, affecting everything from images in home-making magazines to the zoning mentality of local councils about the proper place of food production” (p. 16) shaped how chickens were viewed and where they belonged. By the 1950s and 1960s, “leisure activities and women’s increasing participation in the workforce” in Australia’s suburbs contributed to a marked decline in and general indifference to backyard chickens. In the Canadian context, however, chickens remained a highly visible part of the urban landscape during this same time, appearing in public markets and urban backyards until they were officially banned in cities like Toronto during the late twentieth-century (Dickau, 2018).

2.2.2 Return of Chickens: Backyard Urban Coops

Despite being mostly relegated now to factory farms outside of urban areas, chickens have persisted in small numbers and through clandestine practices in many Canadian cities; they are also making a more visible (legal) return to urban areas across North America as part of a broader social movement in urban agriculture and local food (Butler, 2012; McClintock et al,

2014; Blecha & Leitner, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012). Whereas urban chickens and other productive animals once existed in relatively high densities across public spaces and in close proximity to urban consumers (Steel, 2009), today’s urban chickens occupy backyards around the intimate realm of the urban home, and in relatively small flocks of approximately two to six birds (Huang & Drescher, 2015). Exact statistics on the popularity of chicken-keeping in practice remains limited, although Bartling (2012) has observed that in the United States, for example, “there have been scores of articles in the popular press […] along with a proliferation of internet sites to offer guidance, supplies and advice for city dwellers interested in raising poultry” (p. 23). As more cities legalize and license this non-commercial backyard practice, locally specific data may become more widely available on the overall prevalence of chicken-keeping in Canada and the United States.

Although the literature on urban chickens is scant outside of urban planning, several studies within and outside of this field have pointed to the key motivations for chicken-keepers, based on current data. Scholars observe that most commonly, the practice is driven by an interest in promoting local food and sustainability (Blecha & Leitner, 2014; Huang & Drescher, 2015; McClintock et al, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012). Interests in health and wellbeing have also been cited as drivers for some chicken-keepers, as have concerns about the welfare of animals in factory farming (Blecha & Leitner, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012). In one of the only qualitative studies of its kind, Jennifer Blecha and Helga Leitner (2014) interviewed eight chicken-keepers in the western United States, who cited that backyard chickens helped to promote social wellbeing, reduce food miles, manage garden pests, reduce household food waste (as scraps can be fed to chickens), and challenge capitalist relations in the food system by reducing demand for commercial chicken products. These scholars found that chickens became enmeshed in the productive, backyard microenvironment as integrated components of urban “agri-ecosystems” (Blecha & Leitner, 2014, p. 95). Hugh Bartling’s research (2012) adds the perspective that the growing popularity of backyard chickens reflects urbanites’ overall discontent with “the dominant practices that frame modern metropolitan life” (p. 28). Attending to public debate around municipal ordinances in the United States, Bartling describes backyard chicken-keeping as part of “micro-practices of resistance” (p. 33). In other words, backyard chickens are, in some cases, a response to public concerns about the instability of the global economy and the safety of industrially grown foods (Bartling, p. 33). Bartling adds that the

27 typology of chickens also emerges in municipal debate as a matter of ambiguity and policy concern:

A common refrain in many public deliberations regarding poultry-keeping is what “kind” of animals are chickens: pets, livestock, or some hybrid. [...] Unlike dogs or cats, which are common animals for people to own and which have a prominent infrastructure supporting ownership in the guise of pet stores, their place in advertising and popular culture, etc., owning live chickens is unusual. The “normal” presence of the animal in the urban and suburban landscape is in its inanimate form safely ensconced in grocery store refrigerators. Under the dominant logic of urban zoning policy, animals are either pets (accepted and regulated), wild (managed), or livestock (prohibited). Chickens do not conform to this typology and in this sense their hybridic nature is difficult for non- enthusiasts to embrace. (Bartling, p. 31)

The author suggests that chicken-keeping advocates tend to encourage a hybrid framing of hens as a strategy for working within zoning parameters that would otherwise exclude chickens as “livestock” (Bartling, 2012). Bartling draws this conclusion by foregrounding the ways in which advocates of a hybridized pet/livestock framing tend to focus, in their arguments, on the economic savings of backyard hens, observing that “the potential of eggs and their place in a mode of consumption outside of the market model is given great prominence in the pleas by ordinance reformers” (p. 31). Although McClintock et al. (2014) also note that chicken-keepers may actually relate to their chickens as producers and pets, they observe that there is little research on this relationship in actual practice. McClintock et al suggest that this topic be studied, alongside other facets of backyard chicken-keeping, in ways that are sensitive to local context. This gap in the research is one that I hope to help fill, as I consider (in Chapters Five and Six) the contemporary perspectives and practices of Toronto chicken-keepers, including those registered with the Toronto bylaw pilot program UrbanHensTO. This pilot frames backyard hens as pets to be kept on non-commercial terms “for enjoyment and eggs”; “owners shall keep hens as pets and for personal use only” (“UrbanHensTO”, 2020).

In addition to attending to this gap in the urban chicken-keeping and “urban livestock” literature, my work also aims to contribute to the histories of urban farm animals and the reasons for their erasure. Overall, the historical accounts examined earlier paint a robust picture of farm animals' urban ubiquity and eventual removal from urban spaces; however, they have not engaged in- depth with questions of care, thereby missing the influence of humane arguments and related perspectives on the changing geography of human/farm-animal relations. With a focus on Toronto, my research develops and traces these under-examined threads, highlighting how ideas

28 about how farm animals should be treated, and where and with whom they belonged, ultimately affected the place of chickens in our city.

3 Methods and Methodology 3.1 Research Design

For my research on the changing geography of human-chicken relationships, I have taken a case study approach, focusing specifically on Toronto, Ontario. Case studies, which are commonly used in human geography, allow researchers to study a particular phenomenon, event, situation, or practice in-depth (Denscombe, 2014). This permits a narrow scope, often along with the use of multiple data-collection methods, to examine one’s research question(s) from different vantage points. The opportunity for narrow scope and in-depth research makes the case study well suited to master’s-level research, particularly as graduate work at this level is to be completed in a relatively short timespan. Although the structure and variability of case study approaches have prompted some criticisms in the broader social sciences, such as the argument that case study findings are not always easily generalizable (Stuart & Bennett, 2004), this approach is especially common and useful in geography and interdisciplinary human-animal studies (for example, see Bull, Holmberg and Asberg, 2018; Philo & Wilbert, 2000; Urbanik, 2012; and, Wolch & Emel, 1998).

In human-animal social science research, case studies work well to foreground interspecies relations occurring in a specific place or environment, and across a particular period of time. This kind of spatio-temporal framing matters when the research at hand is concerned with the local political and/or ethical dimensions of a particular set of relations, as is the case with my research on human-chicken relationships. As McClintock, Wooten and Pallana (2014) remark, in-depth, qualitative research that is geographically limited to a particular city is important in studies on urban farm animals because the regulatory frameworks as well as the management of these practices are shaped and expressed at the local level. Given the need for city-specific urban farm animals (McClintock et al., 2014), including “more intensive, qualitative research approaches, linking individual attitudes and behaviors to the context-specific social processes and structures that produced them” (Sayer as cited in McClintock et al., 2014), a case study design was ideal for my project.

3.2 Case Selection, Context, and Background

As established in my first two chapters, my project examines the changing geography of human- chicken relations and the role that narratives of care and belonging have played, and continue to play, in shaping the place and treatment of chickens. Instead of casting a wide net and studying this topic across Canada or in multiple urban centres, I have chosen to take a case study approach, as explained above, focusing on one particular municipality—the City of Toronto. This selection was a logical choice for my project for the reasons described below:

(A) Chickens have a long urban history in the City of Toronto and have been the subject of significant policy debate and decision-making.

Historian Sean Kheraj (2015) observes that chickens were a once common feature of Toronto’s historical landscape—more so than in other Canadian cities. For example, in the late nineteenth century, Toronto’s urban chicken population grew significantly while other large Canadian cities experienced noticeable declines (Kheraj, 2015). Urban chickens were popular well into the twentieth century—not only to urban households but also to urban shopkeepers who marketed live chickens and their eggs (Dickau, 2018). While these practices and the keeping of backyard chickens were problematized and eventually prohibited in Toronto under a 1983 live animal ban, the practice of backyard chicken-keeping continued in the city nonetheless (“Clandestine Chickens”, 2020). The long history of chickens in Toronto is reflected in a wealth of archival materials, which I drew upon for my project.

(B) Urban chicken keeping, as a municipally regulated practice, is being piloted and reviewed in the City of Toronto.

In 2017, Toronto City Council decided to approve a three-year backyard chicken-keeping pilot project, UrbanHensTO. This pilot launched in spring 2018 and is now slated to end in 2022 (a one-year pilot extension was approved in December 2020). Before the end of the pilot, its performance and outcomes are to be assessed alongside its regulatory measures so that City Council may make an informed decision about the feasibility and future of urban hens in Toronto. Given that UrbanHensTO is entering its final months and its review is underway, research concerning the practice of backyard hens in Toronto

is timely and prudent. Moreover, McClintock et al.’s (2014) foundational study on urban livestock ownership in the United States notes that research on the “multiple uses [of chickens]—as pets and as productive animals, among others—might help to clarify the incongruity between urban livestock ownership and existing regulations in many cities […]”. The categorization of chickens is part and parcel to my research focus; therefore, my study’s findings may be useful to future Committee and City Council discussions and policy development with respect to the future of chickens in Toronto.

Also informing my case selection and case study approach is the fact that I am a lifelong resident of Toronto and have been involved in urban agriculture in the city through my professional and volunteer work and academic studies. This has helped to cultivate in me a growing familiarity with the city’s urban agriculture landscape, including the municipal and provincial policies that have affected such practices, and the form that these practices tend to take. This research project has provided me with an opportunity to build on my own understanding of, and connections with, Toronto’s urban farming communities, and in turn, this familiarity and experience has allowed me to ask research questions that I hope are relevant to urban policy makers and community groups interested in growing food and raising farm animals (as productive pets) in the city. Moreover—and perhaps most central to the values that guide my work as a researcher— my long-time personal and academic interest in matters of farm animal treatment, care and animal ethics has encouraged me to pursue this research topic, to focus on Toronto using a case study approach, and to set up my research questions such that my findings may be relevant not only to local policy decisions on backyard hens, but also to broader academic research, activism and policy development concerning human relations with farm animals in Canadian society.

3.3 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis

In this section, I describe the methods that I used to collect and analyze data for my project, which included: (a) historical media analysis, (b) contemporary media and document analysis, and (c) semi-structured interviews with chicken-keepers registered under the city’s pilot, UrbanHensTO.

3.3.1 Historical Media Analysis

I chose to examine textual news media (i.e., historical newspapers) to identify and fill gaps in Toronto’s historical human/farm-animal geographies. Textual news media has been regarded by scholars as a rich source of locally specific data, especially on the topic of urban livestock agriculture, which tends to attract public debate and local media attention (McClintock et al., 2014). As well, animal geographers have noted that this data source provides a useful lens through which to explore broader perspectives on human-animal relations, as it both reflects and shapes dominant public attitudes and policy over time (Lassiter, Wolch & Gullo, 1997). Moreover, it is particularly useful to turn to textual news media in historical analyses because prior to the early 2000s, newspapers served as a popular and widely accessible source of local and regional news. Whereas today, online news media also performs in this function, disseminating digital news stories to broad-ranging audiences.

For my research, I opted to focus primarily on articles published by the Toronto Star. My reasons for this selection include the fact that the Toronto Star is a local publication with a strong reputation for accurate news reporting in Canada. It has also achieved wide readership since its launch as the Toronto Daily Star in 1892, and as such offers a rich historical archive of articles concerning urban food production and backyard chicken-keeping practices, debates and policy decisions in the City of Toronto. As well, the popularity of the Toronto Star suggests that as a local media source, it has played an important role in shaping and reflecting dominant perspectives on urban chickens, which were a subject of public criticism and debate in the years leading up to and following the city’s decision to ban these and other farm animals in 1983.

With this key period of policy change in mind, I used the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database to locate and retrieve full-page copies of pertinent articles published by the Toronto Star between 1970 and 1989. To identify these articles, I conducted a search of the database using key terms, including “chickens”, “urban chickens”, “backyard chickens” and “animal ban”, as well as equally important search terms related to broader topics of urban animal keeping and care in the city, particularly those concerned with pets. This allowed me to integrate into my dataset articles that addressed how other urban animals and their care was being depicted in Toronto during the same period when chickens were being discussed and their urban legality debated. In addition to collecting articles from the Toronto Star, I completed a supplementary

33 search using similar terms as above for articles published by The Globe and Mail, which I also accessed through the ProQuest database. However, the majority of news stories in my dataset were published by the Toronto Star.

My searches resulted in an initial dataset of over 2,000 historical articles, which were reviewed first at a high-level analysis; this allowed me to eliminate any material that was irrelevant to the search, and resulted in a final selection of 150 articles. All of the articles included in this final dataset were pertinent to addressing my research question on the changing geography of human- chicken relations in Toronto, and each was catalogued in a spreadsheet, wherein I noted key criteria, including but not limited to: author name (where available); article type (e.g., opinion); date of publication; and, framing (i.e., whether subject matter was framed in positive, negative, or neutral terms). From there, I completed a close reading and qualitative content analysis of each article to identify historical perspectives and their prominence in the dataset. This involved carrying out an initial phase of coding to identify distinct content categories related to historical perspectives on urban chickens. Then, I completed a second phase of selective coding wherein I anchored my analysis to the concepts of care and belonging. Under this umbrella, I first marked in my data any content (ranging from body text to headlines and imagery) related to the categorization of chickens (for example, as pets, as farm animals, as pests or nuisance animals, as a public health risk, and so forth). Similarly, I noted any content related specifically to the depiction of chickens as in-place or out-of-place in the city. I then marked related content concerning animal care, care-taking expertise, and animal welfare or wellbeing. I also remained mindful of the perspectives and voices absent from these stories (i.e., residential chicken-keepers were underrepresented in the media). Overall, my approach was informed by the works of scholars in human-animal relations whose approaches provided useful and related points of reference. These works included but were not limited to studies by Tara Holmberg (2015), Colin Jerolmack (2008), and Ussa Lassiter, Jennifer Wolch, and Andrea Gullo (1997). These and other points of reference in animal geographies drew upon textual news media (among other document sources, in most cases) and employed qualitative and quantitative methods to identify dominant themes and perspectives on human-animal relationships, and how they change over time.

The findings of my historical media analysis are captured in Chapter Four, which addresses the first objective of my research: to understand how perspectives on animal care and belonging shaped the geography of human-chicken relations in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s. It is

34 important to note that although it was my aim at the start of my project to analyze policy-related documents in addition to media, such as historical meeting minutes and communications submitted to Toronto City Council during its policy discussions on urban chickens, the City of Toronto's archives were not accessible during my archival research window due to the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

3.3.2 Contemporary Media and Document Analysis

After collecting and analyzing historical news media, I turned my attention to current media as well as policy-related documents to investigate: (a) contemporary perspectives on human- chicken relationships (with a view to care and belonging, and to foregrounding the now perceptible perspectives of actual chicken-keepers, which had been less visible in the past); and (b) to begin to identify the kinds of human-chicken relationships emergent in and around Toronto’s urban coops. For many of the reasons stated earlier, I opted to use textual news media, primarily articles published by the Toronto Star; however, I also turned to other news sources for supplementary articles to reflect the fact that digital media has expanded the ways in which news is now produced and disseminated. To this end, I sought out articles from reputable, popular media sources, including newspapers, like the The Globe and Mail and the National Post, as well as digital magazines and online news platforms, like Toronto Life, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Global News, and City News Toronto. Newspaper articles were accessed through ProQuest’s current newspapers database, while other media stories were accessed using online search engines. I focused my search on articles published since 2001, ending my search with articles published no later than December 2020. This time period captured key, contemporary policy discussions on backyard chickens at Toronto City Hall that occurred between 2011/2012 and again in 2017. The latter date also marks the approval of Toronto’s pilot project, UrbanHensTO, which launched in March 2018.

Using similar search terms to those employed in my historical analysis, with some modifications to account for nuance (e.g., “urban hens”), I retrieved over 500 news articles, which were refined to a relevant dataset of 95 media stories. As with my approach to historical media, I catalogued current media using the same key criteria listed earlier, which I will not repeat here to avoid repetitiveness. I also followed the same approach to analysis; however, I kept in mind historical findings to determine if and how historical themes were re-emerging today and/or how they were

35 being challenged. In addition to exploring contemporary perspectives through the media, I also examined local policy and policy-related documents, including the UrbanHensTO program framework, as well as council and committee meeting minutes, agendas, video archives and related communications. I accessed only those materials available online via the City of Toronto’s website and public archive. My analysis of these materials followed the same methods as used in my qualitative content analysis of historical and current media, albeit with minor adjustments to process to account for the particularities of the data source. More specifically, with communication materials (such as letters submitted to Toronto City Council), I used selective coding only (rather than a two-staged coding process) wherein I focused specifically on content pertaining to themes already established through my media analysis. Similarly, policy and related documents were examined primarily for the terms through which they defined chickens, the human-chicken relationship, and chicken-keepers’ obligations related to care- taking responsibilities and animal care standards or expectations. I did not consider in any substantive way other facets of the UrbanHensTO policy, such as setback limits, which would be the task of someone approaching a project like mine from an urban planning angle, for instance.

In addition to using the above-listed materials, I also accessed a small number of policy documents—specifically urban chicken-keeping bylaws—from other Ontario municipalities as points of comparison. These comparisons were peripheral (rather than central) to my overall analysis. They were used to contrast how chickens were framed in urban relations (as pets or as livestock, for example). These general comparisons suggest that the City of Toronto has taken a unique and progressive approach in their policies, framing chickens exclusively as companion animals with productive benefits, thereby rejecting rhetoric and relationships that are associated with commercial animal agriculture.

Together, the sources listed above provided me with a rich and diverse dataset of media and documents for the contemporary portion of my case study. The findings from this analysis are detailed in Chapter Five, along with findings from semi-structured interviews with chicken- keepers, which I discuss below, and which rounded out my investigation of human-chicken relationships in Toronto.

3.3.3 Semi-Structured Interviews

The final empirical facet of my project involved carrying out semi-structured interviews with chicken-keepers in Toronto. I chose to engage participants of Toronto’s UrbanHensTO pilot project to heed the call of McClintock et al. (2014) and consider how people are relating to their chickens within the context of specific regulatory frameworks (although it was beyond the scope of my research to carry out any systematic review of these policy frameworks, as noted already). I also wanted to consider how these embodied relations aligned with or differed from the historical and contemporary narratives that I explored through my media and document analyses. As well, I opted to focus on this population of chicken-keepers, which comprises 79 registered households (City of Toronto, 2020), in order to protect the anonymity of those in the city who are keeping chickens illegally and thus whose practices are at risk of exposure. Although my sample size is comparatively small (n=8) and thereby is not necessarily representative of Toronto’s pilot population (nor of the city’s broader population of illegal/unregistered chicken- keepers), findings from my interviews were in many ways consistent with themes captured in my contemporary media analysis, which included reference to the stories and experiences of actual chicken-keepers in Toronto. This may increase the representativeness of my findings.

My interview recruitment process involved digital and print outreach. I used Facebook to share a recruitment message for my study and an information flyer in a public Facebook group dedicated to backyard chicken-keeping in Toronto. I also engaged the City of Toronto, whose staff were interested in my research and helped to support my recruitment efforts by sharing my project materials with the pilot program’s registrants. More specifically, City staff included my information flyer and a statement on my study with their distribution of a city-led survey on the UrbanHensTO pilot, which was circulated to pilot registrants by email and by post in late September 2020.

Following these forms of outreach using Facebook and direct communication via the City of Toronto, I received initial enquiries from eleven chickens-keepers, and coordinated eight interviews, which were carried out by either voice or video call between October 6 and October 30, 2020. The reason that only eight of these eleven enquiries resulted in an interview is because two prospective participants did not meet the eligibility criteria (i.e., either were not in Toronto, were in Toronto but were not registered, and/or were not keeping hens during the interview

37 window of August to October 2020), and one prospective participant did not proceed with scheduling an interview. For reference, my recruitment flyer, interview guide and information letter, which lists my study’s eligibility criteria, are included in Appendix A.

Interviews ran between thirty minutes and one hour, averaging around forty minutes. During these interviews, I followed the questions and prompts in my interview guide, while leaving some room for natural dialogue and generative digressions. My questions were organized around three key areas of enquiry: (1) motivations; (2) care-taking practices and experiences; and (3) impacts of human/hen relationships. Participants spoke at length about the tasks that they carried out with regularity to keep their hens’ coops clean and safe, and their food and water replenished. They also described in detail the ways in which they interacted with their birds (including if/how/where they allowed their hens to roam outside of their enclosures), what they considered or were concerned with when their hens were not in their coops, and what has been most rewarding and most challenging about keeping chickens. As observed in my findings, every participant referred to their hens in both companionable and productive terms, and every participant expressed a depth of knowledge and familiarity with their chickens that was evocative of the kinds of intimate relationships that might be expected with other household pets. However, participants also foregrounded how these types of relationships differed, and in many cases were increasingly aware of how their hens’ experiences contrasted with the experiences of factory-farmed animals.

At the end of my interview, I asked one policy-specific question, pertaining to any bylaw changes or program supports that chicken-keepers wish to see in future, should hen-keeping continue to be permitted in Toronto. This closing question was aimed at collecting additional insights that may be useful to community groups and city staff in their review of and/or advocacy for urban hen-keeping. Participants were eager to share their opinions on the program and made important recommendations, such those related to building stronger networks between new and seasoned chicken-keepers, increasing program outreach, increasing local access to chicken feed and related supplies, and providing more interactive resources and reference materials for personal education. Several comments were also made (unrelated to municipal policy and programs) about the need for the accreditation process for veterinarians in Ontario to change so that urban vets can accommodate farm animals as part of their practice, which they are no longer permitted to do (since 2018) as a result of a change in the College of Veterinarians of Ontario

38 licensing system (City of Toronto, 2020). I reflect on some of these recommendations briefly in this thesis, and intend to focus more closely on these findings in my other planned project outputs (e.g., a project report to participants, community groups and the City of Toronto) that I hope will provide policy-specific insights that are useful to Toronto’s chicken advocates and municipal program staff. Once all interviews were completed, I proceeded to transcribe each interview manually using only word processing software, as this was feasible given the number of interviews. Transcripts were then analyzed manually using selective coding, wherein I coded and categorized participants’ comments to draw out key themes. These themes are presented and discussed in Chapter Six. It is also important that I note the use of code names in my research; all participant identities have been protected using a personal code name that either they selected or I assigned (the latter process being followed in cases where participants were undecided about a code name at the time of their interview, and invited me to select one for them).

In addition to using interview methods as a means to investigate the kinds of human-animal relationships that are emerging in Toronto today, I invited each participant to share a basic map of their garden to provide me with a sense of the spatiality of their backyard and places of human-animal interaction. This map was for analytical purposes only and not for use in any of my project outputs. Additionally, I asked participants to share, if possible, photographs and/or videos of their backyard hens, their birds’ coop and enclosure, and any areas of the garden where the hens roam, noting that these materials might be included in my project outputs (with participant consent). I received photos from six participants who consented to their photographs being used in my thesis and/or in other project outputs, such as a project report that I intend to share with all participants, with the City of Toronto, and with community groups and members that have expressed an interest in my research. Overall, the photos that chicken-keepers shared offered visual cues as to birds’ social relationships and individual birds’ characteristics and personalities, which many participants spoke about in detail during their interviews. Buller (2015) and Birke and Hockenhull (2012), among others, have argued for the usefulness of visual methods in human-animal studies as these methods can counteract the anthropocentrism of traditional interview methods by helping us, as researchers, to see the animals—to think not only with text and language, but also with image and feeling.

4 Historical Perspectives: Media Analysis (1970-1989)

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, chickens were one of the most common farm animals found in Toronto (Kheraj, 2015). Even as the populations of goats, cows, pigs, sheep and other larger farm animals started to dwindle in the urban environment, the number of chickens continued to climb (Kheraj, 2015). While municipal livestock counts ended in the early 1900s, the broader collection of media stories initially reviewed as background for this project (published as early as 1901) indicate that smaller farm animals, particularly chickens, continued to be popular in Toronto well into the mid-twentieth century. These animals were sold at local live markets in and around the city, which ultimately became subjects of public scrutiny in the media. Toronto’s long-time acceptance of urban farm animals eventually waned, and by the start of the 1980s chickens were being removed from the city and the surrounding municipalities that today comprise the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In 1983, Toronto enacted a bylaw that banned the sale and keeping of live farm animals, banishing chickens—as well as turkeys, pigs, cows and other livestock—from most public and private urban spaces.

While the current literature on backyard chickens attributes bylaw changes like these to continued public health reforms as well as shifting urban ideals around the clean, modern city, my analysis points to the under-examined, care-related threads of animal suffering and inhumane treatment—issues that motivated the work of animal protection organizations, like the Toronto Humane Society (THS). As I aim to illustrate, the work of the THS and likeminded groups as well as the efforts of concerned citizens to expose animal cruelty brought negative media attention to live markets. These efforts cast a light on the inhumane treatment and substandard care of farm animals at local markets. They also problematized the residential spaces where chickens were being kept—and killed—for food, calling into question whether urban citizens were capable of providing market-bought animals with a humane death at home. Overall, these perspectives formed the argument that urban farm animals were suffering in the city, and urban market merchants and urban residents were equally framed as uncaring and incompetent farm animal keepers. What’s more, Toronto’s efforts against live markets and at-home slaughter gave power to the growing view that cities were for people and their pets—a category from which backyard chickens were strictly excluded. Consequently, Toronto’s eventual ban on chickens and other farm animals resulted in these animals having no safe or appropriate place in the city, save

40 for the few urban “zoos” where they could be enjoyed as country relics and objects of family entertainment.

Based on my study of under-examined humane-care threads in historical print media, I argue that the sympathetic response and lobbying efforts of humane societies, animal advocacy groups and urban citizens to prevent urban animal cruelty helped to fuel Toronto’s 1983 farm animal ban— more so than is currently accounted for in the literature. I also argue that these efforts did little to resolve the actual issue of farm animal suffering. Such efforts had the effect of erasing from urban space the actual lives of chickens and other farm animals and, ironically, the ability to bear witness to and intervene in their treatment. However well-intentioned humane arguments against live markets and backyard farm animals may have been, they supported a ban that severed what remained of the urban population’s connection to animals classified and exploited as food in Canadian society. Overall, the findings presented in this chapter help fill a gap in our historical understanding of the local geography of human-chicken relations. This chapter also sets out a framework for considering how human relations with chickens are shifting in our cities today, as is my focus later in this thesis (see Chapters Five and Six).

Although I worked from a final set of 150 articles for my historical media analysis, my treatment of under-examined perspectives in the urban chicken debates of the 1970s and 1980s draws upon a smaller set of news stories for examples. I have included quotes and excerpts as well as photographs from this smaller collection of stories to best illustrate the organizing themes that emerged through my work. These themes are (1) the suffering of animals at live markets, (2) the prospect of (inhumane) slaughter, and (3) the place of farm animals in Canadian society. The third and final theme draws on local and regional chicken- and farm-animal narratives that were appearing in the media at the same time as Toronto was debating the particulars of its local ban. These adjacent narratives provide important points of comparison, helping to contextualize the stories and perspectives that shaped the city’s urban relationship to chickens. Each theme is explored below and brought together with pertinent literature in my chapter’s concluding section.

4.1 The Suffering of Animals at Live Markets

To fill gaps in our understanding of Toronto’s relatively recent urban-chicken histories, I turn first to the public spaces—the live markets—where these animals were commonly sold, and

41 which attracted negative attention in the media. During the twentieth century, live markets like Kensington Market in downtown Toronto, Snelgrove Market in Brampton, and the Stouffville Farmers’ Market were popular sites for tourism and exchange. Although such spaces were best known for selling farm animals for slaughter, they also became synonymous with animal cruelty, extending not only to chickens but to other farm animals and animals that were sold as pets. Below, I explore these historical stories and the perspectives they captured, including those of concerned public citizens, animal advocacy groups, and the Toronto Humane Society. Together, these perspectives formed in the media a strong argument about humane care—something that has received less attention in recent scholarship on the changing place of farm animals in twentieth-century cities.

4.1.1 Bearing Witness to Cruelty

Between the 1970s and the early 1980s, live animal markets in and around Toronto were the subjects of regular criticism in the Toronto Star, which featured news reports, opinion articles and letters to the editor describing the inhumane treatment of market animals from the perspectives of animal advocates and concerned citizens. While Toronto’s Kensington Market received the greatest amount of negative media attention, Snelgrove Market, located east of Toronto, and the Stouffville Farmers’ Market situated north of the city were also condemned by shoppers and advocates alike through detailed allegations of animal suffering. One of the earliest news reports of this kind, made by a member of the public, appeared in the Toronto Star on March 12, 1974, when the newspaper published under its “Star Probe” question-and-answer section an appeal for caring and intervention from a local area resident. This resident took issue with how chickens, puppies and other animals at a live market in Stouffville were being improperly cared for and mistreated:

Can't anyone do anything about the inhumane treatment of animals at the Stouffville Farmers’ Market? I've seen chickens die in the heated, crowded conditions in summer, and I’ve heard of winter sales where puppies are brought and left to die of exposure and starvation [...] (Goodman, 1974, p. B6)

Several months earlier, visitors to Toronto’s Kensington Market expressed similar outrage at the sub-standard animal-keeping practices they witnessed, as published in the Toronto Star:

[...] While my husband and I were shopping recently, we saw as many as eight chickens crammed into crates which would humanely support scarcely two. The chickens had no

space to move, and several had torn and bleeding flesh from being crushed against the sides of the crates. Obviously, these chickens will eventually find their end upon the dinner table, but there would seem to be no excuse for such torturous conditions. (Krebs, 1973, p. 7)

Comments echoing those of the shoppers quoted above would appear in the media with greater frequency in the years and months leading up to (and following) Toronto’s official ban on the keeping and sale of farm animals. For example in 1980, three years before the city’s ban was enacted, there were reports of the public witnessing at Kensington Market “blood [...] oozing from the bottom of one cage crammed with chickens” (Louttie, 1980, p. A3). Other stories published that same year described the mishandling of animals by market workers:

The cruelty we witnessed was shocking: store attendants picking chickens up by their wings; rabbits picked up by their fur on haunches and when I requested water for the goats, the boy who was attending the livestock said that if the goats wanted water, they could ask for it! (Mashinter, 1980, p. B3)

Most of these cruelty allegations focused on how animals were being housed and handled; they problematized the insufficient size of animals’ temporary cages and crates, their rough handling, and their exposure to the elements in outdoor enclosures. These concerns were raised in the media not only through evocative language that described visible suffering from the perspective of onlookers, but also using photographs that often (though not always) accompanied reports and allegations of cruelty (see Figures 1-3).

Figure 1: Seizure of chickens at Kensington Market.

Griffin, D. (1975, May 17). Chicken Swoop. [Photo]. Toronto Star, A7.

Figure 2: Rabbit on top of cage at Stouffville Farmers’ Market.

Drew, T. (1974, March 12). Rabbits at the Market. [Photo]. Toronto Star, B6.

Figure 3: Merchant handling chicken at Kensington Market.

Stawicki, A. (1983, May 4). He’ll defy the bylaw. [Photo]. Toronto Star, A6.

In the first photograph (Figure 1), crates holding live chickens are carried away from a storefront at Kensington Market by Toronto Humane Society inspectors; this seizure occurred during a publicized raid (an event to which I will return shortly). The second photograph (Figure 2) was printed in the Toronto Star beneath a customer’s complaint about the suffering of animals that they witnessed at a market in Stouffville. The third image (Figure 3) appeared next to an article that announced Kensington merchants would fight the city’s impending live animal ban. This third image shows a market merchant reaching for a caged chicken by their wings, and the photo caption beneath it described that at the market, “chickens are kept in cages”. Despite this article reporting on Kensington merchants’ promise to “defy the bylaw” and protect their businesses, its imagery illuminates the questionable conditions of housing and care reported with frequency in the Toronto Star by this point in time. Images like these would have offered newspaper readers—many of whom may not have visited the sites under scrutiny—a snapshot of the day-today conditions that were being problematized at this site and other live markets in the GTA.

For many market visitors whose voices were captured in the news between the 1970s and early 1980s, the general sight of farm animals suffering in these market environments—in small, presumably unclean, outdoor cages—was enough to spark sympathy, moral outrage and calls for intervention. Some of the public’s comments draw readers’ attention to the role of humane societies in policing the care and keeping of animals at markets: “The Humane Society is supposed to care, I care: I’d patrol the place myself if someone would give me the authority” (Goodman, 1974, p. B6). Others, however, called not for better inspection and enforcement by humane society officers, but rather demanded that such sights be closed down. For example, the Toronto Star published the following comments in 1982 from a market visitor:

One-time visitors to Kensington Market — who come away empty-handed and sickened by the plight of the helpless creatures on sale there — would, I am sure, come back in droves and buy, if only the live animals and poultry were kept out and the whole fly- blown situation cleaned up. There is nothing quaint, colourful or attractive about cruelty. (Elmy, 1982, p. A11)

Another Kensington Market shopper expressed similar offence, calling for the end of live animal sales in the city in a letter to the editor, also published in the Toronto Star in 1982:

The animals are very cruelly treated. They are not given food and water, and are left in small cages, not large enough for their comfort. They are not protected from the sun during the day so that they are always very distressed. They are manhandled and no

consideration is given to them at all. [...] I think it's time that much thought was given to the welfare and handling of all animals. They are alive, they have a heart, they have feelings. They know what it's like to be uncomfortable, to be hungry and thirsty. Why isn't more consideration given to these poor creatures? The answer is to close down that section or sections of the Kensington Market that handles any animals. No ifs, ands or buts about it — close it down! (Owen, 1982, p. B3)

Like the live animal markets at Kensington and Stouffville, Brampton’s historic Snelgrove Market was also the subject of public criticism in the media in 1982—the year preceding Toronto’s official ban. This site was the topic of two separate Toronto Star articles that described a “battle” being waged against live animal sales in Toronto and the GTA. The article “Toronto woman joins battle against pet market sales” reported the following: “Inspector Donald Hepworth of the Ontario Humane Society says an inspector has gone to Snelgrove Flea Market, following up Karalus' allegations of cruelty and neglect” (Auguston, 1982, p. H7). The allegations of cruelty that Inspector Hepworth was investigating included Karalus’ claim of witnessing rabbits in cages that were “too small”, seeing animals in poor health, and observing “appalling conditions in the farm animal auction barn” (Auguston, 1982, p. H4). As these articles show, the “battle” against the operations of live animal markets like Snelgrove—which sold both pets and farm animals—was driven in part by the activism of local area residents, who deputed at public meetings and submitted photographs and reports of “small animals being abused and neglected” to persuade the city to change its bylaws (Auguston, 1982, p. H7). Likely, such efforts were also bolstered by the publicized, coordinated work of animal advocacy groups that were lobbying across the province to end live animal sales at these sites as well.

In 1982, the Toronto Star reported that the group Action Volunteers for Animals was leading an ethical charge against Stouffville Farmers’ Market (the Toronto Star would also list Kensington Market in a separate article). In this media story, Brenda Hoffman, a volunteer member of Action Volunteers for Animals, describes the cruelty she witnessed at the Stouffville Farmers’ Market: “[...] the animals are not given adequate food and water, are left in crowded cages out in the sun "and really do suffer," said Brenda Hoffman, a member of Action Volunteers for Animals” (Holden, 1982, p. A7), calling to mind concerns that are expressed today about factory farms. Hoffman followed up these comments in an opinion article titled “Disgusting sale of animals unnecessary”, wherein she detailed her rationale for participating in the advocacy group’s province-wide battle against the outdoor markets that dealt in the inhumane trade of live animals:

I believe that the sale of life animals should be prohibited at all open-air markets such as Stouffville and Kensington, for example. The reasons for banning include: 1) cruelty to the animals concerned; 2) inhumane killing methods; 3) health hazards from consumption of such animals. Animals and even children poke at the animals, pull them out of their cages by their wings as they fight to free themselves of their discomfort. [...] The cruelty does not end there [...] This disgusting treatment is also extended to larger domestic animals, such as calves, goats and sheep [...] (Where are the Ontario Humane Society inspectors?). (Hoffman, 1982, p. 4)

Hoffman also described in her writing the conditions of treatment that different animals faced, as she and others claimed that both farm animals and pets were mistreated at these sites (although the media would focus primarily on the suffering of farm animals).

These findings illustrate how efforts of concerned citizens and animal advocacy groups to raise awareness about suffering at live markets garnered media attention during the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in the months preceding Toronto’s bylaw decision. These media stories capture some of the voices that argued publicly against live markets from the humane perspective—a perspective that attracted the support of other market opponents who applauded the efforts of their fellow citizens and echoed their calls for change. For example, the following letter was printed in the Toronto Star after it was reported in the news that citizens were campaigning against Kensington Market:

Bravo for the concerned and compassionate citizens who brought to public attention the inhumane and cruel treatment of live animals and fowl at Kensington Market. It is an outrage that this callous indifference to the suffering of these creatures should have gone unreported until this time. The matter should not be allowed to be swept under the carpet, but should be pursued vigorously, demanding a ban on this nefarious practice. (Petrunak, 1980, p. A9)

These calls for justice and regulatory change would also come from the Toronto Humane Society, which played a critical and ongoing role in policing the activities of market merchants.

4.1.2 Preventing Animal Suffering: The Role of the Humane Society

Half of articles (published between 1970 and 1989) that addressed the sale of chickens and other animals at live markets in Toronto and the GTA referenced to the historical role of the THS in inspecting market spaces, issuing compliance orders, and pressing criminal charges against merchants who failed to comply with established standards of animal keeping and care. These articles also convey the position that the THS took on the status and future of live markets at the

47 time. In the media, the humane society’s inspectors and management team expressed strong opposition to live markets for the ways in which animals were treated and for the tendency of market vendors to repeat their mistakes. Ongoing cruelty, in the view of the THS, was the unavoidable consequence of allowing such spaces to operate. For example, comments from then- Executive Director of the THS, John E. Ridout, suggested that the mistreatment of animals at Kensington Market occurred with troubling regularity: “... it is indeed odd that the same merchants must repeatedly receive the same instructions from the same law enforcement officers” (Ridout, 1982, p. B3). Similarly, Inspector Richardson of the THS reported to the Toronto Star that the suffering of animals was witnessed almost weekly during his time patrolling the market: “All the caged birds had food and water yesterday, but on many of his [Inspector Richardson’s] weekly sweeps over the past six years fowl and animals have been in distress [...]” (Sutton, 1980, p. A3). Documented acts of cruelty at Kensington Market, however, rarely escalated to the courts. As Ridout recounts, convictions were uncommon; this is because merchants had complied with each order received, if only in the short-term:

Ever since one merchant received a criminal conviction for failing to provide adequate care for animals in his custody (1975), these orders have been met with immediate compliance. Because of this, no charges are (or can be) laid. (Ridout, 1982, p. B3)

As this quote suggests, merchants could not be charged under provincial law for their alleged cruelties because they complied with each THS order. This meant that even as acts of cruelty were repeated, short-term compliance on the part of merchants prevented the THS from pressing legal charges. This may have been a point of frustration for the THS, as at the same time as their teams were vigorously pursuing a range of other animal cruelty charges in the courts—even one unlikely case about the death of a pet snake (“Pet snake starved”, 1977, p. A2)—market merchants could not be held criminally accountable for their repeated indiscretions, which were witnessed not only by the THS, but also by members of the public. Indeed, as Ridout recounted in his comments, the only event that appears to have resulted in a formal conviction was the raid of poultry vendors on Baldwin Street in 1975, which attracted significant media attention. Under the news headline “100 chickens seized from market”, the Toronto Star reported that:

The Toronto Humane Society raised three Baldwin St. poultry shops in Kensington Market yesterday and seized about 100 chickens jammed into 12 crates. “They were crammed in those crates so tight they couldn’t stand up,” said society chief inspector Ken Richardson. “These chickens were being kept on the sidewalk in hot sun without food or water,” he said. (“100 chickens”, 1975, p. A7)

In 1980, almost five years after this highly publicized event—and three years before the city enacted its official ban on farm animals—the media reported that THS inspectors had once again descended on Kensington Market, leading to more animal seizures and further negative publicity for the markets’ businesses:

In one shop [..] he seized eight chickens and a rooster. [...] Two boxes of day old chicks were on an outside table exposed to the elements in another shop. [...] The cages, which health authorities recommend should contain a maximum of eight birds, were overcrowded, he said. One cage held 10 and [Inspector] Richardson said “he has seen up to 15 crammed together.” [...] All the caged birds had food and water yesterday, but on many of his weekly sweeps over the past six years fowl and animals have been in distress [...]. (Sutton, 1980, p. A3)

Coverage of this second major raid was followed by an announcement: the THS would push Toronto City Council for a ban on the market spaces that they regularly inspected and repeatedly cited for animal cruelty. This announcement was reported in the Toronto Star on September 8, 1980:

The Toronto Humane Society will press City Council to ban the sale of live animals and fowl in Kensington Market. Arthur Allibone, operations manager for the society, said he plans to make a submission to council next month seeking the ban. [...] "I would be very happy to see the sale of live animals prohibited [...] I don't think it is necessary and these animals are looked upon as merely items for sale, rather than living animals”. (Louttie, 1980, p. A3)

This article also states that the THS decision came “after the society received complaints from Mary Mashinter of Mill Rd., Etobicoke, and Jill Janson of Townbridge Cres., Brampton, who had complained of cruel and inhumane treatment of animals for sale at the market” (Louttie, 1980, p. A3). Both of these constituents had their comments heard in the media prior to the THS announcement, and at least one was involved with formal advocacy work in the city. The humane society’s push for a formal ban, therefore, came at a time when public outrage and province-wide advocacy was concerned with the very same spaces that the THS cited for cruelty on an almost weekly basis.

As discussions around the place and care of animals in Toronto reached City Hall, some city councillors and members of the public would come to the defence of market merchants. Some argued for protecting Kensington’s legacy because of its history in Toronto: “The market's been here a century or more” (Sutton, 1980, p. A3). Others claimed that while backyard chickens

49 caused neighborhood grievances (i.e., the “nuisance” complaints that have been detailed in other research), live markets were different, and should therefore be exempted from the city’s emerging bylaw ("Let's exempt Kensington", 1983, p. A20). These claims denied that animals were being mistreated at Kensington Market in the 1980s: “[F]or the most part the situation has been cleaned up since 1975” ("Hands off Kensington", 1983, p. B2). Finally, many argued (as scholars have observed, for example, see Dickau, 2018) that market detractors were waging a cultural war against the city’s immigrant populations. To this allegation, the humane society’s Executive Director, John E. Ridout, would speak out:

I personally resent the implication that this society is out to annihilate entrenched customs of "those from Metro's large ethnic population." This is not an issue of innocuous customs that are strictly a matter of preference or historical background. In this instance, animals are suffering. (Ridout, 1982, p. B3)

Ridout would argue in this letter to the editor that animal cruelty was the only factor motivating the position of the THS and their push for a ban, as it was their duty under provinical legislation to act in the interest of animals. In other words, it appeared that repeated acts of cruelty (that were by and large unpunishable in court) compelled the THS to call on City Hall for an outright ban:

Under the authority of the OSPCA Act, they [the inspectors] have issued orders — both verbal and written — to have the animals properly cared for. Rarely is an inspection visit at Kensington Market completed without at least one such order being issued. [...] the sale of live animals at Kensington and like markets should cease forthwith. (Ridout, 1982, p. B3)

These comments and efforts also received the praise of local area residents, who wrote to the Toronto Star after reading Ridout’s letter and learning about protests against Kensington Market. For example:

Bouquets to John Ridout, executive director of Toronto Humane society (letter, July 31) and to the intrepid group of protestors for speaking out against cruelty in Kensington Market on the same day. Brickbats to Alderman Gordon Chong, quoted as stating that while the treatment and condition of livestock in the market is "slightly inhumane...they end up on somebody's dinner table anyway," and to those merchants whose abuse of the protestors and sympathetic bystanders was ugly and frightening. (Elmy, 1982, p. A11)

It is important to observe that Ridout’s letter (which moved this citizen to write to the Toronto Star) asserted that despite what some claimed in the news, cruelty was ongoing at Kensington

Market, evidenced not only by the inspection reports and citations of THS staff, but also by the mounting number of complaints that the THS received from members of the public:

True, Toronto Humane Society inspectors visit the market regularly. True, complaints were not filed with The Star — but our files are overflowing. Complaints come from citizens of Toronto who are concerned about how the animals are housed, how they are slaughtered and how they are handled. (Ridout, 1982, p. B3)

During the 1982 media maelstrom around live animal markets, Ridout and other THS staff remained of the opinion that live animal sales had to come to an end in Toronto. By this point in time, however, it seems that debates about the fate of live markets were becoming increasingly entangled with adjacent disputes over the nuisances attributed to backyard chickens and other small animals kept outdoors by some Toronto residents. For example, at one committee meeting, the Toronto Star reported that Kensington merchants were pitted against members of the public who complained not only about the inhumaneness of the market, but also about the nuisances caused by neighbours who raised animals for food in their backyards:

Kensington market merchants protested loudly at yesterday's committee meeting but they were outnumbered by a crowd of about 60 animal lovers and ratepayers who object to the keeping of live farm animals in the city. Josephine Godlewski of Gladstone Ave. complained about a large rat population in her neighbourhood - and blamed it on people who keep rabbits, chickens and pigeons in their backyards. (Ferri, 1982, p. A6)

Absorbed into this broader backyard farm-animal debate related to the animal nuisance (covered extensively by other researchers), the humane argument that targeted live markets soon formed into something much larger; it followed market-bought animals into backyards and basements across the city where it was presumed farm animals were being kept and inhumanely killed.

4.2 The Prospect of (Inhumane) Slaughter

Opponents to live animal markets argued that cruelty continued for farm animals after they were purchased from places like Kensington Market. This argument leverages three related claims, which are explored in this section. First, those who were opposed to at-home slaughter (particularly from the humane perspective) problematized the place of slaughter, arguing that slaughterhouses were the only environments where farm animals should be killed. Second, these groups also cast a shadow of doubt on urbanites, questioning whether they were capable of providing farm animals with the humane death they deserved. Focusing on the inevitability of

51 slaughter also furthered a third claim: that farm animals were only kept in the city for their meat, and were not well-treated backyard pets as some families argued.

4.2.1 Places and Practices of Slaughter

Overall, approximately one-third of articles in my dataset addressed the topic of at-home slaughter; most of these articles take the form of letters to the editor. In these letters (and in the news stories that tackled this contentious issue), the place of slaughter is paramount to the arguments being made against live animal markets and their buyers. In some cases, slaughter was presented as a horrifying act from which urban residents should be shielded:

I have heard on more than one occasion how apartment dwellers are sickened by the sight of live chickens being dragged up in elevators to people's kitchens to be slaughtered. And the killing of them in driveways (rats resulting) are highly offensive. If that's what turns you on, it's a wonder you don't go study the beauty of an abattoir. (Alfano, 1982, p B3)

This comment troubles both the act of witnessing slaughter and the possibility of its occurrence. Another urban resident shared similar concerns:

To those merchants who are crying foul over the long overdue ban on livestock sold at the Kensington Market, I would suggest that they consider the horror the average Canadian feels when his or her neighbours slaughters animals in back yards and basements. (Armstrong, 1983, p. B3)

Along with backyard and basement slaughter being framed as horrifying for neighbors to witness, others argued from policy perspectives, reminding the public that at-home slaughter went against local bylaws and provincial regulations. This, for example, was the focus of comments made by members of Action Volunteers for Animals. This group’s then-President Merlin Andrew wrote to the Toronto Star, stating that: “Bylaw 7521 clearly states: “No person shall at any time use any premises in the City of Toronto as a slaughterhouse, or as place for the slaughtering of animals or fowl therein…” (Andrew, 1983, p. B3). Likewise, the THS referred to “The Public Health Act”, noting that this act indicated that: “No person shall slaughter an animal (including poultry) intended for food except in a slaughterhouse” (O'Sullivan, 1983, p. B3). Killing animals at home was thereby framed in the media as not only a horrifying act, but also as one that ignored public rules and regulations about how people should behave in the city, and where animals were allowed to be killed.

These and other commentators would add to this line of argumentation a list of concerns stemming from the fact that at-home slaughter occurred without any accountability or guarantee that animals were dying according to humane standards. For example, Andrew and Hoffman of Action Volunteers for Animals would raise these concerns in their comments in the Toronto Star. Responding to an editorial that called for Kensington Market to be exempt from the city’s ban, Andrew wrote:

In your ruthless determination to continue the sale of live animals in the market for the purpose of home slaughtering, you glibly dismiss one of our city’s bylaws. [...] You are doing no favor, either, to the luckless animals of the market, who exist in misery and filth until carted off to be killed in some basement. (Andrew, 1983, p. B3, emphasis added)

Hoffman used the mishandling of animals at markets as evidence of how poorly they were dying: “The blatant inhumane handling and transport of the animals is a clear indication that the slaughter methods leave everything to be desired” (Hoffman, 1982, p. 4). Similarly, Michael O’Sullivan, General Manager of the THS, asserted that at-home slaughter “is not humane”, regarding it as “a public spectacle that is offensive, unnecessary and illegal”; others at the THS would comment in the Toronto Star that there was no way to know whether animals were “being slaughtered [at home] humanely or otherwise” (McParland, 1982, p. A6). O’Sullivan would eventually call on the city to recognize that animals deserved a humane death: “We must cease to think and talk about the humane treatment of animals as a favor we do them, and instead recognize that it is their moral and legal right” (O’Sullivan, 1983, p. B3).

Although some market defenders claimed that buyers knew “how to kill a chicken properly” (Wilbur, 1982, p. 4) and tried to dissuade restrictions on at-home slaughter (which the Toronto Star reported as “the most contentious clause” during a 1982 committee meeting), these appeals were ultimately denied. The THS also took issue with the very idea of re-opening the issue for debate after council had decided on the matter. In 1984, they argued “lifting the ban is tantamount to encouraging cruelty and the spread of disease” ("Merchants seek end", 1984, p. 4). The response of the THS would echo, in part, the comments city aldermen made at an earlier committee meeting related to the infeasibility of enforcing health regulations in urban backyards and basements (should the practice of at-home slaughter have been licensed):

The major problem is that the medical officer of health cannot enforce health regulations. He would have to be in every basement and backyard in the city and he couldn't be present every time an animal is slaughtered, she said. (Grange, 1983, p. A7)

This line of argumentation strengthened the general case against at-home slaughter and may have been the nail in the proverbial coffin for urban farm animals, which were cast as destined for an inhumane urban death, and therefore as having no safe or appropriate place in urban markets or in the uninspected backyards and basements of the city.

4.2.2 Pets versus Meat: Issues of Care in/and Killing

When Toronto’s live animal ban was enacted, the Toronto Star announced: “Banned from within the city limits are cows, bulls, steers, goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, turkeys, hares, oxen, donkeys, jackasses, mules and geese. Rabbits were exempted from the bylaw, passed after four weeks of often heated debate” (Pigg, 1983, p. A8). Another article reports that pigeons, too, were exempt on the basis they were not kept for slaughter. By allowing market merchants to continue selling these animals, and urban residents to continue keeping them, the city drew a firm categorical boundary between the animals that people related to as pets and companions, and those that were perceived as food and as facing eventual slaughter. So while pigeons and rabbits qualified as other-than-food and could stay in Toronto, chickens did not make the cut, despite the pleas of some families who claimed that their birds were kept as pets and not as sources of meat. Although the media rarely captured the chickens-as-pets perspective, at least two families argued that this defined their relationship with backyard hens. The first example comes from a family that appealed to aldermen in Scarborough; the second from a household in Etobicoke, where a local ban was being discussed in 1985:

Lidgold said the chickens are children’s pets. The rooster acts as a sort of watchdog, protecting the hens if anyone goes into the yard. (Bragg, 1981, p. A16)

[In] the backyard of their Inchcliffe Crescent home. The chickens are kept as pets and the family uses their eggs for food. (Mitchell, 1985, p. A7)

Claims like these, that chickens were (productive) pets and not sources of meat, are almost imperceptible in the media’s coverage of Toronto’s historical live animal debates. By contrast, stories about Toronto’s varied and beloved companion animals—from dogs and cats to snakes, hamsters and guinea pigs—were commonplace at the time. For example, between 1970 and 1989, the Toronto Star published dozens of articles that referred positively to the place of pets in Toronto, including stories about humane pet-education programs that were coordinated by the THS. Although it is beyond the scope of my research to provide a detailed analysis of these pet- centred stories, it is worth noting that the Toronto Star’s pet-keeping narratives tended towards

54 celebrating the value of a pet’s life and the qualities of a good pet owner. For example, in 1979, the Toronto Star published a story about a four-week-long humane education series that the THS had put on for children to teach them about “the responsibility of owning a pet” (Stevens, 1979, p. A12). In 1982, a prominent multi-page feature opened the “Family” section of the Toronto Star and pictured John E. Ridout of the THS holding an exuberant puppy next to the article title “A million pets warm our hearts in Metro”. The article’s secondary headline reads: “Despite the cost of caring for animals, many consider them a need, not a luxury. They’re good for us” (Heller, 1982, p. G1). It describes the range of pets that would “call Metro home” and the qualities of good pet ownership (like providing “vitamin supplements” and prompt medical care). The article also broached the sensitive topic of end-of-life decision-making through the emotional story of a dog named Buttons, whose family spared no expense in provisioning the best possible medical treatments when he fell ill:

Killing Buttons was out of the question for the Bells [...] Instead [of amputating his leg] they took him to the University of Guelph for surgery that replaced part of his hip with plastic, substituted stainless steel for the ball-and-socket. [...] “We would have paid $600 if that’s what it took [...] There would never be any question about it. He is so much part of us. (Heller, 1982, p. G1)

This story, like others, may have emphasized for readers the value of a pet’s life, their place in the urban household as family members, and their right to a humane death after they had lived out their full lifespan. An adjacent article on the “proclamation” of animal rights by groups in Ottawa also spotlights the matter of life and death. Focusing primarily on pets, it announced, “all companion animals have the right to complete their natural life span” (Heller, 1982, pp. G1). Read together, these two articles stress the perspective that Toronto was a place for people and their beloved companion animals—animals cared for until the end of their natural lifespans, and never killed for meat.

It is plausible that ideas around the place, care and end-of-life treatment of pets made it difficult for urbanites to imagine keeping (and caring) for animals around the home that might eventually be killed for food. These were spaces and relationships centred on a companionable notion of care. It then comes as no surprise then that when it came time to identify the final list of animals prohibited from the city, it was only farm animals banned from urban markets and backyards. Despite claims of live market cruelty that extended to pets as well, species that could fit neatly with this “pet” category were exempt from the city’s 1983 ban. In turn, Toronto enforced a clear

55 pet animal/food animal divide, favouring an exclusive view of human-animal relations in the city that afforded farm animals, like chickens, no safe, visible or appropriate place in the urban landscape.

4.3 The Place of Farm Animals in Canadian Society

In this final section of my findings, I consider other chicken- and farm-animal narratives that were circulating in the media around the same time that the place of farm animals in Toronto was being debated. These stories describe Ontario’s competitive chicken and egg industries, and some (though not many) illustrate the conditions that animals faced at these industrialized sites. Yet, despite some striking similarities in animals’ mistreatment, the suffering of farm animals at the province’s factory farms and experimental farm-animal research sites did not grab the urban public’s attention during Toronto’s farm animal debates. Urban farm animals and their suffering remained distinct from those raised and slaughtered elsewhere, away from the direct gaze of the urban public. I suggest that this may have been an outcome of distancing and of the expertized narratives that asserted only industry professionals could ensure the welfare of farm animals, which I explore briefly below. Such narratives may have promoted the damaging view that urban citizens—such as market merchants and backyard chicken-keepers—were incapable of keeping and caring for these animals humanely, as industry was the only farm animal “expert”.

4.3.1 Animals in Agri-Business

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the Toronto Star featured dozens of articles relating to farm animals that resided outside of the city. My media search for stories about Toronto’s chickens and live markets retrieved reports of Ontario’s booming chicken and egg industries, its experimental farms that were pushing physiological boundaries in farm-animal productivity, and the province’s emerging measures of animal welfare. For example, more than one-third of these stories referred to Ontario as an international leader in chicken farming and egg production. These articles referenced the province’s fast-growing and highly competitive agri-business industry, highlighting Ontario-based companies like Shaver Farms. In the article “Shaver Farms chickens have 15% of world market”, the Toronto Star printed an oversized image of the head of this company holding a baby chick—the product of the company’s extensive investment in genetic research to manipulate how chickens grow and the pace of their reproduction:

The founder and chairman of Shaver Farms is a world leader in genetic research in chickens. His firm, now unique in Canada, consistently wins awards, and has customers in 92 countries. Each year, the breeding stock that Shaver sells is capable of producing 1.225 billion chicks. (Auman, 1984, p. D1).

The Toronto Star also published stories on lucrative chicken-processing plants in Brampton, Ontario, which served Ontario’s factory farms. By 1984, these plants marked the “chicken processing capital of Canada”, according to one article, which claimed that Bramtpon was positioned to “cash in” on the appetite of its largest market, Toronto ("Brampton cashing in", 1984, p. J2). This article also details the forms that processed chicken was beginning to take— “McNugget clones, chicken fingers, chicken wieners”—are each listed as the “food of the future”. The topic of chicken reinvention even became a point of entertainment; one Toronto Star food writer penned a satirical piece suggesting that the poultry industry develop a chicken that would save prep time in the kitchen:

I do believe that if the poultry industry was really on its toes, it would come up with a skinless, boneless chicken right on the farm. Granted it would be a bit difficult to keep the chickens upright, but it would be so much simpler and cheaper when it came time to market them. (Chapin, 1984, p. D11)

Other articles published around this time would highlight changes not only in the growth and processing of chickens, but also of their eggs. For instance, one article reflects on the genetic work that was being done south of the Canadian border to breed chickens that could lay an egg- a-day, which it was claimed, at the time, was not yet the new normal for hens:

Layer hens of the 1930s produced an average of 121 eggs a year. Through genetics, today's hens nearly double that figure. [...] But, apparently this is not productive enough, for scientists at the University of Missouri are designing a 'superchicken' that will lay an egg a day. (Anderson, 1980, pp. B1 & B5)

Agri-businesses in Ontario appeared keen to leverage these enhancements and contribute to the overall advancement of the chicken and the egg. In fact, the government would invest in an expensive industry project aimed at making eggshells resilient to breakage, but not so tough that they might prevent chickens from hatching:

Hard-boiled scientists at the Agriculture Department (in Ottawa) are trying to crack the case of the “unbreakable egg”. The mission: To make eggshells tougher, so fewer will break between hen and frying pan. The challenge: Not to make them so tough that chicks can't peck their way out. [...] The research team includes an engineer, a nutritionist, statistician, geneticist, and a biochemist. Cracked eggs cost the egg industry big money

— about $1 million a month. Seven to eight per cent of all eggs are cracked somewhere between the henhouse and grocery store. Another five percent break between the store and the frying pan. ("Unbreakable egg", 1983, p. D10)

While some celebrated these efforts, others critiqued Ontario’s changing agricultural landscape. Most notably, Toronto Star columnist H. Gordon Green, who had experience in farming and education, and who covered agricultural topics in his writing, took aim at the new “poultryman” that epitomized, for him, Ontario’s profit-driven chicken and egg industries:

The poultryman is interested only in making money from chickens. The fancier, on the other hand, has long ago abandoned such hopes and instead of choosing one of the egg-a- day varieties which cram our hen penitentiaries, he breeds chickens which he thinks are beautiful. (Green, 1982, p. A2)

Green and others (Edmonds, 1983, p. A2; Kates, 1983, p. A6) lamented the loss of fresh eggs—a loss, it was argued, that resulted in part from the decisions of marketing board systems that controlled how eggs were produced, sold and graded—and which prevented freshly laid eggs from reaching consumers with immediacy. In one article, this loss of farm-fresh eggs is reflected on within the context of Toronto’s farm animal debates, which was something not often done in the media. In the article, writer Alan Edmonds acknowledges that although he wished not to live next door to a backyard chicken coop, he sympathized with those (like fellow Toronto Star writer, Joanna Kates) who kept chickens for their eggs, remarking that “an egg fresh from the chicken is a thing of joy” (Edmonds, 1983, p. A2). Edmonds added that:

Boiled or poached, or even fried, it is the stuff that magical Sunday mornings are made of; a memory trigger that brings alive again that time of innocence before agribusiness and government interference scrambled our eggs forever. (Edmonds, 1983, p. A2)

In the late 1980s, H. Gordon Green expressed that buying brown eggs—which were regarded to be farm-fresh, and as distinct from the white eggs that dominated industry at the time—was an act of wilful protest against how chickens and eggs in Ontario had been adversely affected by government intervention and agri-business:

I hope that the brown egg champions among my readers will back me when I tell [...] the marketing board that it isn't a matter of calories and vitamins that induces some consumers to pay more for their brown eggs, but simply a desire to protest a kind of poultry husbandry which may be considered progressive but is morally and inexcusably reprehensible. (Green, 1989, p. M1)

Although several other articles echo these sentiments, opposing industry’s new treatment of chickens and the government’s involvement in the production and sale of eggs, few stories explicitly foreground the “morally and inexcusably reprehensible” nature of such practices as Green’s does. In fact, almost every article retrieved concerning chicken farming and egg production in the province ignored moral concerns—financial, political, logistical and regulatory issues were raised, but moral questions were not. Even when the Toronto Star announced in 1981, for the fifth time in ten years, that Canada’s egg farmers were again being ordered to slaughter hens to cut financial losses, letters to the editor and subsequent media reports would not question, even at a cursory level, whether such slaughter programs were an ethically defensible strategy for maintaining industry profits:

Canadian egg farmers are being paid to kill off 1.5 million hens. [...] The Canadian Egg Marketing Agency is offering farmers up to $2.07 for each hen slaughtered by May 23 and not replaced (for up to 16 weeks) [...] This is the largest slaughter program ever asked for by the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency. Chairman Harold Crossman says it's the quickest way to cut back on the surpluses. It's the fifth slaughter program in the last 10 years. (Reynolds, 1981, p. A1)

So, it is concerning to observe that at same time as the prospect of slaughtering backyard chickens caused an uproar in Toronto, the ongoing marketing-board sanctioned death of millions of hens to curb oversupply in the province’s main markets (like Toronto) would elicit no significant moral response or humane argument in the news. These broader farm-animal realities seemed to escape the city’s urban conscience during Toronto’s live market and backyard chicken debates. Only a few comments appeared in writing from critics, merchants and market proponents who suggested, in so many words, that true cruelty towards farm animals was occuring not in the highly visible corners of the city, but rather in the intensifying and industrializing commercial spaces that were mostly concealed from public view.

4.3.2 Diminishing Cruelty: Distance, Difference and Animal Welfare

In 1982, as Toronto’s farm animal debates were approaching a pinnacle, some merchants who were accused of cruelty towards animals spoke out against these allegations, and pointed towards the spaces that should be scrutinized. For example, in August 1982 the Toronto Star published an opinion piece from a vendor working at Snelgrove Market, titled “I take good care of them” (Elliot, 1982, p. H4); this piece appears alongside one written by a market opponent who claimed that vendors needed “moral guidance” to learn how to treat animals better (Karalus, 1982, p.

H4). The targeted vendor, Jim Elliot, argued that he was, in fact, knowledgeable in animal care, and defended the scenes that Snelgrove Market opponents described as representative of cruel and immoral practices:

Many people who complain about the treatment of small animals at markets don't know anything about animals; they assume the animals are being mistreated when they’re really not. For instance, rabbits and puppies don’t need much cage room because they like to sleep piled on top of each other. But when people see a handful of these animals in a cage, they assume the cage is too crowded. Pigeons don’t need water in their cages because they fill up in the morning [...] Chickens are given some food to keep them busy scratching, and all the other animals are fed as well. (Elliot, 1982, p. H4)

In this quote, Elliot challenges arguments from opponents, stressing that good animal care comes with experience. This vendor goes on to deflect attention away from his market stall and towards Ontario’s factory farms, which were physically distanced from cities and thus shielded from the city’s humane gaze:

Perhaps the people who complain about the treatment of these animals have their priorities wrong. Much more atrocious things happen on experimental farms [...] That is where the real cruelty lies; perhaps people should redirect their energy to stop cruelty in those areas. (Elliot, 1982, p. H4)

Such farms were the subject of at least one major feature in the Toronto Star, published in 1980, titled “Animal Farms--1980-style”. As one of the only articles of its kind to appear in the media at this time, it would have provided readers with a glimpse of what occurs on factory farms and experimental farms where new practices were being explored and tested in the province. This article opens with descriptions of the use of artificial lighting systems, genetic manipulation, and daily electric shocks that train cows to “defecate into special manure-collecting gutters”. As reporter Marilyn Anderson explained:

It’s all part of the “total confinement system” at the 2,8000-acre experimental farm run by the Animal Research Institute of Agriculture Canada in the National Capital Commission greenbelt in Ottawa. Since 1965, about 50 buildings have been put up [...] The intensive housing and rearing of animals here is typical of a growing North American trend, aimed at the more efficient production of food from animals. (Anderson, 1980, pp. B1 & B5)

Half of this multi-page article is dedicated to exposing how different animals were being kept on Ottawa’s experimental research farm, which mirrored the practices of other factory farms while testing new techno-science methods of animal rearing. Later, the article features comments from

60 the experimental farm’s director, whose comments implied that animals kept at Ottawa’s experimental farm were being treated in accordance with welfare standards:

In addition to regular management committee meetings to review all the research work from the standpoint of animal welfare, there is also a veterinarian watching what goes on "to make sure there is no unnecessary maltreatment of animals. [...] You don't get an extremely high growth rate, high livibility [sic], high milk and egg production with animals that are unhappy or treated in a way that makes them unhappy. Good-quality eggs, milk and meat at high production levels are generally associated with good animal care. (Anderson, 1980, pp. B1 & B5)

As evident in this quote, productivity was central to measuring an animal’s welfare. Likewise, the presence of a veterinarian is presented as a measure that prevents the suffering of animals when such suffering is deemed “unnecessary”; this implies that some forms of inhumane treatment were seen as necessary based on the expert judgment of veterinarians. Gowe would further defend the operation of Ottawa’s experimental farm (and of factory farms, by association), adding that:

Chickens are worse off outside. Inside they are clucking and singing happy sounds. Animals do quite well in a stall. Give them space, air, and proper diet and they don't seem to be under any stress. It just isn't economical to grow them under the conditions that a lot of people imagine they should be. (Anderson, 1980, pp. B1 & B5)

The growing conditions that Gowe defended using the language of welfare and an economic (rather than a moral) argument are captured not only in the article’s vivid descriptions, but also through large-scale imagery printed alongside the text, like that pictured in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Caged chickens at Ottawa experimental farm.

Lifetime Job. (1980, July 20). [Photo]. Toronto Star, B1.

This image is captioned: “Lifetime job: Chicks in the laying cages at Ottawa’s experimental farm. They stay there all their laying life.” One might observe that these cages are not unlike the cages and crates pictured at markets in Toronto and the GTA, although these similarities did not attract clear comparison in the media. Nor did the differences, like the fact that chickens in these commercial cages remained in these spaces for the entirety of their lives. Arguably, these “experimental farm” conditions were more extreme, more permanent, and just as concerning as what was being witnessed and scrutinized by live market opponents in Toronto, but distanced, industrialized environments were encounterable only through pictures.

When Toronto’s ban was enacted, its slaughterhouses—which killed animals shipped in from industrialized farms—were allowed to continue receiving live farm animals. The police were permitted to continue using horses (otherwise restricted under the city’s bylaw). Circuses, zoos and urban farms were also exempt, and could continue using animals at their sites and in their programs. In fact, less than one month after the city’s ban was announced, the Toronto Star (re)introduced urban families to “Metro’s other zoos”—the urban farms that kept livestock in and around Toronto:

In the city, in the summer, you don't expect to hear a chicken's cluck or a cow's moo or, least of all, a pig's grunt. But at Riverdale Farms the lambs don't mind nibbling on grass that's smack in the middle of Toronto...All the farm animals you'd expect to see on a country farm are there for the looking, but not touching. (Fruman, 1983, p. G1)

Spaces like these allowed urban residents to encounter chickens, cows, pigs and other farm animals as relics of the city’s more rural past and as objects of family entertainment. And following Toronto’s bylaw, these environments became the only (allowable) physical connection to farm animals that Toronto’s residents could have within city limits. Yet, this was only a partial connection, and one that it failed to convey how farm animals continued to be treated—and how they suffered—across the province. The experiences of farm animals at “Metro’s other zoos” were startlingly distinct from the experiences of farm animals at Canadian factory farms and research sites; what urban residents were not permitted to see was how these animals were treated as nothing more than the malleable property and consumable outputs of Canada’s factory farms.

4.4 Chapter Conclusion

In this chapter, I have explored how arguments around the inhumane care and slaughter of urban animals helped to inform the place and history of chickens in Toronto. The perspectives captured in this chapter have received less attention than others in the literature on the history and geography of urban farm animals; yet, in the context of Toronto, arguments related to humane care and animal suffering appears to have played a significant role in the city’s live animal debates and council’s eventual decision to ban farm animals. By focusing first on accounts of animal cruelty at live markets in Toronto and the GTA, I foregrounded practices that sparked moral outrage among the public and animal protection groups. The mistreatment and improper care of chickens, rabbits, dogs, rabbits, pigeons, goats and other animals was cause for alarm and elicited the sympathies of onlookers, who called on humane societies and the city to intervene. This outcry also helped to shape a moral argument that reached past market spaces and into urban backyards and basements where it was believed that farm animals were being slaughtered inhumanely.

In the media maelstrom that surrounding live animal debates at city hall, chickens became the ultimate victims of urban animal cruelty. Although comparisons were not explicit in the media, the data suggests that the public (and the city’s lawmakers) may have reflected on contrasts

63 between the lives of chickens—as frequent victims of cruelty—and the city’s growing and beloved pet population, especially since these animals were moving further into the intimate spaces of home environments in the 1980s, as Rebekah Fox (2006) has observed. Differences and distinctions in how animals lived and died in the city likely birthed a narrative of (un)belonging. The city was no longer a place where (farm) animals would be allowed to suffer; it was a place of ethical human-animal relations where people’s beloved pets lived and thrived. Dismissing claims that attempted to muddle strict divisions between the categories of pets and farm animals, Toronto resolved to remove the latter, thereby erasing farm animals and their suffering from the visible landscape of the city. Through exemptions, slaughterhouses continued to operate, and zoos, circuses and urban farms (i.e., the city’s “other zoos”, as quoted in a previous section) were permitted to keep productive species that were otherwise banned from the city’s public and private spaces.

As my findings have shown, these changes were driven, in part, by the voices of public residents, animal advocacy groups and the humane society, who helped to usher farm animals into specific roles and environments; that is, as food and not pets, as victims of unabating urban cruelty, and as humanely killed only in licensed slaughterhouses. Arguably, these well-intentioned efforts to curtail urban animal suffering informed a narrative in the media that doubted the capacity and willingness of urbanites to properly care for farm animals. By reminding the public that merchants were cited, time and again, for neglecting animals (especially chickens), and by planting seeds of doubt that the unregulated at-home slaughter of chickens and other farm animals posed a humane concern, the city was constructed as a place that lacked the knowledge and skills required to raise, keep and kill farm animals humanely. The idea that urbanites could not or would not care for farm animals effectively (with the same level of care afforded to pets) is repeated in humane arguments today (McClintock et al, 20141), a trend that I explore more in more depth in Chapter Five. Although this logic worked historically to eliminate the visible suffering of farm animals from the city, it also helped to destroy the proximate, material connection that urban residents had with the living animals enrolled in the province’s food system. It made it impossible for urbanites to continue to come face-to-face with farm animals and bear witness to (and intervene in) their suffering, thus impairing the public’s moral

1 McClintock et al noted in their US study the appearance of humane arguments in several news stories; however, they did not explore these arguments in their research.

64 perception of, and affective ties with, farm animals. Arguably, this has prevented city residents from cultivating what eco-feminist scholar Lori Gruen (2015) refers to as entangled empathy, or an intimate, affective understanding of animals that emerges through close interactions, and which allows people to feel “with the other” (Gruen, p. 44).

Ultimately, with no visibility or lively urban presence (beyond the controlled environments of urban farms or zoos), chickens and other farm animals moved deeper in the commercial spaces of agri-business during the 1980s, where animal welfare as policy and industry discourse helped to legitimize alarmingly cruel and exploitative practices that diminished the moral worth of farm animals. Strangely, then, the reasonable efforts of humane organizations and public citizens to address and prevent urban animal suffering preceded the complete erasure of urban chickens and other farm animals from the city, while allowing far greater farm-animal atrocities to continue away from urban view.

5 Contemporary Practices and Perspectives, Part I: Media and Document Analysis (2001-2020)

In the previous chapter, I analyzed local media stories that considered the place and treatment of chickens in Toronto during the 1970s and 1980s. In this chapter, I have carried out a similar analysis in a contemporary context, looking specifically at news media and policy-related documents published between 2001 and 2020. These stories point to ongoing debate about the changing place of chickens in the city. Since the early 2000s, Toronto city councillors have attempted to build support at Toronto City Hall for the return of chickens to urban backyards. Their efforts were successful in late 2017, with the launch of the backyard chicken-keeping pilot UrbanHensTO the following spring. With a view to these efforts and this temporary bylaw pilot, I consider in this chapter the perspectives of urban chicken-keepers as well as their opponents. My findings show that unlike in the past, chicken-keepers (and their supporters) have a perceptible, positive presence in the media today, as do actual hens. These animals are being depicted not as ill-suited to city life or as victims of urban cruelty, but as lively, endearing and well-cared for pets-with-benefits. By relating to and representing backyard hens in this way—as productive pets—backyard chicken-keeping in Toronto has a political-ethical resonance, transforming backyard spaces into subversive environments wherein dominant ideas about chickens and their place and treatment in society can be actively challenged. In other words, some of Toronto’s backyard coops are helping to disrupt the view that chickens neither belong nor can be humanely cared for in cities, while at the same time allowing chickens to become more material, familiar and knowable as individuals and as other-than-food in the city.

I also aim to highlight throughout this chapter how the media’s attention to these alternative relations is critical to supporting a broader paradigm shift in human-farm-animal relations, as scholars have long argued that the media plays an integral role in representing and shaping public attitudes and opinions (for example, see Lassiter, Wolch & Gullo, 1997). Positive descriptive accounts of backyard hens and their keepers can, therefore, provide us with a new frame through which to view farm animals and our entangled geographies.

As with the previous chapter, I have worked from a refined dataset of over one-hundred sources (inclusive of local media stories and policy-related documents) while drawing representative quotes from a smaller selection of materials that best articulated key themes, which are explored

66 below in the following two sections: (1) The Oppositional Voice Revisited: The “Proper” Place and Care of Farm Animals; and, (2) The Human/Hen Counter-Voice: Narratives of Care and Belonging in Toronto’s Urban Coops. After discussing my findings, I provide a brief conclusion, highlighting key ideas that carry forward into my final empirical chapter (Chapter Six).

5.1 The Oppositional Voice Revisited: The “Proper” Place and Care of Farm Animals

Since 2001, councillors have been working to bring chickens back to Toronto—and their efforts have been met with significant opposition. Many of these opposing arguments made against the return of backyard chickens have been grounded firmly in one of two ideas. The first is the idea that the city lacks the space to accommodate farm animals. In most cases, this line of argumentation leads to speculative claims that, should Toronto invoke permanent bylaw change, neighbourhoods will end up overrun with chickens and other farm animals. These views, often leaning towards sensationalism, are commonly shared during policy debates and are frequently cited by city councillors. Others, like members of animal advocacy organizations, have introduced another set of oppositional viewpoints premised on the idea that urbanites are inexperienced in the realm of farm animal care. Inexperience or lack of expertise, argue these opponents, will give way to unabated animal cruelty and the inhumane at-home slaughter of backyard birds (echoing the arguments encountered in historical media). These perspectives are explored below using data from current media stories as well as public deputations, meeting minutes and staff reports that form part of Toronto’s public record.

5.1.1 An Imagined Paradox: Urban Density and the Farm Animal Multitude

When a Toronto City Councilor proposed in 2011 that the city carry out a feasibility study on backyard chicken-keeping, the request was directed to the city’s Licensing and Standards Committee. The councillor’s motion to explore the possibility of urban hens was defeated by a vote of 5-0 and “deferred indefinitely” (City of Toronto, 2012)—a decision based in part on speculative arguments, like those focused on space or the lack thereof in Toronto to accommodate an influx of farm animals. As one councillor is quoted to have said: “Now we’re going to have thousands of chickens crossing the road and we’re going to have neighbours fighting against neighbours because they don’t want to hit the chickens” (Langford, 2011, emphasis added). Along with alluding to concerns about neighbourhood grievances, this

67 statement suggests that chickens will return to Toronto in volumes that overwhelm the urban landscape. The mental image evoked by this claim calls to mind the urban geography of farm animals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Kheraj, 2015; Brinkley & Vitiello, 2014), which fails to correspond to the city’s more recent farm animal histories (i.e., chickens in the 1970s and 1980s). Despite the sensationalism of this councillor’s quote, others have echoed these concerns, arguing that the removal of chickens from the city’s Prohibited Animals list would result in hens residing in Toronto in “big multi-unit coops” (Rider, 2012), consuming limited backyard space and disrupting neighbourhood dynamics.

In 2014, when it was suspected that the issue was going to be raised again at council, some took to fear mongering in neighbourhoods where councillors were believed to be partial to backyard chickens. One Toronto Star article reports that residents of Toronto’s Beaches-East York neighbourhood received in their mailboxes materials intended to dissuade support for backyard hens in their ward:

[...] anonymous clumps of white feathers in the mail are back — but instead of implications of cowardice, Beaches-East York residents were greeted by images of three sinister-looking chickens. “If your city councillor gets her way, there will be up to 23,500 chickens living in backyards right across the neighborhood,” it said, noting that incumbent candidate Mary-Margaret McMahon considers backyard chicken farming a priority. (Daubs, 2014, p. GT7)

It is worth noting that since the city launched its backyard hens pilot program in 2018, the Beaches-East York neighbourhood has not been invaded by tens of thousands of chickens; in fact, recent UrbanHensTO pilot statistics indicate that approximately 200 chickens are registered across all four of the city’s participating wards, of which Beaches-East York is only one.

In some cases, when concerns around chickens and urban density were raised at city hall and in the media, claims extended beyond backyard hens to include farm animals more generally. One councillor suggested that chickens might perform as a type of gateway species, leading “to residents wanting to raise other farm animals in the city” (Alcoba, 2012). Some feared this would result in the uncontrollable and unmanageable re-entry of urban livestock in Toronto, as was claimed in 2017 following the city’s approval of the UrbanHensTO pilot:

[He] warned this marks the “introduction of livestock into the city,” and that it’s not clear where that will end, nor how much work it will create for city officials [...] Where do we stop? Can I have a cow? I like milk. (Powell, 2017, p. GT2)

These perspectives favour the view that the city is poorly suited to farm animals, who are presented consistently in terms of overwhelming multitudes rather than as individual animals to be kept on a micro-scale. Through this lens, the idea of allowing backyard chickens becomes an all-or-nothing equation wherein Toronto is either re-ruralized and descends into chaos, or is maintained as exclusively urban and farm-animal-free. Of course, these arguments are not only overdramatized, drawing heavily on the conception of animal multitudes promulgated by industrial farming (Buller, 2013), but also they ignore the continued presence of hundreds of thousands of farm animals in our city. For instance, many farm animals enter Toronto each year to die in urban slaughterhouses—sequestered spaces that are “hidden in plain sight” (Pachirat, 2013), and where some sources claim as many as 200,000 chickens die each day in Toronto (“Toronto Chicken Save”). Still, many maintain that (beyond these sequestered spaces) there is no room for these animals in Toronto. This general view aligns with the position that Toronto Animal Services North expressed in the early 2000s:

Chickens are banned in Toronto because they are considered farm animals. "Because of the urbanized environment and the density of houses, farm animals are not appropriate and not allowed," says Fiona Venedam, supervisor of Toronto animal services, north. However, there are a few places in the city, including parts of Scarborough near the zoo, that are zoned agricultural and where chickens are permitted. (Scrivener, 2008, p. A1)

While making an argument against chickens as undifferentiated farm animals, this quote ignores the human/animal realities of Toronto, where thousands of dogs, cats, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, rabbits, foxes, coyotes, deer, opossums, chipmunks, and many other domesticated and liminal species find space in Toronto’s dense residential neighbourhoods. This troubling logic, that chickens are banned simply because “they are considered farm animals'', associates chickens with a broader farm animal mass that appears incompatible with the density and function of residential urban space. Some opponents have also gone so far as to claim: “If you want to have chickens, then buy a farm, go to a farm” (Rider, 2012), demanding that chickens find their place outside of the city. Like the comments of Toronto Animal Services, claiming that a farm or agriculturally zoned area is the only appropriate place for chickens suggests that these animals are only suitable to ruralized environments, and further that they have no value beyond the commodified, productive role that they play on the farm—and eventually on people’s plates.

Recently, the Chair of the Economic and Community Development Committee made comments to this effect during a December 2020 meeting, during which the committee received a progress report on UrbanHensTO and heard from the public. The Chair stated:

I would basically just be terrified if my neighbors had chicken because as a young boy I lived on a farm. I saw chickens. I experienced chickens and cows and all of the different animals and so on. I'll just say that chickens on the farm, [that] was perhaps the worst of the group in terms of some of the things that happen with respect to chickens and so on. And again, I love chicken to eat quite frankly, and I love eggs […] but I'm, you know, very much in support of how I acquire my eggs and chickens now from the grocery store […]. (City of Toronto, 2020b)

This comment and others reinforce the perspective, commonly shared at city council and committee meetings, of seeing chickens as “chicken”—as something useful or valued only as food. Similarly, in 2012 the Toronto Star reported that the city’s “administration believes backyard chickens should be restricted to the barbecue” and shared the comments of a councilor who said: “I don't think there is any appetite for backyard chickens” (Rider, 2012). Overall, the tone of this comment and others capture what Hugh Bartling (2012) referred to in his research as “an incredulity [in the response of elected officials] as to why anyone would want to spend the time to raise chickens” (p. 32, emphasis added), since they (and their eggs) are already in abundant supply at grocery stores. The incredulity of city councillors also appears to dovetail with an ongoing tendency in municipal policy debates to turn chickens into a laughing matter and topic of urban unimportance, using puns, jokes and even insults to trivialize the prospect of seeing or caring for chickens in the city.

5.1.2 Questions of Care-Related Competencies

In addition to the claims explored above, arguments about the humane care of farm animals have also been made in recent debates to suggest that cities are deficient in “expert” care-taking knowledge. The most vocal animal-advocacy sector opponent in this regard has been the Animal Alliance of Canada (AAC), a federally incorporated non-profit that advocates for stronger animal protection laws (Animal Alliance of Canada, 2020). The AAC has argued that urban residents will obtain hens for their productive value, but lack the knowledge (and willingness) to care for productive animals humanely. For example, in 2012, when Toronto’s Licensing and Standards Committee voted against exploring the feasibility of backyard hens, “Liz White, from the Animal Alliance, said the committee had made the right decision [...] Her group is concerned

70 about the possibility that hens would be mistreated inadvertently by inexpert owners” (Robertson, 2012). When the matter resurfaced at committee and council meetings in 2017, the AAC’s written deputation included the following statement:

The humane keeping of chickens requires a high degree of knowledge and expertise regarding their care, feeding and housing. Although individuals can acquire expertise, the reality is that many people are likely to obtain chickens without knowledge or ability to humanely care for them. (City of Toronto, 2017a)

Elsewhere in their deputation the AAC refers to urbanites as “inexpert owners” and cautions that a “lack of knowledge about chickens would likely include an inability by the owner to detect illness or disease symptoms”, grounding their arguments in issues of care and (in)competency in the city. In addition to repeatedly describing the urban population as deficient in the skills necessary for keeping chickens, this group also raises questions in their statements about how chickens might be treated (inhumanely) when egg-laying rates decline:

Finally, what happens to the chickens who no longer produce the desired number of eggs, at the young age of 18 to 24 months? Obviously the birds will be disposed of in some manner, including backyard slaughter when egg production begins to decline. [...] It is unlikely that all urban chicken owners will take their chickens to a veterinarian for euthanasia, as they would their dog or cat. Also, they may want to eat the chickens, once they are no longer productive egg-layers which leads to the possibility of backyard slaughter [...] This of course raises humane and public health concerns and increases bylaw enforcement responsibilities for Toronto Animal Services. (City of Toronto, 2017a)

This view adheres to the pervasive belief that people will see urban chickens only as chicken. Through this lens, chickens appear to exist in urban space as something to kill and consume, and as inferior to and markedly different from companion animals like dogs or cats. It is interesting to note the language used in the AAC’s broader comments, as well. Terms like “disposed of” and “carcasses” that appear in their statements represent rhetoric that is aligned with farm industry discourse. One might easily argue that it is highly uncommon in urban society to refer to the body of a deceased pet dog or cat as a carcass, or to reflect on the best time to dispose of one’s pet when they grow old or become ill and have to be euthanized (a decision that pet owners are permitted to make and which may not coincide with the natural end of a pet’s lifespan). Along with enforcing boundaries between pets and farm animals to raise concerns about urban ineptitude in the realm of chicken care, the AAC has also argued that should the public not wish to treat their chickens as killable farm animals, the practice of keeping urban hens remains “ultimately inhumane because many people will dump their hens on the street once they stop

71 laying eggs” (Alex, 2013, p. GT1). Yet, this claim fails to account for the many urban pets that are surrendered, dumped, or otherwise abandoned by their owners. The AAC’s humane-care argument, while dutifully aimed (based on their mandate) at freeing chickens of their use value in society as food, limits how chickens might come to matter and materialize in urban space. These arguments not only undermine the urban (human) population that has or aims to acquire sufficient chicken-care knowledge to keep their hens humanely, but also such claims do a disservice to farm animals by forcing distinctions that encourage ongoing erasure while promoting the limiting gaze of farm animals as food.

Concern that urbanites lack experience or expertise to raise chickens humanely in urban backyards has also been expressed outside of the comments of the AAC. For example, in the 2012 newspaper article, “Toronto is no place for chickens'' (Mallick, p. A15), the columnist writes that “eggs are best left to the experts''; these experts are not identified as Toronto’s urban citizens but as the farmers who appear in “the 2012 Faces of Farming Calendar”. Similarly, others have argued that “[...] the younger generation hardly knows how to boil an egg, let alone raise a chicken” (Alcoba, 2012), suggesting that farm animal care is a decidedly un-urban form of knowledge and skill. Questions of care also factored into the 2017 city staff recommendation to leave chickens on Toronto’s prohibited animals list (although explicit claims about care- related ineptitude among the urban population were not made):

An analysis for adding or removing an animal to the list will include consideration of the animals' welfare. This would include evaluating if the needs of the animal for veterinary services, easy access of suitable food, adequate shelter and environment can be reasonably met by owner. [...] The keeping of chickens outdoors in poor enclosures and coops may present animal care, welfare risks for chickens.

The report adds that 87% of city residents had indicated previously that care and welfare was “the most important factor in deciding whether an animal should be removed from the city’s Prohibited Animals list” (City of Toronto, 2017b). If this top criterion for the public factored into city staff’s recommendation against allowing urban hens in Toronto, it may be inferred that staff were concerned that urban citizens might be unable to provide backyard hens with appropriate care or ensure their welfare. Interestingly, the Toronto Humane Society, which historically made strong arguments to this effect, has not been vocally opposed to the keeping of backyard chickens in recent debates. They did, however, stress the importance of providing chickens with proper care when the topic reached the media in the early 2000s:

Not all chickens receive proper care. "People need to know what they’re doing before they get into this," says Toronto Humane Society spokesperson Ian McConachie. "Then the animals won’t end up getting sick or being abandoned, which happens when they become too difficult to manage. (Peters, 2010)

While the Toronto Humane Society did not speculate that urbanites would slaughter their birds (as the AAC suggested), members of the public and councillors have argued, like the AAC, that urban residents will kill their hens inhumanely in urban backyards. For example, the following statement is drawn from a letter to the editor, published in the Toronto Star following the launch of UrbanHensTO: “Backyard chickens only remain ‘productive’ in terms of their eggs for about two years”, at which point they may be “sold for slaughter, or worse, slaughtered by regular laypeople without any knowledge or training in humane slaughter” (“Your letters”, 2018). Another source writes that councillors fear the “spectre of homeowners stringing corpses on the clothesline”, establishing the inevitability of an at-home death (Peters, 2010). Claims like these place the unsettling act of farm animal slaughter in the companionable, intimate and visible residential sphere, and often (though not always) emphasize concerns about the inhumaneness of the act. Through these and other claims, urban-hen opponents promote an ongoing narrative of farm-animal unbelonging that hinges on the ineptitude of urban residents and a forced division between human-pet and human-farm-animal relationships. In reality, when we compare the place- and care-related claims of urban-hen opponents to the actual practices and perspectives of Toronto’s chicken-keepers a very different picture is revealed—one that stresses the illogicality of the oppositional claims discussed above, while highlighting the subversive and transformative potential of backyard hens.

5.2 The Human/Hen Counter-Voice: Stories of Care and Belonging from Toronto’s Urban Coops

Backyard chicken keeping is emerging in Toronto as a quietly transformative practice. It is making space for farm animals in a city that has tried to erase these beings from view, and challenges the arguments of urban opponents (and the relationships promoted by factory farming). To better understand how this is occuring, it is critical to explore the perspectives of backyard chicken-keepers and those who argue in favour of, rather than against, urban hens. Historically, these groups had a limited voice in the media. Since the early 2000s, however, this has been changing. Today, local media and policy discussions are filled with the experiences and perspectives of chicken-keepers and the opinions of people and organizations that advocate for

73 the renewed place of hens in Toronto. Using these stories, I consider how accounts of chicken- keepers, their hens, and their coops are weaving positive narratives of farm-animal care and belonging in our city. As appropriate, I bring these stories into dialogue with historical and current oppositional perspectives.

5.2.1 Chickens Belong Here: Making Space for (a few) Hens

In contrast to some of the more alarmist arguments explored earlier, the city’s positive, pro- chicken narratives moderate concerns around urban density and the influx of a farm animal mass, first and foremost using statements that help to quantify and qualify backyard practices. Almost all articles that refer positively to either urban chickens and/or the nature of chicken-keeping practices in Toronto make clear that birds are kept in small numbers, for example, through terminology such as “a few” pet chickens (Rieti, 2017) or “a harmless hen” (“Disappointing decision,” p. A12). Several articles also include direct statements about the space that backyard chickens require as well as how different backyard environments can effectively accommodate coops, runs, and foraging areas for chickens. One such article from 2012, published in the Toronto Star as an urban gardening feature, identifies chickens as small “garden companions”, stating that hens “take up very little space per bird” (Cullen, 2012, p. H2). In 2018, a story in the Toronto Star exploring how “Toronto residents remodel their yards to house chickens” captures the experience of chicken-keeping Torontonians, including one former Councillor who reimagined and reworked his family’s backyard for their hens:

When Joe Mihevic moved into his Toronto home 25 years ago, he didn’t imagine building another residence on the property. This past spring, though, he took to his back yard and constructed a house built for four: four egg-laying hens, that is...Their 175-foot- long back garden features an abundance of plants and flowers, a children’s playhouse and now the sturdy chicken coop built to keep its feathered inhabitants comfortable. (Flaxman, 2018, p. H1)

This quote emphasizes distinct spaces in the yard—the family’s plants and flowers, a children’s playhouse—of which the hen-house becomes an integrated part; an accompanying image (see Figure 5) in the article shows how this particular coop was constructed under, and as part of, an elevated backyard deck that extended off the house.

Figure 5: Backyard coop in Toronto.

Johnston, R. (2018, June 16). [City councillor with his chickens]. [Photo]. Toronto Star, H1.

Similarly, another article describes a chicken-keeper who designed a coop that functioned much like a miniature property (for hens) and extension of the human home: “Ken built a roughly five- foot-high, multi-room chicken coop and painted it to match the neutral greys and beiges of the family's Beaches-area home” (Pelley, 2018). Another chicken-keeper who wished to keep her hens discretely ensured that her coop was at the back of the yard, away from prying eyes (Deschamps, 2015). In other cases, coops are described in the media as being more conspicuous structures that draw, rather than deflect, attention. For example, Toronto Star columnist and chicken-keeper Amy Pataki described in 2018 the oversized coop that resulted from adhering to the housing standards of the city’s backyard-hens pilot, UrbanHensTO: “A smaller coop would trap more of the warmth generated by three chickens. But city bylaws dictate 4 square feet of indoor space for each chicken” (Pataki, 2018b, p. L7). In this case, the coop—reconstructed to adhere to the city’s indoor space requirements for birds—provides what some might deem to be too much space, particularly for birds kept in colder climates, and earns the structure its “Taj Mahal” (Pataki, 2018b, p. L7) moniker.

It is apparent in many of the stories about backyard coops that, unlike factory farming, which sequesters egg-laying hens from the external environment to create an entirely artificial one

75 indoors, backyard chicken-keeping is in constant dialogue with the micro-landscape of which it is a part. This is evident in the size, design and location of coops and enclosures, as captured above, and in how hens’ housing is protected from inclement weather and local predators. Protecting coops from Canadian winters, for example, prompted some to opt for “Eglus” or “Omelets”, special coops that are supposed to work well in cold climates (Lisan, 2012). Others recommend simply using bubble wrap: “Can chickens withstand a GTA winter? The experienced chicken keepers say yes, and recommend bubble wrap for protection against wind” (Flaxman, 2018, p. H1); “[…] I did a very Martha Stewart thing. I covered their coop in bubble wrap” (Lisan, 2012).

Protecting hens’ housing and determining an ideal location for these structures becomes a creative, interactive endeavour that is in conversation with the local landscape and community. Even when hens are kept clandestinely, urban chicken-keeping remains in contact with the world outside the coop. For example, in 2011, the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail each announced that, as part of the city’s annual Jane’s Walk events, urbanites could embark on a “bicycle tour of secret backyard coops” (“City Chickens, 2011, p. M4), even those left empty after hen seizures: “Fascinating Fact: The first tour stop had a coop, but no chickens. The illegal birds were seized by bylaw officers in November” (“Five Fascinating Jane’s Walks”, 2011). This kind of tour made otherwise clandestine spaces physically accessible to the public, allowing urban coops, even unoccupied ones, to be recognized as part of the city’s visible landscape. Likewise, the very location of some backyards has meant that chicken coops, and their feathered residents, are all the more visible and accessible to members of the public. As one chicken- keeper describes: “We’re right on a park, so everyone can see the hens” (Langford, 2020). In this way, backyard chicken-keeping makes space, in physical and conceptual terms, for the world’s most exploited species—for chicken—to enter urbanity as something quite different, as a living animal and backyard resident that challenges social boundaries and systems of erasure.

Overall, this section has aimed to show how chicken-keepers in Toronto, as captured in the media, have established the place of hens in Toronto, whose coops and enclosures have become an integrated and subversive part of the urban residential landscape. Sometimes coops and their adjoining enclosures are fluid extensions of the home and painted to match with the structures around them, for example; other times they stand out, calling attention to the animals they house (or once housed), inviting a range of impressions and encounters. Always, however, the coop

76 redefines the space of the city and the intimate sphere of the urban garden into a place where chickens belong. In this context, coop-containing backyards may be understood as subversive spaces where hens—members of an exploited and isolated species—come to live, sleep, eat, play, roam, roost, experience the elements (sun, rain, snow, wind), and interact with plants, animals and people. This, as many voices express later in this chapter and in the next, is simply what chickens are owed.

5.2.2 Humane Cities and Ethical Urban Farmers

One of the most significant differences between historical and contemporary media that I observed in my research is that today the different motivations of chicken-keepers are coming to light. On account of this change, it is clear that backyard chicken keeping is about more than promoting local food or obtaining fresh eggs, as others have also observed in their research (Blecha & Leitner, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014). More often than not, it is about exercising control over how egg-laying hens are raised and treated so that chickens, as productive animals, can be granted a better life than what they are afforded in factory farms. Of course, it is important to understand this ethical motivation within the context of the data—media stories do not, and cannot, represent the perspectives and practices of all chicken-keepers. Nonetheless, Toronto’s media stories form a narrative that reminds the public of the atrocities faced by factory farmed hens, and the opportunity to push back against this system by raising chickens at home and establishing a place for them in the city. This ethical/humane driver appears in approximately half of media stories that address the motivations of chicken-keepers. For instance, an article from 2011 tells of one chicken-keeper raising hens rescued from a factory farm: “They were “spent hens” from a factory, destined for the landfill, but a kind soul rescued them and I adopted them” (Langford, 2011). The Toronto Star also reported on two young brothers whose interest in keeping chickens related to their concerns about animal welfare: “[A] farm visit got them interested in animal welfare. They contrasted the lives of hens that can barely move in factory-farm “battery” cages with those of their four pampered egg producers” (Rider, 2012). Public deputations and statements submitted to Toronto City Council also form an important part of this narrative. For example, the following statement appeared in a communication submitted to Toronto City Council in 2017 by the local non-profit, The Stop Community Food Centre:

Backyard hens provide fresh eggs for homeowners who can ensure that their hens are raised ethically and humanely. This is in contrast to the majority of eggs in our grocery stores that come from hens that are brutally raised in cages with no access to the outdoors and where they are not able to live as chickens as meant to with access to grass and dirt. (City of Toronto, 2017b)

This statement and ones like it also appear in the written submissions and deputations of other local groups and supporters, like Toronto Urban Growers, a group that promotes urban food growing across Toronto. In almost every case, this ethical line of reasoning is the first to be shared in a list that extends to arguments related to local food security, food sovereignty and sustainable food systems. This embeds local chicken-keepers in a humane urban matrix, wherein the space of the city and the abilities of its residents allow chicken-keepers to emerge as ethical urban farmers—as participants in a productive, ethical exchange wherein hens provide eggs (and entertainment), and people provide humane care, letting chickens live “as chickens”, with access to grass and dirt, to the outdoor spaces that homeowners might have at their disposal. The general idea that urban chicken-keepers are better positioned than the province’s commercial sector to raise hens properly, is a positive, powerful and subversive notion. Overall, this helps to counter the negative arguments of detractors that have claimed the opposite (i.e., that urban chickens will be raised inhumanely and/or that the city spaces cannot accommodate farm animals and their care).

Along with capturing the ethical impulse of urban chicken-keeping, the media has helped to develop an overarching narrative of the humane, capable urban farm-animal-keeper by referring in positive news stories to Toronto’s chicken-keepers as urban farmers, backyard egg farmers, or chicken farmers. This occurs in more half of stories that refer to chicken-keepers and their backyard practices. By way of the term “farmer” and its expert resonance, these titles lend a certain degree of care-related authority or experience to urban chicken-keepers, who have been demeaned from oppositional perspectives that have argued against their ability and willingness to care for chickens humanely. As well, in many of the articles that refer positively to urban chicken-keepers as a variant of “farmer”, these terms typically describe those whose birds have been kept illegally in the city. For example, in “Urban egg farmer fighting to save her coop de ville” (Rider, 2012), a Toronto chicken-keeper concerned about a pending committee decision on hens is described as “a friendly mom, an executive with a buzzing iPhone and an outlaw urban farmer collecting eggs on borrowed time”; and, an article published the following day reported that “[t]he city is preparing to go after 14 backyard chicken farmers because a committee refused

Wednesday to even contemplate lifting a ban on urban hens” (Rider, 26 Jan 2012). When the legality of hens was being reviewed in 2017, The Globe and Mail “sought out an underground urban farmer and promised anonymity to protect her against a bylaw crackdown”. Another article in The Globe and Mail published several years earlier featured the headline “Urban Farming, Outlaw Chickens: City folks flout laws for illegal yolks” (Elton, 2009), emphasizing the risks that some urbanites are willing to take to keep egg-laying hens in the city. Overall, the idea of the media-validated urban farmer working at a non-commercial, micro-scale, and in an ethical/humane manner adds another subversive dimension to urban chicken-keeping. This subversive (and transformative) quality is further strengthened through the human-animal relationships that are emerging in and around Toronto’s urban coops. I begin to explore these relationships below, and then delve deeper into these dynamics in Chapter Six, using data from my interviews with participants of the city’s pilot, UrbanHensTO.

5.2.3 Hens Aren’t Food: Urban Chickens as Productive Backyard Pets

Historically, the idea that urban chickens could be kept as something other than food—more specifically, as pets—was not commonplace in the media. Instead, historical news stories presented urban chickens as farm animals facing eventual slaughter. Today, however, this is shifting. In spite of the claims of opponents who carry historical arguments into the present, urban hens are being widely depicted through both current media and policy discourse in Toronto as productive animals that are kept and cared for as pets—in other words, as part of a category of animals that have an established place in the city’s residential spaces. This categorization is supported, for example, in the very framework of the city’s pilot, UrbanHensTO. The program website states that: “Hens are for the purposes of enjoyment and egg production and not intended as livestock to eat [...] Owners shall keep hens as pets and for personal use only”. The policy does not list urban hens as livestock, poultry or as animals that are kept in a commercial manner. My high-level review of comparable policy materials from other Ontario municipalities suggests that this categorization (i.e., chickens as pets) is not standard among backyard chicken-keeping programs and bylaws in Ontario. In fact, it is quite distinct from other policy frameworks in the province. In Niagara Falls, for instance, chickens are classified under the label of livestock, which is defined by the municipality as: “any domestic or farmed Animal, including, but not limited to, poultry, cattle, swine, horses, mink or other fur bearing animals, rabbits, sheep, goats and other types of Animals listed by the Agricultural Code

79 of Practice of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs”. In Guelph, backyard chickens are cited under the otherwise prohibited order of Galliformes as a “domestic poultry exemption”. Interestingly, pot-bellied pigs and mini pigs (residing in the home) are also exempt from the restrictions placed on their respective taxonomic order, so long as they are “kept as pets” and not used for meat (as noted, chickens in Guelph were not granted this kind of exemption). In contrast to policies in other municipalities, Toronto’s pilot blurs conceptual boundaries between the category of farm animals (typically seen as livestock) and that of pets, placing the productive, egg-laying hen within the otherwise non-productive, wholly companionable realm of urban pet ownership.

While the UrbanHensTO framework is distinct from urban chicken policies in other municipalities insofar as it promotes companionable relations with chickens, it is not the first manifestation of chickens as pet/producer hybrid in contemporary Toronto. Prior to the pilot’s 2018 launch, chicken-keepers whose practices were (and in some cases still are) illegal conveyed through the media that their backyard birds were pets-with-benefits. One key article titled “Nine members of Toronto’s backyard-chicken underground on the special bond between man and bird” captures this relational framing (Langford, 2011). The article features truncated stories about clandestine Toronto-based chicken-keepers, throughout which the pet-rhetoric of companionship and close urban relations is woven. For example, one chicken-keeper states: “I love my pets with benefits, and my neighbours are great about them!” while another remarks that their hens are “great pets and garden companions''. Similarly, an article published in the Toronto Star shares that for one household, “[t]he hens are part of the family now [...]” (Rider, 2011, emphasis added), suggesting that human-pet relations developed over time. This is mirrored in a CBC news article, which reports of one family’s hens: “[T]hey’re pets now and my 92-year-old mother-in-law [...] really enjoys looking after them, it’s her thing.” (Langford 2020, emphasis added). In another example, eggs are presented as the beneficial byproduct of having hens as backyard pets: “To have a few pets in your backyard that also have the benefit of producing eggs, there's nothing wrong with it [...]" (Rieti, 2017). More recently, an article published in 2020 captures this same narrative—that chickens are being related to as pets, and sometimes as more than that:

Former city councillor Sarah Doucette keeps Milly, Roxy and Rhoda in her Parkdale backyard, and she definitely considers them pets, in fact, says Doucette, “I consider them

my therapy chickens. They helped me last year when I left city hall and this year being home due to COVID. (Langford, 2020)

Overall, these examples paint a picture of hens as companionable urban animals and as other- than-food—as pets that produce eggs, as backyard residents and companions, and as therapy animals. Another way in which this alternative perspective of chickens is emphasized is through the topic of how chickens are handled at the end of their lives (and what counts as the “end”). Although this topic is not given much treatment in the media, several comments can be traced through the news, describing how people intend to keep their hens even after their productivity wanes. For example, one chicken-keeper in the GTA, whose comments featured in a 2013 Toronto Star article, insisted that “her hens have become pets, which she’ll keep even once they're past their spring chicken prime” (Alex, 2013). Likewise, an organization that rents chickens to urbanites in Toronto (Rent-the-Chicken) has commented that the birds they take back at the end of each rental season are returned to their flock or placed at other farms rather than killed and cooked, supporting the position that urban hens are not treated as food, even as they leave the city: “Most of them get adopted by the renter, but if not, we re-home them on farms or put them into our own flock. We don’t have a big barbecue at the end of the season!” (Langford, 2015). Language like “adoption” and “re-homing” further centres the qualities of companionable human/animal relations and supports the claim that rented chickens are spared from slaughter. Given limited media data on this particular topic, however, I have opted to explore it more closely in Chapter Six, using interview data from my discussions with eight chicken-keepers in Toronto.

In summary, in this section I have aimed to show how the voices of chicken-keepers—and the very framework of UrbanHensTO—have helped to establish that chickens are occupying conceptual and material space in the city as farm animals, productive companion animals, pets, therapy animals, and more. By framing and relating to chickens as urban hybrids to be kept after their “spring chicken” days (Alex, 2013), chicken-keepers and their supporters weaken oppositional arguments that claim chickens’ productivity determines their singular value (as food) and determines their lifespan in the urban environment. As the data shows, the relationships that people are practicing with their hens are multifaceted, and are starkly different from the sensationalist and inhumane human-animal portrayals presented in oppositional arguments. In turn, stories that represent hens and their keepers in this new, positive light are part and parcel of building a case for chickens in Toronto; these stories are demonstrating the

81 capacity and interest of urbanites to care for and relate to hens on humane or ethical terms, as might be expected with the care of any other animal kept on companionable terms in the city.

5.2.4 Seeing, Thinking, and Feeling with (Pet) Chickens

Beyond perceiving and relating to chickens as urban pets-with-benefits, chicken-keepers have also described in the media the specific ways in which they care for and interact with their hens on companionable terms in day-to-day life. These media stories are relatively novel when recalling how absent the everyday lives of backyard (versus live market) hens were in historical media. These new stories detail chickens’ preferences and personalities, their fears and desires, their sociability and urban hierarchies, and the behaviours that make them similar to or different from other urban pets. These narratives also describe feelings and displays of attachment between humans and hens. In fact, almost all articles that referred positively to hens in Toronto portray these urban animals in personal, emotional and affective ways, and many of these articles include photographs that show readers the hens being described and cared for by urban residents. The work of Toronto Star columnist Amy Pataki is an excellent example of the media’s new tendency to showcase in text and image Toronto’s backyard pets-with-benefits.

Pataki has been chronicling her and her family’s chicken-keeping experiences since the 2018 launch of UrbanHensTO. In her sixth article installment titled “For the birds”, Pataki shares photographs of each of her three hens—“[f]eisty Blair, gentle Julep, and zesty Zazu” (Pataki, 2018a, p. L1)—with their human companions and caretakers, Pataki’s three daughters.

Figure 6: Blair, Julep and Zazu.

Lautens, R. (2018, June 16). [Blair, Julep and Zazu with Pataki’s three daughters]. [Photos]. Toronto Star, L8.

Pataki writes: “I live with six females, three human, three feathered. Each has her own qualities, habits and looks. Parents know this to be true of their children—as do chicken experts [...]”.

Pataki’s distinctive hens (see Figure 6 above) are described as being enrolled in the social relations of the human household, (even though they reside separately from the family’s home):

Each daughter claims her chicken is at the top of the pecking order. They’ve displaced sibling rivalry onto the hen house. They bicker about which chicken has the reddest comb and the nicest tone of voice [...] We didn't think having chickens would smooth out the sisters' relationships, but it has.

Along with helping the sisters build stronger bonds, the hens are also described as having subjective social preferences to which the sisters are attuned, for example: “She [Julep] needs to be with the others. She gets distressed if she’s away from them”. This intimate familiarity with what one’s chickens might need or want is echoed in other articles, and often extends past the social dimension. The desire to keep chickens warm and comfortable during Toronto’s cold winters, for instance, led one chicken-keeper to prepare for her hens “a bedtime bowl of hot oatmeal and soft polenta on -20 C nights” to ensure her hens had even greater protection from the cold (Pataki, 2018b).

Another common way chickens and people’s intimate, caring relationships with them are described in current media is through feelings of love, comfort and enjoyment. This is evident in the quotes and truncated stories that made up Langford’s 2011 article on Toronto chicken- keepers. As one of her interviewees declared: “I love my girls! My neighbours love them and their kids love them. They are hilarious to watch, cuddly, full of personality [...]. Enjoyment is also central to stories in this article and others that highlighted hens’ quirks and behaviours, which many view as entertaining and endearing: “[The hens] are really beautiful. And they are hilarious. They have humorous personalities" (Jutras, 2012, p. M5). Some have shared that their humorous hens are “awfully sweet” (“City chickens”, 2011), and are animals whose care-taking provides people with a sense of comfort and ease: “I have the comfort of knowing that my hens are leading a happy life [...] It’s a nice feeling to see a basket of multicoloured eggs in your kitchen that you raised yourself from a few very happy hens” (Langford, 2011). A more recent article by this reporter describes the (human) benefits of routine care-taking as well: “My mother-in-law really loves talking with all the kids who come to the fence to visit the hens, and she benefits from the daily routine of caring for Adele, Fluffy Butt, and two as yet unnamed hens” (Langford, 2020). Several articles also comment on how just seeing, or watching, hens rest or move about in the garden can have a cathartic—even hypnotic—effect:

Our family of five sits outside to watch the chickens whenever we can. […] “I could watch them walk around all day. There’s something almost mindful in their movements,” says our neighbour Marisa on meeting The Girls. We even watch the chickens at night. Janos, my husband, installed a Nest camera (get it?) inside the coop to ensure their wellbeing. The infrared video stream reveals that chickens sometimes cluck in their sleep. He says he is “hypnotized” by the footage. (Pataki, 2018a)

In the article quoted above, Pataki adds that the company Rent-the-Chicken, which rents hens to urbanites in cities like Toronto, is well-aware of the effects of watching: “ ‘It becomes an obsession,’ Rent The Chicken’s Kate Belbeck warned us on delivery day” (Pataki, 2018a). The act of watching and observing hens also appears to have also informed the writing of Toronto- based urban farmer and chicken-keeper, Lorraine Johnson, whose book City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing was featured in the Toronto Star with the following endearing excerpt (from a chapter dedicated to backyard chicken-keeping):

A chicken's day and a relationship-griever's day are remarkably similar. Wake up confused and foggy at an early hour. Wander around your roomy but still-enclosed coop, waiting for the world to wake up and offer distractions. Peck at your food. [...] Vocalize increasingly loud bwaawks until someone hears your call and offers what you need - company, soothing murmurs, sustenance, an open door to the world outside your head. [...] Fear surprises, shudder at sudden loud noises, and scatter. [...] Revel in the sun on your back. Realize you're hungry and peck at your food again, spilling more than you eat. Retire at dusk, and stay awake for hours, crouched on your roost. (“Pain, poultry”, 2010)

As Johnson draws charming and humorous parallels, this author succeeds in (re)framing the everyday life of backyard hens as something evocative of the experience of dealing with grief after a relationship ends. Johnson’s excerpt is not the only instance of relationship-related grief being discussed in the company of hens; in recent years the media has not shied away in recent years from describing how people experience or anticipate loss in human-hen relationships. For the Patel brothers (introduced earlier in this chapter), naming their birds became difficult after two of their hens died: “They gave the chickens cute names like Honey and Gertie and Mitzy, but they stopped that after one died of a heart attack and another was mauled by a raccoon. The names created too much emotional attachment [...]” (Lu, 2014, p. A3). Another article chronicles the experience of one family in the GTA whose hens were to be forcibly removed after it came to the city’s attention that they were being kept illegally. To explain the sense of loss that might be sustained, this chicken-keeper compares her relationship with her birds to her relationships with her dogs: “They’re like the family dog […] In fact, we’ve had them longer than the family dog” (Hasham, 2011). Concerns about anticipated loss are also expressed in a recent article that asks

84 rather bluntly in relation to the city’s pilot: “What happens to backyard hens after Toronto’s pilot program ends?” (Langford, 2020). This news story shares the perspectives of chicken-keepers who do not wish to be forced to give up their birds if hens are no longer permitted after the pilot is over. In these and other examples, the prospect of losing one’s hens—or no longer being allowed to care for them—is a point of sensitivity for chicken-keepers, particularly for those who share in the sentiment that hens, like other pets, are family members. Similarly, coming to terms with the more seemingly odd behaviours that hens display is something that chicken-keepers also reflect on in the media: “The happy hen story takes a dark turn. Chickens eating their own eggs. Poultry people call it cannibalism” (Pataki, 2018c). Some have explored how hen behaviours, and indeed chickens’ “simple” uninhibited nature, are also points of endearment.

By capturing hens in personal, emotional and affective ways, and by recounting people’s lived experiences with hens and their social entanglements with these animals, these media stories are a reminder that chickens are existing on companionable terms in Toronto’s backyards, where they are generally cared for in ways that are infinitely better than the exploitative conditions that hens face on factory farms. These stories, therefore, are playing a part in making a case for chickens to be kept close to, rather than closed off from, the city’s publics. And as Pataki remarks, close human-hen relations were once the norm, as evidenced in the turns of phrase that have found their way into our lexicon:

Messy handwriting was chicken scratch. Older folk were no spring chickens. Spending too much time inside felt like being cooped up. Chickens are part of the English language because they lived closely with us for centuries. We tended to them and observed their behaviour. For me, a newbie urban farmer, taking care of chickens brought certain phrases to life (Pataki, 2018d).

And, it is not just phrases like these that chicken-keeping in Toronto brings to life; this practice recalls the city’s recent history with chickens, and makes an exploited and mistreated species visible in urban space in ways not previously endorsed—as productive backyard pets, as family members, as garden companions, as quirky, sweet and sometimes brazen animals, as therapy birds, and as unique individuals that deserve to be treated with a level of care and compassion normally reserved for pets. As this companionable human-hen dynamic continues to change how chickens are depicted in policy and in the media it may, one day, also help to transform how these animals are more widely regarded and treated in Canadian society.

5.3 Chapter Conclusion

In this chapter, I have presented the perspectives and practices of chicken-keepers and their supporters as captured by the media and in policy-related documents. I have also explored the perspectives of urban-hen opponents, highlighting how historical arguments have resurfaced in recent debates, including care-related critiques of urban chicken-keeping. Some of these critiques foreground concerns that were only implied historically—that is, that the urban population is somehow deficient in the knowledge and ability required for practicing humane care with farm animals. This derogatory conception of urban citizens is a damaging one that de-legitimizes the urban population as incompetent or incapable farm-animal keepers. By default, this perspective grants power to the experts that reside elsewhere—in the hidden-from-urban-view spaces and systems that value chickens as commercial commodities. The argument that chickens are not being, or cannot be, humanely or adequately kept in Toronto should be critically questioned as it produces false distinctions between the care of different domesticated animals. Moreover, it closes off the city from a range of relational possibilities that have the potential to problematize the dominant use value of farm animals as food as well as challenge the exploitative systems that erase farm animals and their suffering from urban space.

Based on the counter-voice of urban chicken-keepers and their supporters, as presented in this chapter, urban chicken-keeping shows potential to cultivate an alternative, companionable ethic of care with farm animals that allows them to matter as more than just food or producers. This is because cities, as scholars have observed, are places where people and pets typically reside in close proximity, on wholly companionable terms (Fox, 2006). They are spaces that promote a particular way of relating to animals in and around the human home. As such, urban chicken- keepers are promoting a new, relational ethic with farm animals by aligning their practices with the spatial-ethical resonance of the urban home. As Jones (2000) remarks, all relationships are spatially bound and carry an ethical freight; the urban home and garden are no exception. And, in some cases, these spaces and the companionable practices that they might support are helping to make hens visible in urban neighbourhoods and in local media as other-than-food and as more- than-producers, while at the same time establishing Toronto as a place of urban experience in humane farm animal care.

Overall, these practices and perspectives are appearing to shift the current post-domestic regime, re-establishing a small degree of human/animal “domesticity” (Bulliet, 2005; Harvey & Neo, 2015) and cooperative partnership (Coulter, 2016; Porcher, 2017) in urban residential spaces. In other words, chicken-keeping appears to re-establish proximate, material connections to chickens as farm animals, allowing people to encounter this species in day-to-day life and cultivate knowledge and memory of their keeping and care. In the next chapter, I consider these proximate, material connections more closely. I draw on data from semi-structured interviews with urban chicken-keepers to highlight the specific ways in which new human-hen relationships are forming in Toronto. I aim to show how these relationships are cultivating a companionable ethic of care within and beyond the urban coop.

6 Contemporary Perspectives and Practices, Part II: Semi-Structured Interviews

This final empirical chapter explores the practices and perspectives of chicken-keepers in Toronto using data from semi-structured interviews that I hosted with eight participants of UrbanHensTO. During these interviews, I asked questions related to: (a) what motivated participants to take up chicken keeping; (b) how participants practiced care; and (c) how participants perceived their hens. My overall goal was to better understand the kinds of relationships that are emerging in Toronto’s urban coops, under UrbanHensTO. Since qualitative interview data on urban human-hen relationships is generally limited in the backyard chicken- keeping literature, I have included detailed quotations from my study’s participants (whose real names are not used in this thesis; pseudonyms were selected) to highlight the different perspectives that participants shared through my research. It is important to note that although these perspectives point to generalizable themes, I worked with a relatively small sample (n=8) compared to the population (approximately 80 households are registered with UrbanHensTO), which invites further research to cement these findings and add additional perspectives to the topic of contemporary human/farm-animal relations.

This chapter is organized as follows:

• Section 6.2 explores the most common hen-keeping motivations cited by participants;

• Section 6.3 observes how participants perceived their hens (e.g., as productive pets);

• Section 6.4 looks more closely at how participants were practicing care and building relationality with their birds on companionable terms;

• Section 6.5 considers the impacts of these companionable human-hen relationships in the city and beyond;

• Section 6.6 summarizes the main findings of this research, emphasizing that the relationships under study are cultivating a companionable ethic of care that might help to shift the dominant human/farm-animal paradigm.

Ultimately, my research shows that relations with hens in Toronto (under UrbanHensTO) appear to be grounded in a strong, companionable ethic of care that aligns with the spatial-ethical resonance of the urban home, and makes chickens matter as other-than-food and as more-than- producers. This challenges the dominant (exploitative) human/farm-animal paradigm while reminding us that how we care for others is not something determined by expertized knowledge; rather, care is a function of embodied interactions—of how we exist in relation.

6.1 Motivations of Chicken-Keepers

6.1.1 Farm Animal Encounters

At the beginning of each interview, when my study participants were asked about what inspired them to take up backyard chicken keeping, almost everyone spoke about past encounters with hens and other farm animals. In some cases, these encounters sparked a new interest in backyard chicken keeping. Other times, seeing chickens kindled a pre-existing impulse to have backyard birds; this was the case for Aleggsandra Hamilton (this name is a pseudonym chosen by the participant; as noted, the real names of participants have not been used in this thesis):

It’s been so long that we’ve wanted them [...] I think one of the things that precipitated it, we were in France […] And, they were selling hens at the local gardening store. […] That was I think the first time when we saw the hens, and were like oh my goodness we would love to have one so much, and then it was sometime after we got back, it became a pilot project.

This interviewee added that chicken-keeping “had been a sort of vague notion in our heads all along, and then we were at the store and we saw the hens, and we just thought, oh I wish we could have these at our house”.

For George, it was not a recent or one-off encounter with hens that roused interest in keeping chickens at his Toronto home; it was the childhood memory of caring for these and other birds at his grandparents’ hobby farm that inspired his urban practice:

In their retirement years, they had a small hobby farm, and my grandfather kept ducks, geese, pigeons and chickens. So, I suppose in some regards, bird-keeping was something that I did with my grandfather, so in a way, it maintains that close connection that I had with him.

These early experiences also imparted on George the perspective that chickens are enjoyable animals to keep, which was something he wished to share with his children:

But, moreover, I think chickens are kinda fun. I have two kids of my own now, and living in the heart of the city, we don’t get nearly the same kind of rural exposure that I did when I was their age. So, perhaps it’s in some ways an attempt to expose them to some part of that.

George’s comments also remind us that Toronto has maintained a discordant relationship with urban farm animals as rural (un-urban) animals. The 1983 ban discussed in Chapter Four has made it nearly impossible for city residents to cultivate experiences like those that George had with his grandfather. Indeed, for most interviewees, chickens evoked or were seen as emblematic of life outside of the city; no one discussed encounters with chickens or other farm animals in Toronto. Marigold, for example, reflected on her experiences with hens in the countryside, which motivated her practice:

My aunt had a bigger scale backyard farming, you know, so she had like 30 or 40 chickens, you know, just on a country property and she’d sell the eggs by the side of the road, and so, I’ve spent a lot of time visiting and looking after them... and always thought that it should be something that was available to city dwellers as well.

Sam, as well, recalled earlier years spent living in a part of England where small-scale chicken- keeping was experienced as a normal activity:

I grew up in a country [...] where lots of people had chickens. My brother had chickens. It just seemed so natural, and why not? You can have dogs. You can have cats. You can have rabbits, You can have other animals, which live outside.

For one participant, it was a vacation in the company of farm animals that inspired his family to explore whether chickens could become outdoor residents at their Toronto home:

My wife and I went to an Air BnB, we have five kids, and they had [...] chickens and goats and ponies, and pigs I think it was. [...] So, we just talked about, oh wouldn’t it be cool to have a chicken, right, and then we kind of Googled it, and yeah, they said right in this pocket, little pocket, they’re allowed to have chickens. (Lanky Llama)

For Pidge, it was not recent, real-life encounters but virtual ones that prompted her to take advantage of Toronto’s pilot:

I have a friend in England who has chickens, and she posts on Facebook quite a lot […] It intrigued me. So, yeah I like the interaction that she had with them and she ultimately found the different personalities humorous, so that was something that interested me.

Most participants, when prompted about what piqued their interest in backyard chickens, described (proximate and virtual) encounters with chickens and other farm animals as something

90 that motivated their practice. This highlights the potency of human-animal encounter—of seeing and interacting with domesticated animals with whom humans are historically and deeply entangled.

6.1.2 Beyond Eggs: Seeing and Caring for Chickens

Along with emphasizing encounter, participants also spoke about their practice as being motivated by the desire to have and care for chickens as an animal not often found in cities (anymore). Typically, participants explained this motivation by framing their practice as being driven by an interest in chickens rather than their eggs:

It just always really intrigued me. It was really something I wanted to do. You know, it’s nice to have the eggs, but it wasn’t about eggs. It was just wanting to have that experience of caring and having that kind of animal close at hand to interact with, and to learn the skills and the knowledge of what that takes. (Sabrina)

Sabrina, like others, expressed an interest in keeping and caring for chickens as an animal from which urbanites have been cut off: “I mean chickens have been kept in cities, you know, since cities began. It’s only recently—I don’t know, the last thirty, forty, fifty years—there have been laws against having chickens”. The experience of learning about chickens and their care was also important to Mel and her family, more so than procuring a large supply of fresh eggs:

So, here you’ve got these birds that are your pets that take a lot of work, and aren’t giving you the production value that you sort of originally started with. We’re totally okay with that. This is more the experience of having birds, and something that does give you something that you can consume is kind of neat for my kids.

For George, too, eggs were not a primary consideration when he selected his hens. Instead of opting for a high-yielding bird when the program launched, he waited to participate in UrbanHensTO until he could find the particular breed of bird that he wanted:

So part of the reason that we were delayed [in getting chickens] was I specifically wanted Silkies. When I was younger, we didn’t really have Silkies per se, we had lots of, you know, more traditional kinds of farmyard chickens, but I had done research on breeds and I really liked the way Silkies look. I’ve seen them, obviously, a number of times at fall fairs and things like that, so I’ve always been attracted to the way those birds look […] So, silkies as a breed are pretty poor performers on the laying side. These ones are not laying yet, and now, depending on the weather and the circumstances over the winter, they may not do very much for me until the spring. But that’s okay.

George’s comments point to the joy of seeing an animal—especially one that might be classed as beautiful, unique or otherwise appealing in their appearance.

Another participant described that egg supply as a motivation became less important once his family had started caring for and interacting with their new hens, which brought them more pleasure than fresh eggs: “Eggs aren’t as big a deal as I thought they were going to be […]” (Lanky Llama). Overall, my findings suggest that this general perspective was indeed the norm among participants; it was not a large supply of eggs that compelled most chicken-keepers to take up (and continue with) this backyard practice. Rather, it was the experience of having and caring for chickens that was the main driver. Participants were motivated by the desire to get to know chickens, and to learn about “what it takes” to care for these animals in the city.

6.1.3 Knowing “Where” Food Comes From

Seeing, caring for and interacting with chickens also opened up conversations about knowing “where” one’s food comes from. This was expressed both in terms of knowing about the exploitative, commercial realities of production, and of recognizing the animals in these systems whose reproductive labours produce eggs. This comprised a third motivation that was expressed by half of participants, in tandem with the reasons discussed above:

I’m not a fan of factory farming, and I prefer to know where my food comes from, and all of that stuff. But those were pre-existing opinions. […] I don’t like the way chickens are kept, and even so-called free-run is not entirely true, so you know, if I have the opportunity to provide a nice life and you know, get something from it, I’m happy to do that. (Marigold)

Similarly, Mel shared that her awareness of animal suffering on factory farms compelled her to keep her own hens:

I would say, I was already there with them. Getting them was because I was already aware of the atrocious conditions that so many animals live in, and we eat the product from them, sort of thing. So it’s just helped reinforce how appreciate we need to be of these things, and if we can take care of things, it makes the product at the end seem that much better.

The terrible conditions that factory farmed hens endure affected Pidge’s perspective as well. Based on her comments noted earlier, the hens she encountered over Facebook included those rescued from battery-cages on factory farms:

I’m very aware that the friend that I have in England takes battery chickens, re-homes battery chickens and they’re in an awful state, and it just breaks my heart to see that sort of thing, to see those little souls in that condition […]

As these and other interviewees expressed, chicken keeping was both an ethical response to knowing where eggs come from (i.e., the exploitative spaces of factory farms), and a way to teach one’s family firsthand about the chickens—the living farm animals—from whom eggs are sourced.

I think it’s just really important, and wonderful, to be able to understand where our food comes from. The number of times I’ve had to explain to people, like how can you get eggs every day without a rooster […] And then people go, oh of course, you’re right! (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

Like Aleggsandra Hamilton, Mel shared that: “It always was, sort of, teach my kids about caring for other things, about food production [...] You know, you grab a dozen eggs and don’t think twice about it”. Mel described that having chickens was a way to help her children see “what goes into the production and the cleaning and looking after”, emphasizing the opportunity to learn about hens as living animals and as producers. George felt that this opportunity for learning added value to the human-hen relationship as compared with other urban animals:

If the goal is to expose your kids, at least partly, to where food comes from, then here’s a living example that you can have in your backyard. You don’t get that from a cat or a dog, short of some puppy dog eyes or scooping the litter box, you don’t get much from either of those animals, except the companionship piece.

In this way, participants echoed the ethical and educational impulses that other scholars have also cited as motivations (for example, Blecha & Leitner, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014), while also foregrounding that knowing where food comes from is centred on relationships—on seeing, interacting with and caring for animals.

6.2 Human-Chicken Relationality: Hens as Outdoor Pets, Producers, and Farm Animals

6.2.1 Sociability, Familiarity and Attachment

When asked how hens were perceived, participants described their birds along a pet/producer spectrum, often in relation to the qualities of other animals and with a view to human-animal sociability. Lanky Llama, for instance, quantified the pet/productive division: “[...] I would say

93 it’s probably 70% pets and 30% producers” (Lanky Llama), and expressed that he was “surprised at how curious and pet-like they were”, adding:

They’ll like, you know, if you run, they’ll chase you, and they’re curious. And, they seem to like people, you know? If you go to stand near them, they bend; they’ve been picked up so much they just know the routine. They kind of bend down a little bit and they let you pick them up.

These kinds of discoveries were shared in reference to participants’ experiences with other animals in and around the home. For example, some found that chickens were more affectionate and sociable than some indoor pets:

The chickens are more cuddly than the guinea pigs are, which is weird. (Lanky Llama)

So we had a hamster and rabbit […] The chickens […] are way more affectionate and we feel like we know them better, and they have their distinct personalities, and distinct behaviours, and so yeah. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

Similar comparisons, when made with dogs and cats, sometimes found hens to be lacking:

[...] They’re not just pets. [...] Because a pet to me is the sort of interaction that I have with our dog. That you’re sitting on the couch and you’re snuggling with them. Like they’re always there and present for you. Whereas, the chickens aren’t quite, quite at that level. (Mel)

Some of them [hens] you can pick up, but what are you going to do? You pick it up and say “hi”, right, and then you put it down again. You know, you don’t spend a lot of time, like, stroking your chickens. I mean, maybe some people do […] It’s a less sentimental relationship for me than it is with cats or dogs. (Marigold)

Like Mel and Marigold, Pidge remarked that for her, chickens were less pet-like than other animals she kept: “It’s a little bit different [compared to other pets]. It’s not quite such a close relationship, but that’s partly because you don’t spend as much time with them I think, as well”. Sabrina felt that her hens were “a bit of everything” all at once—pets, productive pets and producers—but also noticed that they were less “like a pet” because “they don’t really give you anything back. I mean, they do look forward to seeing you, but other than that, it’s kind of, from their end, almost kind of mercenary.” These comments point to how seeing hens as a pet (or pet- like) was affected, in these instances, by how (and how often) participants interacted with their birds. By keeping hens outside the human home, and outside the intimate spaces that most pets commonly occupy today (like our couches and our beds), impacted how most (but not all)

94 participants felt about their hens. As Mel explained, this division of space and distance made it difficult to relate to hens as one might dogs or cats:

It’s definitely different in that our dog, she goes everywhere with me, she sleeps in our bed, she’s like a real fixture […] It’s us and [her], kind of thing, as a family, and then we have the chickens as well. [...] I don’t know, catch me in ten years and maybe my chickens will be wandering through the house [laughs] [...] But for now, I do see them as a different species than what I bring into my house”.

But what most participants who echoed this perspective also expressed during their interviews was that even though chickens might be perceived as less pet-like than a cat or dog that lives in the home, for example, they were still regarded on equally companionable terms (i.e., hens were never viewed as food). Even though Mel perceived her hens as “a different species” than those that live with her indoors, “that doesn’t mean that they’re second fiddle” she said. She also recognized that not having had hens before affected her perception of them: “I guess they’re still new to us. They were unknown. I’ve had dogs all my life, and cats, and things like that, that are more familiar”. Interestingly, for George, who cared for hens previously, the fact that hens live outside the human home and behave differently from indoor pets did not detract from how pet- like they were to him: “They are, they are truly pets, and I get the same kind of joy out of them that I would from a cat or a dog, I suppose”. He noted that this companionable relation was simply different from that experienced with other household animals:

So cats can be affectionate when they want to be, but for the most part they can be aloof and sometimes mean, and spiteful, terrible creatures [laughs]. And dogs can be very loyal, to a fault [...]. And chickens are just a different animal so, you know, [...] they will elude your attempt to try to pick them up, but once you pick them up, they’re happy to kind of sit there in your arms, and chatter away, or nip at your fingertips [...].

Based on participants’ responses, it became clear that wherever hens fell on an imagined pet spectrum, they were always thought of in companionable terms; no one limited their hens’ relational value to the functional realm of producing eggs for consumption. In fact, no one described their hens as producers only, or as producers before pets. This became even more obvious through naming, which can be viewed as characteristic of relations of attachment with companion animals, and recognizes animals as individual and subjective beings. Participants described naming their hens based on their appearance (e.g., the colour and texture of their plumage) and their personalities (e.g., shyness or boldness), famous figures (e.g., athletes), favourite storybooks, or simply using names that were liked or personally meaningful. Some

95 participants also gave their hens nicknames; for instance, Aleggsandra Hamilton’s family referred to their original and most dominant hen as their “OG chicken”. Others expressed that they went about naming in a casual, unfixed manner, observing that their hens neither knew nor responded to their names:

They sort of had names at the beginning, but we kind of gave up on that [...] You know, we all have different nicknames for them, but it’s not like they know their names. So it’s, it’s really just what you feel like calling them. I had nicknames for a couple of them that I felt were distinctive, but some of the others, you just call them black hen or fluffy or something that’s a nickname to do with their appearance. (Marigold)

Naming can be viewed as one of the hallmark distinctions between human relationships with pets and commercial farm animals, as the latter are rarely afforded anything more than a number. This was an obvious—but was by no means the only—way that participants acknowledged the individuality of each of their hens as more companion-animal than producer or farm animal (as later sections will show).

Participants also confirmed, when asked, that they felt varying levels of attachment to their birds, as one might expect with household pets. Seven participants gave an affirmative response to the question of emotional attachment with statements like “yes”, “definitely”, and “for sure”. Another participant said she would be “sad” if a hen passed away, but noted that she was not sentimental about this relationship; however, she did share that other family members had a stronger emotional connection to the birds and would be more affected by a loss. Indeed, several participants expressed that they would be (and had been) affected by the loss of their birds: “We were all really upset when that chicken had to be put down. And once you know their personality you can’t help but get attached to them really” (Pidge).

6.2.2 Handling and Hygiene

While chickens were consistently regarded as pets or pet-like, they also never stopped existing as outdoor farm animals in their urban relationships, emerging as pet/farm-animal hybrid. Often, how chickens were handled and how the areas in which they lived had to be cleaned and maintained provided key markers of difference from other pets, highlighting hens’ farm-animal status:

I suppose, one thing is we do, we do treat them like an outdoor farm animal, so I mean, if you have handled the chicken, the first thing you do is wash your hands and so on, so I

suppose it’s a little different in that regard, but I think the, the pet-keeping part of it is about the same. (George)

Besides handling hens differently from other pets, many participants commented on chickens’ litter habits as a point of distinction between pets kept indoors, and those kept outdoors. Almost all participants acknowledged that chicken excrement could easily get out of hand if hens’ backyard spaces were not cleaned regularly, and some felt it to be a surprising, messy and more demanding aspect of chicken care:

If there was a downside of chickens, it’s that they poop [laughs]. If they could stop pooping [laughs]. Yeah, I didn’t realize how much they were going to poop. And so um, yeah, initially they just went everywhere, and they were on the, pooping on the deck. And they seem like they always come up and look inside the living room to see what you’re doing in there. And so, yeah, that poop was kind of messy. (Lanky Llama)

This participant described litter clean-up as the “biggest job” when it came to day-to-day chicken care, emphasizing the non-conformity of chickens to ideas of space-use and sanitation (Fox, 2006), as nowhere (not even the family’s deck) was off-limits as a latrine. This participant and others also explained how they intervened in these dynamics to manage the messiness of their chickens. Mel, for example, opted for a shop-vac system that worked well when cleaning her deck (a free-range area for her hens). She also explored interventions to keep hens’ coops and enclosures clean:

I don’t know if you can tell from the pictures, but it’s actually turf underneath. I tried all sorts of permutations, like having patches of real grass in there. There’s a company called Porch Potty that is actually for dogs, that sells patches of grass for like your condominium back deck kind of thing, and it was really difficult to keep the grass alive, and I felt like it was more [...] it was creating a less healthy environment for them. So the turf that they’re on mimics grass, and they can still rummage for dry worms, and things like that, which I sprinkle. But it’s much easier to keep clean.

Overall, participants felt a desire to allow chickens to exhibit these natural behaviours and tendencies—to be animal or farm-animal in the city. Participants did not exercise mechanisms of control (Fox, 2018) that impinged on the behaviour of their hens. However, sanitation or hygiene-related interventions were important to promoting a harmonious urban dynamic, as were limitations to how deeply chickens were allowed to integrate into human/animal spaces. That is to say, no one expressed interest in allowing their hens to live indoors: “[...] as much as I vacuum, they step in their own poop, kind of thing, so I don’t want them wandering through our

97 house” (Mel). Overall, chickens were allowed to live “as chickens”, as farm animals that are not pressed to conform to the standards and expectations of indoor human/pet relationships.

6.2.3 Work, Cooperation and Exchange

Along with viewing and treating hens as both outdoor pets and farm animals, participants also spoke about their relationship to their hens in terms of human/animal work and cooperation, highlighting the productive nature of backyard dynamics and the agency of hens as active participants. Pidge, for instance, reflected on the feeling that she and her hens were part of a productive team: “Because they’re giving you eggs, they feel a little bit like they’re—like you’re working with them, like you’re part of a team somehow [...]”. This perspective manifested as well in the way Pidge spoke about waning production among the flock:

I used to get three a day, but the last couple months I’ve been getting two a day, and I haven’t really worked out who the person is, who the chicken is that’s not laying. Somebody’s slacking on the job [laughs] and I don’t know who it is.

Others joked that the human-side of this working relationship was a lot like running a daycare:

I would say it’s like the daycare, you know. You’ve gotta go out, you let them out, you let them wander around and play a bit, and keep them safe, and watch them, top up their food, top up their water. Yeah, it was kind of like a backyard-chicken daycare. (Sabrina)

Many participants also called attention to the work-like nature of the human-hen relationship in how they described “a day in the life” of a chicken-keeper; tasks were consistently explained as routinized and regimented, starting and ending at the same time as a typical workday:

I would get up at 7:30, get dressed and go out right away and give them fresh food. I’d let them out of the, like the coop, the upper area of the coop where they would roost, so I’d let them out of that and into the enclosed area so they could spend time in the enclosed area [...] And then once I’d had breakfast and stuff I’d go back out and open the pen, let them out to free range, and I would clean the pen [...] I’d put in fresh straw. Clean out the poops and dispose of that. Give them fresh water. Check their food. See if there were eggs. Collect the eggs if there were eggs to be collected. [...] (Sabrina)

So [the day] starts for me usually around 6:50 or going on for 7:00 am. One of the first things I do is I go outside and I let them out of the coop, or I open the door to the coop so that they can enter the enclosure. I refill their food container and give them fresh water and I say good morning to them. [...] I usually go back out around 9:30, sometimes 10:00, and give them the [vegetable scraps] [...] Over the course of the day, I will go out and poke at them a couple of times and let them out. And I do pick them up, at least once a day [...] just so that they’re used to being handled. (George)

Some participants explained that caretaking responsibilities were divided among the household, and acknowledged that in addition to everyday tasks, there were weekly and monthly duties to complete: “And then like maybe once a week or twice a week […] we’ll just take all the wood shavings and just dump all of them into the compost, and replace all of them” (Aleggsandra Hamilton). Several participants observed that the amount of “work” involved in keeping chickens might deter some prospective keepers from taking up this practice; however, others felt that chickens were “less work” than other animals kept by urban households: “If I compare the chickens to guinea pigs [...] They [the guinea pigs] were way more work than I expected, whereas the chickens were way less work than I expected” (Lanky Llama). Sabrina felt that her chickens demanded less of her overall as compared with her dogs:

In a way, they were easier than the dogs; we didn’t have to walk them. Yeah, they didn’t demand as much attention, you know. There’s stuff you have to do, but it’s almost easier, really, than a dog. […] Yeah, if I had to pick one or the other [laughs] it might be the chicken!

One participant regarded her hens as cooperative players in backyard gardening tasks, as part of a productive outdoor matrix:

Because they run around our whole garden, because we actually like to use our garden, we do a scoop and poop most days. It goes into my compost. So last year’s chicken poo was stirred into my outdoor compost, and that has helped my vegetables. I have a small vegetable area. [...] And the chicken poo, which has been around since last year, has been amazing. [...] With the water sprinkler and the chicken poo, my grass has had an amazing year. It gets fertilized, and it gets watered at the same time. (Sam)

Although other participants did not express this perspective, it highlights what Blecha and Leitner (2014) observed in their small-scale study of U.S. chicken-keepers—that hens can perform as part of backyard agricultural systems, or “agri-ecosystems” that close nutrient loops through composting practices, for example. Unlike Blecha and Leitner’s findings, my research does not suggest that chickens were wholly absorbed into this productive urban ecology; in other words, chickens never completed their “role” in the backyard agri-ecosystem as food. My participants expressed no interest in slaughtering their hens, nor did they indicate that chickens would end up consumed by the household. In fact, all participants expressed that their hens were pets in this regard, and that they would be allowed to live out their lifespan as something deserved after production. For example:

When they stop laying, they are indeed pets, and I mean, they are welcome to stay here until they live out their normal lives. (George)

We talked about the fact that after a certain number of years they stop laying, and it’s like, well what will we do then? And it’s like, well of course we’ll keep them, assuming the pilot project allows us to, because they’re, you know, they’re part of the household now. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

And if they stop laying eggs, like when they get older, we’re not going to get rid of the chickens. […] We’ll keep them. We’re not going to kill them because they stop laying eggs. (Lanky Llama)

And in terms of them being around and not laying, I’m happy for them to be around and not laying. If they stop laying, I don’t need them to move on. [...] They are definitely more pet than production from that perspective. I said to my husband, we’re kind of committing to this, and if they stop laying, well they stop laying. (Mel)

Interestingly, some of these statements and others made by participants acknowledge animal agency in their rhetoric, giving hens the choice to “stay” rather than “move on”; this evokes in one small way the research of Jocelyne Porcher and the argument that farm animals act and make decisions in their relationships.

Like others, Sabrina expressed that if her hens stopped laying, she would still opt to rent the same ones each year; Pidge informed me that one of her hens had already stopped laying, but that this made no real difference to her: “We’ve obviously got one that isn’t laying, and it doesn’t bother me”. And although declining rates of production seemed acceptable overall, most participants expressed that their hope would be to have at least one productive hen at any given time:

I hope the way the cycle will work, and now that we have these two younger ones that are three years younger, I hope we’ll always have a bird that’s laying [...] It’s really cool, to go out and get your egg and fry it for your kids that morning [laughs]. It’s nice. [...] Our long-term plan is to keep them until they hopefully die a natural death. (Mel)

We’ll just keep adding layers. Right now we have three hens, two of them are laying extremely well, because they’re only a year old. [...] We’ll always have a couple that are laying productively, and then we can just leave the others alone. (Marigold)

While most wished to let their chickens live out their days as something owed to hens as producers and pets, one participant expressed that after several years of production, they might consider humane euthanasia. However, they made clear that they had no intention of consuming their birds:

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So, I think that, if I had chickens twelve months of the year, if I’d had them for several years, I think I would probably either bring a vet in, or take them to the vet, and just ask them for them very humanely to be put to sleep. And, I would leave the body with the vet. I would not be putting them in my Sunday dinner. I know that. So it’s got to be in the bylaw how to humanely let the chicken go, when they get to that point in time. (Sam)

So while chickens straddled boundaries between pet, producer and farm animal, it was imagine that when their laying days are over, they would transition into the realm of backyard pet (to be granted a permanent place in the urban backyard), or be allowed the kind of humane death afforded to urban companion animals. Likewise, when participants discussed concerns around what they might do if a chicken became seriously ill or injured, more than half emphasized that they wanted to know that humane euthanasia was an option in the city.

As the data shows, chickens emerged as hybrid-like animals, as pets throughout their lives, as producers for part of it, and as farm animals in their freedom to behave “like chickens” around the intimate environment of the human/animal home.

6.3 Practices of Care and Knowledge-Building

6.3.1 Learning the Language of Chickens

When participants spoke about caring for backyard hens, they often spoke about learning hens’ vocalizations and behaviours and the importance of deciphering these modes of communication. Some participants expressed surprise at how vocal their birds were, and by their volume during certain calls: “We’ve also learned that they’re very, very loud when they want to be” (Aleggsandra Hamilton); “They’re fairly quiet, though they do talk a little louder than I thought they would'' (Lanky Llama). Volume was an important indicator for these and other participants; as Aleggsandra Hamilton described: “So they’re very loud when they lay eggs, and they can be very loud if there’s something that’s frightening them. So a couple of times we’ve heard them and the kids have gone or someone has gone running to see what’s going on”. Pidge learned that her hens were especially sensitive to the sight of overhead predators because of how her birds would begin “talking” and “clucking”:

But we back onto a park, and the thing that really scares the chickens is when people fly kites in the park. They seem much more aware of overhead predators than they do ground predators. There’s someone who flies a drone, and they all start clucking and running for cover if the drone comes over. And if they hear a plane go over, then they’ll start sort of talking, talking and clucking to each other. […]

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Sam, too, commented that her hens communicated more loudly when they were frightened by a possible predator: “They’ve got a very loud call when they are scared, which is great because I always have a window open if I’m in the house, I always have a window open so I can hear it, and I can go and check on them”. Their morning chatter also told Sam how many eggs she could expect to find in the coop:

Well, I can actually tell in the mornings how many eggs I’m going to get before I go out and, you know, let them out for the day, because of how many have been cheerfully cheering the other person on.

Sam added that her hens also had a distinct call to distract potential predators, and a “happy warble” that let her know when they were content:

[...] They call to distract people from the chicken laying the egg, so if there’s a predator around, they will go for the chicken who can run rather than the chicken who is laying. They have this sort of warble, a happy warble, and they’ll sit there just warbling gently beside you saying, hey, we’re here, we’re happy, we’re good. And it’s lovely. It’s very reassuring, and it’s very sweet.

Almost all participants spoke in this way about the range of calls that they grew familiar with hearing. Along with describing how some were indicative of egg-laying or fear, the distinctive soft warble of chickens was something that participants saw as a sign of contentment. For instance, Sabrina commented it was “really satisfying” to hear chickens “making those little noises they make when they’re content”. Mel shared that her neighbours enjoyed these softer sounds, too: “The neighbours behind us, they’ve said, you know, that she actually quite likes hearing the little bit of clucking, and the sort of ambient noise in the background”. Evening chatter was a sign, to George, that his hens were getting ready for bed: “They are pretty in tune themselves with nature, so usually, about half an hour before dusk, they will start to chatter, and I think that’s them convincing the other one that it’s time to go to bed.”

In addition to their distinct vocalizations, participants’ hens were also described as communicating in non-verbal ways, through particular movements or behaviours. Sam, for instance, felt that her hens made themselves available when they sensed she needed comfort:

They do seem to respond to your moods. So if I was having a rough day, they just come and sit beside you. You know, they didn’t ask for anything, they’d sit under your chair, or they’d sit right beside you.

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Aleggsandra Hamilton noticed that her hens were acutely aware of the family’s movements indoors and maneuvered intentionally in their coop to attract their attention:

And they’re just very alert and aware, so when we go to the back door, they’re in a coop that’s in the back of our yard, but when we go to the back door, they would come to the door of the coop, like hey, let us out.

Participants also understood their hens’ behaviours as indicative of particular preferences. Marigold remarked that her hens had a clear seasonal preference: “It's not really fun in the winter [….] and they don’t love it either, you know, they much prefer summer.” Sam noticed that her hens’ food preferences had changed with time, as they became less particular about what they ate: “They’re not quite so picky about what they eat this year. They seem to go, hey, it’s not our usual food, we’ll eat it. Corn on the cob and grapes are some of their favourites”. And Sabrina expressed (as others did) that free-ranging was a much loved pastime for her hens, and was much preferred to being cooped up: “They loved to get out of the pen, to free range. So as soon as I approached the pen they would get all really excited, and I’d let them out and they’d go scurrying around and check things out.” Learning the ways in which hens communicated their fears, desires, joy, and preferences helped participants respond to their hens’ needs (and whims) more effectively, which was an important component of care. And for George, who had prior experience with chickens, seeing his birds act in the way that they did was a point of reassurance that he was doing things right: “[...] they are behaving much as I would expect them to behave. So, in some regards, I suppose that’s reassuring, that, you know, that they’re behaving like chickens”. In the same vein, others who had grown familiar with their chickens’ behaviours noticed a warning sign when a new member of the coop failed to act like a hen:

It was like it took several days, but it felt like they needed to learn how to peck at grass. They needed to learn to lay in the nesting box. And it felt like they learned those things from her [the OG chicken]. It was really interesting to watch”. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

This newest addition to Aleggsandra Hamilton’s flock came from a farm that appeared to keep their hens caged (“So they were very clearly in like an industrial setting, in little metal cages [...] We were a little astounded”), leading to the eventual conclusion that this new hen did not know how to be hen. This brought with it a period of “chicken drama” as the birds tried to establish a new pecking order:

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The white bird was, I think, not super healthy when we got her. She was very scrawny, and her comb was very pale, and folded over, although it seems that she does have that naturally, but she was just not well, you could tell, and very picked on by the other two birds, so that was a lot of chicken trauma, and drama […] I think she was so unhealthy that the other birds sensed it. [...] The drama at the beginning with the three birds kind of finding their way was really uncomfortable and unpleasant, and perhaps it was because we didn’t know how it was going to end up.

Like Aleggsandra Hamilton, other participants echoed feelings of anxiety and uncertainty around how new introductions would pan out. This opened up conversations about the range of relationships that developed in and around the coop—from casual friendships and close bonds, to backyard feuds and protracted enmities.

6.3.2 Friends, Strangers and Neighbours

Witnessing bullying or antagonistic behaviour among members of the coop—and not knowing how it might end—was a point of stress or discomfort for participants, and several shared that seeing their birds at odds with one another was one of the more trying aspects of caring for hens. For instance, Mel commented that after a slow and challenging period of introduction between her new, young Silkies and her older Orpingtons, they settled into a better relationship dynamic. She later commented that her hens have “good days” and “bad days” but are “friends amongst one another”. Likewise, Sam noticed that after an unpleasant period of turmoil, her hens adjusted to changes in the flock: “I have three this year; the first year I only had two. And we’ve gone through issues of the third one being odd woman out, being hen-pecked, being bullied. But, they’re now settled”. Sam also told me how she had watched intently as her newest hen tried her best to lead the others to roost at night:

[I]f she’s the first one, she’ll jump up to roost, and then you see this head pop down and look to where everyone else is, because they haven’t followed her. If they don’t follow her, she’ll come down and come back outside. And she’ll wander round, and then she’ll go — she did this ten times one night, until the other two went in with her […] (Sam)

Like Sam, every chicken-keeper that I interviewed was sensitive to and acutely aware of the relationship dynamics between their hens—as well as between their hens and indoor pets:

Because she [the dog] goes out there now [...] they kind of have, I wouldn’t call it like a totally loving, friendly relationship, but they can coexist out there. She’ll sort of chase them, they’ll ruffle their wings, but no one is trying to eat anybody [...]. (Mel)

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The only real interaction that we’ve observed is with our miniature Dachshund. The birds really in some regards are about the same size as the Dachshund, so I was [laughs] curious to see who would be the dominant animal there. I had predicted it would be the chickens, and indeed, I think the chickens more than hold their own against the Dachshund. (George)

Some also spoke about how their hens reacted (or not) to other animals that lived in backyard trees or otherwise passed through the backyard environment:

We watched this whole interaction between chickens and squirrels […] We’ve seen the chickens chase the squirrels around trees. And then now that it’s fall, when we let them out we usually leave the coop just wide open. Then the other day a squirrel went into the coop. And so I thought, oh I need to keep the ladies away to go to the coop and get this squirrel out somehow [...] The OG chicken, like, was right behind me and she went right into the coop and scared the squirrel out. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

This participant described how this event was surprising to witness—that she had not expected her “OG chicken” to be so bold and unafraid of a squirrel, particularly one that had entered the coop. Nor did her family expect to see on another occasion “a bunny, a couple of squirrels and the chickens all in the yard together at the same time”, a meeting during which "they all seem[ed] kind of happy together”. George shared that while many animals—birds in particular— took up residence in and travelled through his family’s backyard, they did not appear to interact with his hens:

We have lots of, you know, song birds and migratory birds that are in the neighbourhood and in the backyard [...] So there’s lots of other birds around. I’ve never seen them interact with another bird. We keep their feed, you know, only within the enclosure, and we keep that tidy, so we don’t get, like, black birds or grackles, or anything that come— or squirrels for that matter—that come looking for spilled feed, because there, there isn’t any.

In describing interactions and relationships among the flock and between hens and other animals, participants highlighted their awareness of backyard environments and the animal dynamics that made these spaces unique. These findings point to an intimate awareness and knowing of the “other” that scholars have argued is central to building interspecies solidarity and relationships of care (Coulter, 2016; Gruen, 2015).

6.3.3 Predation, Pests, and Protection

Along with carefully observing hens’ communications and behaviours, as well as their interactions with one another and with birds, squirrels, rabbits and other local animals, most

105 participants shared that they were acutely aware the risk of predation and pests, and the need for hens’ coops and enclosures to be insulated from these hazards. In fact, when participants were asked what was most challenging about caring for backyard hens, most interviewees cited the risk of predation as an overarching concern, and one that took thoughtful planning to prevent. Some participants managed to design their hens’ housing in such a way that the risk of predation was eliminated entirely. George, for example, had built a predator-proof pen; only once was it almost breached—by a mouse:

It had burrowed under one corner of the coop. But I was able to actually fill the hole, and I’ve observed that the mouse never returned. So I had the mouse for the first week or so, and then through some deterrence, it hasn’t come back. I haven’t noticed any other usual animal activity. You know, there are skunks in the neighbourhood. We have possums. But, again, I haven’t noticed that it's been a major attractant.

George explained that following strict rules around food storage, including keeping food out of the coop at night, and storing excess in sealed containers in his garage, was paramount to keep predators and pests at bay. Many participants learned this as well, describing modifications made to their hens’ enclosures over time to prevent raccoons and rodents from accessing these spaces. For example, Sam observed that:

Through the wire sides, we found that raccoons can put their paws in. So they were putting their paws in, and washing their paws [...] in the water bowl. [...] So we added just an extra piece of [material]. […] We just attached that so they can’t put their fingers in. On the other side, we built an extra frame, again with smaller wire, so they can’t put their paws into the food bowl, because they were putting their hands into the food bowl and feeding.

Mel explained that the wire of her original enclosure allowed in rats, who pursued the chickens’ feed as a meal. To resolve this issue, she brought in a “handyman” who built an enclosure that was “completely enclosed in metal-gauge chicken wire”. She noted that now “everything is sealed—like even the electrical cording that goes in [...] So, we now have a completely rat-free coop, and they’re gone, because they can’t access the food, so they’ve moved onto another source”. Along with modifying coops and enclosures, some participants, like Sam, discovered that water could work as a deterrent. She installed a motion-detection sprinkler system that turned on at night when animals tried to approach the coop or cross the lawn:

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We angle it where the animals are coming from, and as they cross the path, it sets off the sprinkler. Because we got tired of these raccoons climbing up onto the coop, just being annoying. And you could tell in the morning the birds look a bit tired.

This line of defence worked well for Sam, who expressed that her hens appeared less stressed and better rested once the raccoons stopped visiting her yard at night. Similar efforts worked for others, too. Modifications to the coop and food storage, and water-based pest/predator deterrences were some of the most commonly reported interventions. Several participants also looked into installing taller fences or stronger gates to protect against neighbourhood dogs and other ground animals, which were observed to be a greater threat than hawks and other airborne predators, even though chickens were more attuned to the movements of the latter. Noise was an effective deterrent as well; Aleggsandra Hamilton described “making a raucous” to discourage foxes from entering the yard: “The few times we saw the fox it was at dusk, so we’ve tried—like the kids really made a lot of raucous to scare it away”. Interestingly, participants never described or responded to predators and pests in severe terms, and reflected on their presence—not with anger or hostility—but with annoyance. Some were pleased at seeing and learning about the wildlife that abounds in their neighbourhood, and did not “resent” these animals:

You know, like we weren’t expecting foxes—I love foxes, I was happy to see a fox in my neighbourhood, but […] but it made it risky for the chickens. And raccoons, I knew raccoons were killers because when I was a kid they ate my guinea pigs. But [laughs], but I also love raccoons. […] I don’t resent the predators for doing what they do. (Marigold)

Not resenting animals for targeting hens or their food supply was the most common perception held by participants, in spite of the fact that the risk of predation was very much a real one for almost all participants. This risk prompted many to follow clear rules around outdoor supervision when their hens were in uncovered areas of their enclosure, or when they were free-ranging in other areas of the yard (as discussed below).

Although participants learned how to mitigate the risks of backyard predation, several recounted jarring experiences with wildlife that made them more aware of local ecology and brought out protective caretaking qualities on impulse. Pidge, for example, described an encounter with a mink that prompted her to act like “mama bear”:

So then I had the chicken and the mink in the coop, and I was opening all the doors and the bits that opened, hoping that the chicken could fly out, and I actually picked up the

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mink and threw it outside the cage onto the floor! So I became this great big bear mama and protected the chickens. I don’t know what went through my head [laughs].

Despite the risk of harm to herself, Pidge intervened in the encounter to keep her chickens safe. Also thinking about the risks of predation that her hens faced outside of covered enclosures, Sabrina shared that she felt unsettled by the prospect of an attack, and so she made certain that her hens were always supervised when they roamed in the yard:

All the wildlife we have around here, I was very nervous. I would’ve been just so, devastated, if one of them had been killed by whatever wildlife. [...] So we were very nervous about it, and stayed right with them [when they were out]. (Sabrina)

Like Sabrina, almost all participants stressed during their interviews the importance of being aware of local wildlife, and of being present when hens were resting or roaming in spaces that might expose them to predators (i.e., in uncovered enclosures or open spaces in the yard):

But we only really let them out in the exposed space if we’re out in the yard with them. So if we’re not there to supervise, then they go back into the enclosure. (George)

Our backyard is off our kitchen, so usually there’s someone in the kitchen who can see them, and so, we try to leave them out in the yard only if there’s someone in the kitchen or in the room that I’m in, which is on the second storey that looks out onto the yard. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

I live in sort of a park area, and so there are some red-tail hawks around. So, initially, I was always aware when they were out on the deck, just because I thought they would be easy prey [...] That hasn’t been an issue. (Mel)

An awareness of the times of day when predation might be more likely also factored into how participants managed their chickens’ free-ranging time. Referencing the time of day that a fox would visit, Aleggsandra Hamilton commented that: “We do, we let them out in the middle of the day, then once it starts to get close to dusk, we bring them in”.

Protecting hens from predators and pests was a key way in which care manifested in and around the backyard coop. This form of care required an intimate knowing of local ecology and urban hen lifeworlds, which participants became increasingly aware of over time. People learned more about the animals present in their neighbourhoods, if and how they posed a risk to their hens’ safety, whether or not their birds were sensitive to the movements of these animals, and the best strategies for deterring encounters that might cause harm or prolonged periods of stress. In some

108 cases, this facet of care evoked feelings of fear and worry; some whose hens were attacked by local animals also described experiencing shock and grief.

While the risk of fatal hen-wildlife encounters have factored into the arguments of backyard-hen opponents, these risks were ones that most participants mitigated successfully through both deliberate measures employed at the start of one’s practice and strategic interventions that responded to hen-wildlife interactions over time. Participants learned how to navigate urban risks to hen safety in ways that did not involve complete enclosure or the sacrificing of hens’ access to outdoor spaces and areas of enjoyment. Along the way, participants engaged in feeling with the other. They grew better attuned to the needs of their birds and their stressors, and experienced a range of emotional and affective states prompted by this backyard dynamic—by living in close relation with the birds in their care.

6.3.4 Creature Comforts: Coops, Enclosures and Spaces to Roam

When participants were asked about the coop and enclosure designs that they settled on, most described the questions they considered before building or purchasing a home for their hens. Aleggsandra Hamilton’s comments capture many of the points that participants pondered (see Figure 7 for coop):

We thought about space requirements, based on the information from the city. We thought about shelter. We thought about whether they liked having a spot where they could be under a structure, and the height of the ramp and whether or not they could get down to the ground; the waterproofness of it. And we thought a little bit about the layout of food and water. And then we were also giving some thought to winter, and whether they would be okay in the winter. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

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Figure 7: Aleggsandra Hamilton’s Backyard Coop

Figure 8: Mel’s backyard coop.

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Figure 9: Sam’s backyard coop.

Many participants described testing different designs, and adding onto existing structures to make their hens’ enclosures more spacious and comfortable:

We did have the coop that they provide from Rent-the-Chicken, but we decided pretty early on it’s very limited in size [...] So, we eventually got some fencing and made an extension [...] so they had probably three times the area of the Rent-the-Chicken coop for them to move around in. It really expanded it and I’m really glad we did that. (Sabrina)

Marigold described starting with the winterized “Eglu” coop and enclosure before building a separate, walk-in run that her hens would enjoy in the summer, whenever they were not free- ranging in the backyard. Likewise, Mel kept her “Eglu” and combined it with a large, built-in structure that rises from her back deck (see Figure 8).

Sam experimented with her hens’ multi-part housing system, tarping part of the enclosure (see Figure 9) so that her birds could remain outside when it rains:

We also have a tarp which we can pull over it [..] So when yesterday it was raining, they can go under the tarp, or make this mad dash into the run, which is also protected […] it’s rain proof. So it gives them a big area to, to you know, to scratch, to peck, to feed. They need to be outside. [...]

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Lanky Llama created additional space in the yard after he felt that his hens deserved a larger enclosure than the city’s guidelines determined:

Anyway, we have like thirty square feet and only two birds. But it feels, it doesn’t feel right leaving them only with the 30 square feet inside, so I kind of feel funny not letting them have run of the yard. So we have a little fenced-in area. We bought one of those like dog exercise playpen type things. And it goes around and doubles or triples that, so maybe it’s 100 square feet inside that area. (Lanky Llama)

Overall, participants felt strongly about providing their hens with sufficient space and suitable housing, and with plenty of access to exposed earth or greenery for their hens’ benefit:

Often, I have the doors [of the enclosure] open, and they hang out on our deck area, where we’ve got planters. They love the ferns. They’ll hop up and dig in my planter box, which drives me crazy, but it’s their entertainment [laughs] so it’s fine! (Mel)

So we did have a grassy patch, which is now what the coop is sitting on [laughs]. […] It was mostly a grassy-dirt kind of patch, so the chickens love it. So, really we’ve cordoned off the area around the coop [...] We let them out a few times a day, and they have their time to go around, and right now they’re scratching in the leaves and pecking at the dirt. (George)

Likewise, Marigold cordoned off part of her family’s garden for her hens’ enjoyment, recognizing that some restrictions were necessary to avoid the complete and total destruction of her garden plants:

If they were in the rest of the garden, they would just eat every plant. It used to be a lush ravine, with ferns and violets and stuff. Now their area is completely dirt, basically. But there’s still plenty of bugs and worms in the dirt, so they spend their time scratching around.

My findings show that participants prioritized the comfort and wellbeing of their hens, negotiating backyard spaces to create what they felt were spacious and stimulating homes for their birds. Along the way, many participants had to make concessions, relinquishing planter boxes, flowerbeds, spaces of leisure (like tables and seating), and lawn space to accommodate these new backyard members. These space-related negotiations mirror the kinds of compromises that are made inside the human/animal home to provide pets with access to comfortable parts of the home, like beds and couches (Fox, 2006), and in many ways this might reflect how this interior sphere and its embedded relations are permeating the indoor/outdoor boundary.

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6.3.5 Hen Health and Veterinary Support

Beyond protecting hens from predators and providing them with spacious and comfortable homes and spaces to roam, all participants emphasized the importance of ensuring that their hens remained in optimal health. Many participants recounted times that they had spent helping a sick or injured bird, or providing them with support during periods of stress. For example:

When it’s been really, really hot and your chicken is really not looking well, and they go into a corner whether it’s in the coop or whether they go under a bush in your garden, and they’re not drinking, and they’re not eating, and you know they haven’t laid an egg, and you know they need to lay an egg, it tugs at your little heart. So yeah, I’d be on the ground, trying to hand feed them, grapes I’d put in the freezer. Literally putting water around my finger, rubbing around their beaks. (Sam)

More than half of participants described how responding to hens in distress or to possible illness was all the more challenging (reported as the most challenging facet of care for two participants) considering the absence of farm-animal veterinarians in Toronto:

There used to be a vet in town I guess when I first got them that people said, oh, you know, they can help you with your chickens. They said, ‘actually, we can no longer see them’ […] Because they’re production animals, they need to be seen by, um, you know, certified vets, for human consumption, and there are none of those in the city. So, it’s tricky to have an animal that the city allows you to have, and you can’t seek treatment for them. (Mel)

Actually, the other challenge is vet care. Vet care is almost impossible to get. What I’ve been told is that is because the veterinary society, um, changed the rules, and won’t allow vets to care for what they call urban farm animals, or something like that […] Yeah, I talked to a vet who previously looked after chickens, and he said that the college of veterinary medicine had told them that if they were going to look after backyard farm animals that they had to have a different qualification. (Marigold)

You know, one of the sort of sad questions that we’ve thought about, was like, so what happens … I would like to know if one of our chickens gets sick, is there a list of vets who can handle chickens? Because I imagined that was going to be a lot of phone calls before I found somebody who would deal with chickens. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

At least two participants found a local vet that was able to provide support during times of health-related uncertainty, although the at-home care that followed these trips was often regarded as an unpleasant experience for most. As Pidge shared:

One had Bumblefoot […] and, ugh, we had to give it a bath every couple of days and put some ointment on it, and put a bandage on its foot, which was a long, tedious process, and also pick bits off its foot, which was revolting. And that one had something which

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involved us having to give it a syringe, down its throat, and I can’t remember why we had to give it that medicine. But that was really an awful thing to have to do. (Pidge)

Those who could not locate a vet relied on their own resourcefulness to keep their hens safe and healthy:

You know, if your bird is wounded by an animal, which has happened, where a racoon has pulled a bunch of tail-feathers out, and there’s a wound, we’ve just, you know, got some Polysporin, or some saline solution, cleaned it, and put Polysporin on it, and that’s worked. We’ve saved a couple of birds from issues like that. (Marigold)

Their health, generally [has been challenging]. I’ve just been figuring that out, rightly or wrongly, on the Internet, symptoms. So, we had one episode, of, I’m assuming it was one chicken with a worm in her poop. Panic! Research. And I was able to order the deworming from a place up north. [...] (Mel)

The issue of professional healthcare (or lack of it) in the city comprised a significant area of concern for participants, even for those who did not identify hen health as the most challenging aspect of urban chicken care. For many, this amounted to a barrier to care, which echoes the findings of Blecha and Leitner (2014), who learned that providing veterinary treatment to hens was an important expression of responsible care, and one that mirrored the kinds of care afforded to animals more commonly kept as pets in and around the home. However, as much as the absence of veterinary support was both a real and anticipated challenge and an impediment to companionable care (and is something that warrants regulatory attention), participants who were faced with hen-related health issues demonstrated their resourcefulness and tenacity in identifying and resolving these challenges, often without any direct professional support. For better or for worse, the inaccessibility of professional medical support made some feel like a farmer “in the country” (Pidge), supporting narratives of the urban farmer and of urban hybridity as explored in the previous chapter.

6.4 Impacts of Companionable Human-Hen Relationships

6.4.1 Care versus Expertise

In the last section, I explored some of the many ways in which participants developed an intimate awareness of their hens’ needs, preferences and behaviours, and how they practiced care—from providing their birds with a safe home and enjoyable outdoor spaces for ranging, to socializing with their birds, feeding them a nutritious diet and tending to animals who were in ill- health. Along with enquiring about these day-to-day practices and backyard dynamics, I also

114 asked participants whether—given their experiences and care-centred practices—they thought of themselves as a “chicken-keeping expert”. No one declared themselves a bonafide expert; in fact, more than half of participants spoke about expertise as something external to their practice, attributed only to professionals, like veterinarians or commercial farmers:

I’m not a commercial chicken farmer. My experience as a kid, although we had, you know, a hundred birds really on average [...] it’s still kind of in the hobby realm of things. I learned a lot when I was younger about different indications of ailments in birds and in chickens in particular, so I suppose I’m kind of already aware of what to look for [...] in the event that I feel like something is going sideways. But, yeah expert is a strong word, and I feel like I need to back that up with some kind of agriculture degree or something. (George)

Similarly, Pidge and Mel remarked:

No, I don’t think I’m an expert [...] I don’t know how I would define myself along those lines. But, I think I’m still just learning about them, and still just hoping that they don’t get seriously sick [laughs]. Because that's the problem with the veterinary, you know, that’s the major drawback is that if anything serious happens, I haven’t got anybody to rely on [...] (Pidge)

[I’m] definitely not a chicken expert. I think that there is so much to learn. I think that you’re a chicken expert when you can solve all of your problems without having to go to a book, or the internet, or your vet [...] I’m very much a beginner.

The perspectives shared by Pidge, Mel and George reflect a common theme across my empirical research—farm animal expertise tends to be viewed as something professionalized, medicalized, and disassociated from non-commercial, urban residential or “hobby” practices. It is also viewed as something complete and omniscient, encapsulating a total awareness of all possible issues and remedies when it comes to animal health. While participants felt that they lacked such expert knowledge, they did, however, recognize the value of firsthand experience. More than half of participants spoke about the knowledge they had gained and cultivated since acquiring their hens and caring for them over time:

I’d say chicken-experienced [laughs]. I feel like we’ve learnt about chickens and stuff we didn’t know about them and I feel like, so far [...] we’ve done a good job caring for them. […] And I feel like I would have tons of useful advice to somebody who wanted to keep chickens. (Aleggsandra Hamilton)

Likewise, Sam commented: “I don’t think I’m a chicken expert. I’ve only done this for two summers”; however, she added that she had “far more knowledge about chickens now” that she

115 kept them close at hand. This knowledge and experience was something that people in her life leveraged:

And we spent probably an hour on the phone […] talking about the characteristics, what to expect, as you say, the day in the life of, emphasizing that she must get them out of the coop, they must be allowed to run around the garden, how to deal with the summer heat. So, I gave advice, but I also said, I’m no expert.

Sam emphasized the invaluable nature of firsthand experience in building knowledge—in other words, learning by doing: “I’ve learned through osmosis. I’ve learned through living with chickens. […] My chickens have taught me a lot”. Marigold, too, foregrounded the importance of personal experience, emphasizing the importance of confidence in care with all animals:

I’d call myself a confident amateur. I mean, it’s not very difficult looking after chickens, so I don’t know what an expert is. […] Anybody can figure it out, so there’s no such thing as an expert really. That is, if you’re a person who is confident with animals in general, and I’ve had […] I’ve had experience with dogs, cats, horses, chickens [...] I’ve had many, all my life, I’ve been around animals. So I’m very confident with animals and with animal behaviour.

Overall, this line of inquiry with my study’s participants highlighted that expertise is not synonymous with care; expertise supports, but does not supplant, humane practices of care. In other words, not having a formal background in farming or veterinary medicine, and/or not having access to veterinary services in the city, may have posed challenges to the swift resolution of health issues, but neither of these realities shaped how participants approached the care of their hens. Instead, care was informed by the wealth of experience that urbanites had gained with other animals over their lifetime, and by the nature and spatiality of animal keeping in Toronto, emphasizing the spatial-ethical resonance of the city’s residential environments: “It’s just like any animal that you get that’s a pet” (Pidge).

Relating to chickens on companionable terms in the city’s residential spaces set familiar care- taking standards that participants aspired to meet. Therefore, as one might expect with companion animal care, wellbeing was rarely discussed in terms of negative welfare (i.e., reducing or eliminating pain and suffering to make day-to-day life more tolerable) as is more common in animal agriculture. Rather, participants spoke about care throughout their interviews as a way of promoting the physical, mental, emotional, and social wellbeing of their birds. Participants wished for their hens to have a “good life”, like other urban pets: “I felt very

116 conscious that I was responsible for their, you know, their wellbeing, and I really wanted to give them a good life” (Pidge). Almost all participants expressed in their responses an overarching desire and commitment to practicing a high standard of care and providing their chickens with a fulfilling urban existence. This finding helps to shatter the care-expertise nexus that I discussed in previous chapters, which has affected ideas around the proper place (and treatment) of farm animals (i.e., where and with whom they belong).

Even without “expertise”, participants regarded their birds with affection and attachment, protected them from injury and disease, gave them safe and stimulating spaces to roam, roost and rest, comforted them in times of pain or stress, lavished them with their favourite treats, and often promised them a permanent home with their more-than-human families—because they were part of a companionable urban dynamic. Arguably, it is this kind of relationship, and the spaces in which they are embedded, that serve as a conduit for practicing humane care. Expertise, in the popular, professionalized sense, is something that can be leveraged and drawn into this dynamic, but it supports—rather than determines—how one practices care. And so, just as one “learns by doing” when it comes to keeping dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, lizards or other pets, participants learned-by-doing when it came to chickens, and allowed their companionable relationships to inform how they practiced care.

6.4.2 Community Connections

Caring for backyard hens almost always involved engaging with local and regional networks— both to fill in knowledge gaps and provision supplies, as well as to share one’s discoveries and experiences with other chicken-keepers. My findings point to two, intersecting networks that are being strengthened through backyard practices in Toronto, and which are explored briefly in this section. The first involves connections to rural areas, where participants ventured to collect feed and supplies:

I’ve been getting all of my feed from up north. [...] And in terms of chicken supplies, like the oyster shells and things you can find in some pet stores, because other birds require it, but it's not specific for chickens. [...] But chicken feed is trickier to come by. (Mel)

I found two places out west, which are probably about a forty-five minute drive or an hour drive. They were easy enough to find, and they’re nice friendly folk. (Pidge)

It’s a country store that sells things that farmers need, including poultry feed and what not. [...] They have lots of stores in agricultural areas around southern Ontario. So,

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although it's not something that you can just go a couple blocks away in downtown Toronto, you do have to drive somewhere to go and get it, but it’s not a big deal. (George)

The second way networks are being engaged is through connections that are being built across Toronto, among new and experienced chicken-keepers. More than half of participants shared that communicating directly with other chicken-keepers in the city had been important to the development of their care practices. These interactions occurred online (through a local Facebook group) and in person. For Sam, turning to friends with chickens allowed her to learn more about hens before she acquired her own: “So the first year [of the pilot], I just supported my friend, I went to visit her chickens, got to know them, got to learn about them”. Likewise, Aleggsandra Hamilton’s family leveraged the support and advice of their chicken-keeping friends—their “chicken coaches”—a relationship that ultimately “nudged” her family to get chickens of their own: “We have friends who are in the city who also have hens, and so we call then our chicken coaches. We spent a lot of time talking with them about what it needed to be like”. Chicken-keeping neighbours, too, were a source of support for participants: “The lady that lives directly behind us, she’s got four. […] So just coincidentally, here we are, back to back, and she has chickens, too. So that was kind of fun, you know, to compare notes” (Sabrina). Some also cited chicken-keeping workshops, which were hosted at the beginning of the city’s pilot, as a helpful source of local, care-related knowledge. As Sam noted, “workshops are so important” because they help people understand “what it actually means to have chickens, the responsibility”. Similarly, others felt that workshops were also an important tool for disillusionment—for countering romanticized notions of backyard chickens and presented a well-rounded picture of the benefits and challenges of caring for hens. Overall, connections with chicken-keepers within Toronto emerged as an especially meaningful component of participants’ practices, helping to shape their understanding of hens and their practices of care while strengthening this form of community knowledge in the city. This aspect of chicken-keeping warrants further research to understand how networks are being created and leveraged, and how they are merging between urban and rural areas.

6.4.3 Empathetic Entanglements

Finally, one of the most significant impacts of urban chicken-keeping that emerged from my study of human-hen relationships was empathy—more specifically, these relationships appear to

118 be cultivating empathetic human/animal entanglements. These connections or entanglements brought hens as farm animals into focus, while allowing them to matter as other-than-food and as more-than-producers. In fact, when participants were asked what they felt was the most rewarding aspect of having chickens, their answers centred on their relationships—on the interactions with chickens that they were able to have under UrbanHensTO. This finding deviates from the broader literature, which frames eggs (i.e., local food) as a key motivation for and benefit of backyard chickens (Bartling, 2012; Huang & Drescher, 2014; McClintock et al, 2014; Pollock et al, 2012). Only twice were eggs mentioned in participants’ responses to the question of what was most rewarding, and in both cases it was raised as a subsequent benefit. More specifically, Aleggsandra Hamilton added at the end of her response to this question of rewards: “So, it’s been really great. And we love the eggs”. Similarly, Lanky Llama spoke about eggs after sharing two other beneficial facets of having chickens: “And then third, I guess, would be the eggs, because really eggs aren’t that hard to get if you don’t have chickens [laughs]”.

Many participants described in their responses the joy they felt when interacting with their birds and watching their chickens be chickens:

I think just watching them wander around and peck, and seeing them be content, you know, when you see them just sit and they groom, or they put their head under their wing and, in the sunshine, and just, they would relax and be content, watch them grooming, making those little noises they make when they’re content, was really, it was really satisfying. It was really rewarding, you know, to know you’re giving a good home to these animals. (Sabrina)

As captured by Sabrina’s response, it was especially rewarding to feel that one’s hens were happy or content with their urban life. Another participant commented: “And it’s just so lovely to have these little creatures in our backyard that seem very happy” (Aleggsandra Hamilton, emphasis added). This participant also emphasized how much “fun” her hens were: “Oh my gosh, they’re so fun to have around, so we didn’t expect that. They’re just really, really fun to have around”. This was echoed by half of the participants. Many also spoke about the pleasure of being seen or acknowledged by their hens as one of the most rewarding things about having chickens: “Oh gosh, sitting there, them coming over to you, and looking at you.” People were also thrilled to discover the personalities of their hens, and their general qualities, such as being “funny”, “cute”, “quirky”, or endearingly “simple”:

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Oh, [laughs] I think finding that they had different personalities, I think, was amazing to me, that’s the sort of thing that I’ve really enjoyed discovering. And, so I suppose in actual fact, I’ve had six chickens in the last three years ‘cause the first [rented] lot changed, and so, I kind of guessed it, because I kind of knew that most animals had different personalities. But it’s still a surprise to see how different they are and how individual and unique. So I feel that’s one of the most rewarding things, discovering their personalities and getting to know them. (Pidge)

In every instance, it was clear that chickens, and participants’ interactions with them, were the most rewarding aspect of this practice.

For some families, these interactions prompted ethical conversations in the household about food purchasing habits and dietary choices. Two participants shared that some of their family members followed a vegetarian diet, although it was unclear whether having chickens prompted this change. Others expressed that keeping chickens made them uncomfortable cooking whole chickens:

Actually, I do not buy whole chickens, the time I have my chickens with us. I have to buy chicken parts, because then they don’t look like them. I’m not a vegetarian, I do continue eating chicken, but we are more conscious of where chicken comes from now, and where eggs come from. (Sam)

Two participants described that their practices did not prompt these kinds of conversations or considerations; however, all participants drew connections, at various points in their interviews, to other living farm animals. For example, Pidge felt that her practice made her think more about (and think differently about) the birds that live in battery cages. Recalling photos she saw posted on Facebook of rescued hens, Pidge reflected on how the birds she saw pictured on factory farms were ultimately “all different personalities and they’re all suffering, just hundreds and hundreds of them. It’s shocking”. Sam shared that her experiences with hens have made her “more aware” that animal welfare needs to be a priority for the pilot—and for the animal agriculture industry. Another participant recognized that his new chickens had, in some small way, increased his empathy for farmed hens, even though his backyard practice felt nothing like farming:

Yeah, it doesn’t feel like a farming situation at all here. It’s just like having fun with our chickens. Though maybe I have more empathy for chickens. When I see production farms, and how small those cages are, that really gets my heart a little bit more than it maybe would have before. (Lanky Llama)

This participant added: “In the city, I think it is good to have people be empathetic towards animals, and just have some kind of connection towards them” (Lanky Llama). Although it may

120 be only “one tiny little connection” to farm animals (as Aleggsandra Hamilton observed during her interview), it is nonetheless a critical one, as emphasized by George:

It’s easy to—and maybe this is going down a road—but you know, when we consider animals as food, I think we, we try to disassociate them somehow. And they’re these things that exist somewhere, in a commercial operation, but I don’t ever have to look at them or think about them. Maybe I’ll see this kind of animal at a fall fair, and it’ll be in a cage, and it’ll be kind of cute, and then I’ll go home and then that’ll be the end of it. And, of course, it’s another thing to actually keep that same kind of animal and categorize it as a pet.

As participants alluded to throughout their interviews, keeping hens on companionable terms cultivates a relation of care that makes it challenging to ignore the broader (exploitative) systems in which chickens are enrolled and the lives and experiences that animals endure in these spaces. More specifically, it creates an access point into the lives and “lifeworlds” (Lorimer, Hodgetts & Barua, 2019) of animals that urbanites are rarely able to know firsthand; it also establishes this access point with a level of permanency, responsibility and intimacy quite unlike the fleeting interactions that one might have with chickens on display at a fall fair, for example. As companionable, outdoor relationships develop and care is practiced day after day, the physical and conceptual distance between participants and farm animals (beyond the coop) appears to lessen. For example, Lanky Llama reacted with dismay when he came across a coop for sale that suggested its owner kept hens in a garage, reflecting on what he had learned about his hens and their need for (and enjoyment of) outdoor space:

I don’t like the idea of my chickens only ever living in [a] small area. I saw a picture of someone who was selling a coop and it looked like it was in his garage, and I’m like, oh my god, does he just keep them in the garage, in that one spot? And they were only ever in their coop and their run and it was like 10 square foot per chicken kind of thing, which I know is way better than they get in production farming, but still it seems like, verging on animal cruelty, anyway.

As noted above, this participant’s response aligns with his personal experience with chickens and his awareness of what chickens are owed, or what they deserve. Overall, the familiarity that participants cultivated with their hens appeared to make them more sensitive to how these animals lived in urban and commercial settings. Having chickens, for instance, made Sabrina aware of how “adaptable” they are—and how easy it might be to neglect them as a result. She and another participant each felt this could be an issue for urban hens (acquired as layers or producers only) if the right program framework and licensing structure is not implemented after

121 the city’s short-term pilot ends. Sabrina was also concerned about the experiences of both farmers and commercial hens:

It really makes you stop and think about what farmers do, you know, the job of being a farmer and producing food for the size of our population. Although I feel very strongly about humane practices, you can see how it could be hard for them, you know, if you have—I don’t know how many chickens they have in big chicken operations, but they’re obviously not going to get the same treatment that our two did.

In every interview, whether prompted or not, participants made comments connecting the lives of their hens—and the knowledge acquired as a chicken-keeper—to the lives of other chickens and farm animals beyond their backyard coops. These comparisons point to how living with chickens and learning about their lifeworlds promotes empathetic entanglements; it can bring broader systems and practices into perspective, and can empower urbanites by arming them with the knowledge and experience to better evaluate and assert what it is that chickens are owed in terms of their treatment and care. As these relationships receive greater attention (the attention of policymakers, the media, and the public) and become more commonplace, it is reasonable to imagine that urban human/farm-animal relationships might help to shape a new paradigm—a different way of seeing and relating to farm animals in Canadian society.

6.5 Chapter Conclusion

When it comes to imagining the spaces and places where farm animals belong, most often the environments that come to mind are those outside of the city. Farm animals are ensconced in the public imaginary as existing in the countryside, even as their visibility in these spaces are decreasing as a result of factory farming and enclosure (Carolan, 2008). And although farm animals might be seen at urban agricultural fairs as one of my participants observed, they are encountered in these spaces as visitors or outsiders in the urban landscape. However, these realities are changing under UrbanHensTO. The pilot participants that I interviewed are engaging with the animals in our food system through backyard chicken-keeping, and in ways that challenge how farm animals are normally conceptualized in society as food/producers.

As my research has shown, participants’ practices were primarily motivated by the desire to get to know, interact with and care for farm animals (i.e., not simply by the desire for fresh eggs). This was the most common rationale that participants shared for obtaining hens, and is something that, to date, has received little attention in the literature as well as in media and

122 policy discussions. While participants were also motivated, importantly, by their existing ethical concerns about the conditions of factory farming, and by an intersecting desire to teach their children about “where” food comes from, these folded into a broader narrative that looked towards chickens as an animal distanced from cities, and one with whom participants wished to to learn about and to learn from, while living side-by-side. By living in close relation with and caring for urban chickens, observing their distinct behaviours and relationships, attending to their needs and pastimes, and discovering their individual personalities, participants countered pervasive ideas about chickens and their “proper” place in Canadian society. Through participants’ practices, chickens came to exist in the urban landscape as something other than food—as pets, farm animals, co-workers and team members, garden companions, and welcome residents of intimate human/animal spaces. These dynamic expressions of living in relation call into question dominant ideas about where and with whom farm animals belong, and what constitutes humane treatment.

Indeed, along with challenging what a chicken is and where they appear “in-place”, participants demonstrated that caring for farm animals humanely is not dissimilar from caring for pets. In other words, participants’ practiced care with their hens in ways that mirrored relations commonly practiced with other household animals kept on companionable terms. They worked to build safe, enjoyable and comfortable spaces for their hens, just as they might for another household pet. Coops and enclosures were designed to promote positive welfare and wellbeing— a sharp distinction from how animal wellbeing is negotiated in factory farming (i.e., how suffering is acceptable). It was common for participants to reflect on their hens’ preferences for particular forms of bedding, ramp heights, access to flowers, grass and dirt, protection from wind and rain, and more, demonstrating an attentiveness to and interest in cultivating environments that support the natural behaviours and interests of one’s birds. Protection was also important; participants felt responsible for their hens’ safety inside their coops and in spaces outside of their enclosures. This involved exercising the kind of environmental awareness that one might expect when walking a dog on a lead, for example. Participants also employed control mechanisms, like those that Rebekah Fox (2006; 2018) describes as being central to practices of care in human-pet relationships. For example, hens’ litter habits challenged people’s expectations about clean and tidy (outdoor) living spaces; however, participants did not attempt to reform the behaviours of their chickens. Rather, they negotiated the spaces to which hens had access and intervened with

123 shop-vacs and water hoses, to sanitize communal areas. Interestingly, while litter behaviours in particular were an annoyance to some, they were not a source of conflict as they most often are when it comes to human/pet relations inside the home (Fox, 2018). In this way, the liminal space of the urban backyard, both as an outdoor environment and extension of indoor relations, becomes an ideal zone for companionable cohabitation between human and hen. Encounters in these spaces have also allowed for chickens (like other pets) to be seen as decisive agents in their own relationships with fellow hens and other animals, determining who they like and who they do not, and whose presence they might learn to tolerate with time. These relationships remind us that chickens are individuals, and point to the fact that there is nothing fundamentally un-urban about their humane treatment.

Finally, it is important to recognize how backyard relationships are promoting care and concern for farm animals in ways that extend beyond residential spaces. As my participants indicated, their practices are prompting care-related questions about how commercial chickens and other farm animals are treated. Proximate relationships were thus a conduit for thinking about the “other”—the farm animals with whom we remain entangled, but whose day-to-day experiences are closed off from urban view. Backyard hens appeared to help participants become “attuned to some”, thereby reframing “relationships with and responsibilities to many others” (Gruen, 2015, p. 79). In small ways, this attunement is visible in the ethical conversations that chicken-keeping prompted for many participants about the food that they and members of their household consume. It is evident in the purchasing decisions that some households decided to make in order to reduce demand for eggs raised from factory-farmed hens. Beyond these individualized shifts in consumption, chicken-keeping has invited comparisons between backyard hens and the living farm animals that exist beyond one’s coop, in other spaces in the city and in factory farms. This was visible in comments that juxtaposed the living conditions and treatment of backyard hens with those raised in battery cages and coops kept in urban garages. It manifested in statements related to welfare concerns about farming more generally, including questions about the impacts of these systems on human and animal workers. It was perceptible also in comments that recognized and ascribed the personality and individuality of backyard chickens to those raised in intensive production systems; urban hens became a mirror for the multitude—for the billions of living animals concealed from the public.

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Overall, this chapter has helped to illustrate how manifestations of care—from physical expressions of care that acknowledge multiple ways of known hens, to the development of intimate, urban care-taking knowledge and skills, to the attunement to “some” that helps us to see many others in new ways (Gruen, 2015)—appear to be cultivating stronger urban connections to farm animals, or what Lori Gruen (2015) refers to as entangled empathy. It is important to policy and practice moving forward that the companionable nature of chicken- keeping in Toronto and its contributions to building an ethic of care be better recognized in urban debates. As I have argued, this relational practice is one that allows members of an exploited farm-animal species to break through the agro-industrial veil and become more visible and knowable in urban space as other-than-food. Importantly, these proximate entanglements prompt ethical reflection and dialogue about the kinds of relationships that are possible with farm animals within (and beyond) our cities.

7 Conclusion

This project had three key objectives. First, I carried out a historical media analysis to explore how perspectives related to animal care and belonging affected Toronto’s farm animal geographies in the late-twentieth century. Second, I conducted a contemporary media and document analysis focused on materials published since 2001 to understand how relationships with chickens are reemerging in the city today, after decades of debate and farm-animal erasure. Third, I held interviews with eight participants of the backyard chicken-keeping pilot UrbanHensTO to delve deeper into emerging human-hen dynamics in the city. While the empirical aims of this project were ambitious and led to a broad collection of findings that invite further research, several key insights emerged around the core themes of care and belonging to which my project was anchored. I discuss these in turn below.

My historical analysis of textual news media published between 1970 and 1989 ultimately laid the groundwork for understanding how proximate human-chicken relationships are being re- established in Toronto. Importantly, this analysis exposed an under-treated thread in the literature on historical farm animal geographies—that is, the argument of public citizens and animal protection groups who problematized the treatment of animals (particularly farm animals) at the city’s historical live markets, and in urban backyards and basements. Concern around how urban farm animals suffered and how they were being inhumanely killed outside of spaces that contained the “spectacle” of animal death (e.g., licensed slaughterhouses) fuelled the Toronto Humane Society’s decision to push for a ban, and likely influenced the eventual outcome of Toronto’s live animal debates. By framing this finding within a broader media context, I suggested in Chapter Four that the city’s decision to ban farm animals from live markets (but not animals that qualified as pets) points to the influence of the pet-keeping climate of the 1980s. As others have observed, many cities in the 1980s were evolving into places for people and their responsibly kept pets, and this is something that I found to be true in the context of Toronto. Consequently, the media’s historical (favourable) depiction of pets would have been at odds with the narrative of chickens as “luckless” and killable animals that existed in cruel urban conditions until they were killed for food. Yet, rather than reflect on these tensions and, perhaps, enact new ways of existing in relation to urban farm animals, arguments about the inhumane treatment of

125 126 these animals and discomfort around their slaughter resulted in their erasure from the visible urban landscape. This expulsion severed the city’s proximate material connection to chickens and implied that members of productive species had no safe or appropriate place in the city. Stories about commercial production and Ontario’s chicken processing industry would have also conveyed to the urban public, as I have argued in Chapter Four, the view that chickens had no place in urban space; chicken-rearing was regularly framed in the news as the domain of scientists, geneticists, engineers, veterinarians, and other industry experts who redefined, through discourse and practice, the physiology of farm animals and the nature of their care and welfare. Thus, at the same time as factory farming was institutionalizing the (expert-condoned) suffering of farm animals, the city disengaged from these realities in the 1980s by severing a critical connection that had allowed farm animals to remain in urban view.

In my contemporary media and document analysis, I followed these historical threads of animal care and (un)belonging into the present day while exploring how chickens are reemerging in Toronto. I demonstrated how the voice of the city’s urban-chicken opposition manifests not only in alarmist and generalizing claims about urban density and the commercialization of farm animals, but also in the care-related arguments of those working to improve the lives of farm animals and liberate them from systems of exploitation, like factory farming. My research supported what scholars working in the United States (for example, McClintock et al, 2014) have noted about recent urban-chicken debates, which is that backyard chicken-keeping is sometimes vehemently opposed by animal protection groups on humane grounds. I delved into this oppositional narrative, highlighting how it advances a problematic claim that urban chicken- keepers are largely incapable of providing chickens with humane care, or of thinking of hens as anything other than killable food animals. As I have argued, this claim is troubling because—as with similar arguments made in the 1980s, and much like industry “cover stories” discussed in my literature review—it works to delegitimize an entire population in the domain of farm animal care, and it dismisses the many ways in which alternative relations might manifest in urban space. In turn, proponents of this argument (perhaps, unintentionally) reinforce the place of chickens in commercial agriculture and their limited social value (and moral worth) as commercial food products in Canadian society. As a result, these arguments do little to adequately address the ethical invisibility of chickens and other farm animals. Moreover, they fail to recognize and leverage the potential for backyard chicken-keeping to address this

127 invisibility and enact relationships that help to draw public attention to realities that are hidden from view.

Although I worked with a limited sample in my final empirical chapter (Chapter Six), the semi- structured interviews that I conducted with eight participants of UrbanHensTO confirmed (as first observed in my media analysis) that alternative ethical relations are, indeed, forming in the city at a small scale. These new relationships resonated with the companionable ethic of the human/animal home, and were driven in large part by a desire to learn about and live with farm animals humanely. Participants wished to re-establish a proximate connection to a hidden-from- view species, and worked to ground this companionable connection in an ethic of care that rejects simplistic and reductionist views of chickens. The birds enrolled in these relationships therefore escaped limiting tropes; they emerged not as food or as unintelligent, uncharismatic species, but as distinct and respected (outdoor) members of human/animal households. This critical representation of chickens is part and parcel of the subversive potential of urban chicken- keeping, and it was also echoed in the media stories discussed in Chapter Five. Those stories invited the public to see and get to know urban birds as lively animals—as quirky pets with endearing names, as inquisitive members of backyard environments, and as individual beings with distinct personalities, experiences, fears, desires, and friendships. These stories and the relationships they describe are bringing chickens closer to the public in meaningful ways. They are promoting an entangled form of empathy (Gruen, 2015)— a feeling with chickens—that prompts ethical dialogue about the use, treatment and place of these and other farm animals in Canadian society, while reestablishing the legitimacy of urbanites as humane farm animal keepers.

With these findings in mind, one final insight relates to the critical cleavage observed between the arguments of animal protection groups opposed to urban chickens on humane-care grounds, and the actual practices of backyard chicken-keepers in Toronto, some of whom (as my research shows) are promoting humane, companionable relationships with hens. These practices are working toward (rather than against) the political-ethical project of changing our relationships with and moral obligations to farm animals—a project central to the work of many animal protection groups. As such, backyard urban practices are not (or need not) be antagonistic to campaigns aimed at challenging and dismantling factory farming. Chicken-keeping, as

128 understood through this thesis, can make farm animals matter more than they currently do, cultivating care for the farm animals we are able to know firsthand, care about the lives and treatment of the many never meet in our city, and careful reflection on our broader (and enduring) entanglements with domesticated animals in Canadian society. Importantly, these practices engage with chickens as lively members of a species that is otherwise unseen, ignored, and exploited in society. They encourage us to view farm animals as subjective beings and co- partners (rather than food commodities) in urban life. Of course, backyard chicken-keeping is by no means a straightforward or stand-alone solution to addressing animal suffering and the uncaring systems of industrial agriculture, but this practice might work well in tandem with likeminded efforts to help cities weave new narratives about our close care of and shifting relations with animals typically concealed from view. Moreover, by reimagining our spatial-ethical relationships with (and our day-to-day obligations to) farm animals in this way, we may also change what it means to find ourselves living in the “Age of Chicken”. The broader manifestations and contributions of backyard chicken-keeping in this regard is a topic for further research.

Finally, in addition to these key insights, my project points to several considerations for policy and practice in Toronto, including opportunities for strengthening community knowledge networks and mitigating the risks of pests and predation. I detail these points in a separate report that I will be sharing with study participants as well as with the City of Toronto and local groups that have expressed interest in my study. It is my hope that my project report will provide helpful feedback to city staff in their review and planning efforts, and well as to groups that are working to promote a permanent place for hens in the city. Overall, from the vantage point of this research project, there is no reason why chickens should not have a place in the city. Backyard hens have long been an integrated part of urban residential landscapes, and they are animals whose societal “role” might more easily extend in urban space past the purpose of providing fresh eggs. Together with Toronto’s “urban farmers”, backyard hens might help cities challenge the social divides and distancing that perpetuate the ethical invisibility of farm animals, and which characterize our current post-domestic regime.

Should future policy discussions address the topic of urban chicken-keeping in terms of its contributions to promoting relations of care and companionship, and should these discussions

129 problematize arguments that force uncritical socio-spatial divisions between pets and farm animals, or that frame urban populations as inept at farm animal care, backyard chicken-keeping might become less of a point of protracted, trivialized debate. Rather, it might form a valued part of urban strategies aimed at alleviating the distance and disengagement engendered by our food system. It may help to promote care-taking knowledge and memory in the city while reestablishing connections that encourage dynamic ways of living in relation. Ultimately, chicken- keeping as a quietly transformative practice might make farm animals visible and knowable in critical ways, challenging their ethical invisibility while highlighting enduring human/animal entanglements that warrant thoughtful reflection.

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Appendix A

Interview Guide

Opening • Thank you for taking the time to participate in this interview. • As you know from the information letter, my research study examines human-animal relations in backyard chicken keeping. So I’ll be asking you questions about: o What’s motivated you to keep hens o How you interact with and care for your birds o How you perceive your hens, for example as pets, or productive pets or food producers o Whether chicken-keeping has affected the way you think about farm animals and their care and welfare • There are no right or wrong answers. This is really about getting to know you, your hens, your experience as a chicken-keeper, and your perspectives. • This interview should run for about one hour. • As we go along, if there are questions you would prefer not to answer, you can just let me know and I’ll move on. And if after the interview you decide that you don’t want to be part of this study, you have two weeks from today to let me know, and I’ll erase your interview data and delete any materials that you’ve sent along to me. You don’t have to provide me with a reason for this choice. • So you’re aware, our conversation is being recorded so that I can transcribe it and refer back to it later. o Express to participant that I’m the only one who will be accessing this recording or reading the transcripts. However, if the participant has given me permission to use interview clips (audio and/or video) in my project outputs, make clear that snippets of this interview may be used later in those outputs (such as conference presentations).

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• At the end of the project, I’m planning to produce a brief report for all interview participants, the City of Toronto, and Toronto Urban Growers — if you would like a copy of the report, I’d be happy to send that along over email once it’s ready. • Also, just a reminder that I will not be including your real name in the transcripts or in any of my written material, that way participant identities remain confidential. If I quote anything that you say in this interview or otherwise refer to you in my work, I’ll always use a code name. You get to choose this code name for yourself. If you’ve already selected the name that you’d like me to use, you can let me know now. We can also circle back to this at the end of the interview. • So any questions before we begin? • If you are okay with moving forward, then we can jump in.

Motivations (What motivated you to take up chicken keeping?)

1. Why chickens? What first got you interested in keeping hens? • Is this your first time keeping hens? • If it’s not, what experiences have you had with chickens?

2. Have your motivations for keeping hens changed over time?

3. Can you tell me about your birds? • How many hens do you have? • Have you named them? • What are their breeds? Did you choose these breeds for a particular reason? • How did you get them? • Have you had the same birds since you started? • How many eggs do they lay on average? What do you do with all of the eggs?

Care (How do you care for your birds?)

4. What kind of coop do your hens live in?

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• Can you tell me a bit about the actual coop structure? • What did you think about when choosing the right coop? • Did you build or buy your coop?

5. Do your birds roam outside of their coop? • How much time do they typically spend outside of their coop? • Do they spend time in particular areas of the yard? • How do you manage where they’re allowed to roam? • Do they interact with other animals (e.g., household pets) when not in their coop? • Why do you let them roam? • Do you have any concerns about their roaming?

6. What does a day in the life of a chicken-keeper look like? What kinds of caretaking responsibilities do you have to carry out each day? • Do other members of your household help out with these tasks? • Are there special tasks that you or other household members complete periodically or less often?

7. Overall, what aspects of caring for chickens in the city have been the most challenging? • Have you had to deal with predators (like raccoons or foxes), or infestations? • Has it been easy to find the supplies you need for your birds? • Have you had to deal with complaints from neighbours? • Have your birds encountered health issues? i. How have you dealt with these issues? ii. Have you sought out veterinary care, or have you leveraged advice from fellow chicken keepers? iii. What’s been most helpful to you?

8. Looking back to when you first got your birds, do you feel that you were prepared for the responsibilities and possible challenges that come along with chicken keeping? • How did you prepare?

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• Has it been more learn-as-you-go? • What didn’t you anticipate going into this? • What have you done to learn more about chicken keeping and care?

Perception and Interaction (How do you interact with and relate to your birds?)

9. What aspects of keeping chickens in your backyard have been the most rewarding?

10. Would you say that you (or others in your household) feel an emotional attachment to your birds? • Do you interact with them as you might with a cat or dog or other pet? • How is the companionship (or company) of a hen different from or similar to that of other domestic animals? • If you do not feel any attachment, why do you think this is?

11. How would you describe your hens? • Do you see them as pets, productive pets, or solely as food producers? Or something else? • What about your relationship to them? Would you call yourself a chicken expert (along the lines of that)? Would you consider yourself an expert on chickens? Why or why not?

12. Have you thought about what you plan to do when they stop laying eggs? • Will you keep your birds?

13. Looking to the future, do you plan to continue keeping hens in years to come? • Why or why not? • What might you do differently, if anything?

14. Overall, would you say that your relationship with your hens has affected the way you think about food and farming? • Do you feel this experience has affected your concern for farm animal welfare?

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• Do you still purchase eggs from the grocery store? Do you buy/consume chicken? Why/why not? • Do you feel like you’ve ever been faced with an ethical dilemma related to keeping hens and still consuming eggs from commercially raised birds?

15. And finally, this may draw upon answers you’ve given already, but do you think chickens should have a place in the city, and why? • Are there policy changes or programs and resources that you hope the city implements in future?

Closing

• Any other comments or questions? Have I missed anything that you wanted to share? • Thank you again for taking part. • Re-confirm if they would like a copy of the project report. • Remind that they can follow up with you if they have any questions afterwards. • Remind if they need to share their selected pseudonym.

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Appendix B

University of Toronto Research Study on Human-Animal Relations in Toronto’s Backyard Chicken Coops

This information sheet is intended for potential interview participants who are registered chicken-keepers in the City of Toronto. It provides information about the study and what is involved if you decide to take part.

1. Invitation

You are invited to take part in a research study that explores human-animal relations in backyard chicken keeping in Toronto.

2. Who is conducting this study?

My name is Stephanie Demetriou and I am a student researcher who is completing a Master’s degree with the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning. I am carrying out this study under the supervision of Dr. Sarah Wakefield.

3. What is the purpose of this study?

This study uses one-on-one interviews (carried out either by voice or video call) to explore chicken-keepers’ relationships to backyard hens and their experiences caring for these birds in the city. Specifically, I’m hoping to ‘step inside’ Toronto’s backyard coops to consider the following questions: What motivates us to keeps backyard hens? How do we interact with, relate to and care for these animals? How do we treat these backyard birds— as pets, food producers, or something in between? Does chicken keeping affect how we think about hens and other ‘food’ animals beyond our own yards? And, what might these relationships tell us about current practice, policy, and the places of agricultural animals— like hens—in our society?

Along with contributing to the academic literature, this project aims to generate data that helps us consider future possibilities for chicken keeping in Toronto.

4. How can I participate?

In order to participate in this study, you must:

• Be over 18 years of age; • Be registered with the City of Toronto through “UrbanHensTO”; • Be actively keeping hens on your residential property in Toronto at the time of the interview; and

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• Be available for an interview (voice or video call) sometime between August and October 2020.

5. What will I be asked to do?

As a participant in this study, you will be asked to take part in a semi-structured interview with me (the researcher), which means that I will be asking you open-ended questions that allow for conversation. Ideally, this interview would be held in person so that I can meet you, meet your chickens, and see your backyard space, but in response to current social distancing measures the project requires virtual or non-contact methods. This means you will need to:

• Participate in a one-on-one interview with me that lasts for approximately one hour (via voice or video call). I intend to record the interview (audio only for both voice and video calls) so that it can be transcribed and referred back to by me afterwards. If you opt for a video call, this can be carried out over Facetime or Skype.

Because I will not have the opportunity to meet your chickens and see your backyard space in person, it would be helpful if, in advance of our interview, you could provide the following optional materials:

• Coop Video or Photographs: Take a short video or supply some photographs that show your chicken coop (exterior and interior), your hens, and any spaces in the yard where the hens roam and forage. Please note that these visual materials should not capture your neighbours, children or any person who has not provided their consent (i.e., no one other than yourself, should you wish to be in the photos/video). • Backyard Map: Make a basic hand sketch of your yard that indicates key zones, such as where the coop is located, where garden plants are situated (if any), where the hens forage, where other household animals (like dogs and cats) spend time, and so forth. These sketches will provide a sense of the spatiality of your yard, and will be helpful reference points during our interview to better understand places of interaction.

These visual materials will not be connected to your name in any way, but — with your permission — photos or short video/audio clips might be used in project outputs now and in the future (like presentations that I make at conferences and events, or works that I publish related to my project). In the appended consent form, you can indicate whether or not you consent to these materials being used.

6. Are there any possible benefits to participating in this study?

While there are no direct benefits to participating in this study, this work aims to make a meaningful contribution to current research on urban livestock and to future policy discussions in Toronto and beyond. It provides you with an opportunity to share your

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experiences and feelings toward backyard chicken keeping in the city. By interviewing you and other chicken-keepers, I hope to gather and share important insights that help our community (e.g., groups like Toronto Urban Growers and the City of Toronto) explore the long-term potential and possibilities for urban chicken keeping across our city.

7. Are there any possible risks to participating in this study?

There are no substantial risks associated with this study; however, there are possible low- level risks to consider:

• You may feel compelled to share stories or experiences that can bring up feelings of sadness or frustration (such as about the loss of birds in your care). • You may bring up practices that are not in compliance with “UrbanHensTO” terms and conditions, such as the sale of eggs or the slaughter of birds that have stopped laying eggs. Although you will not be personally identified in any written material, I may reflect on the overall prevalence of such practices in Toronto’s chicken-keeping community, and/or whether interviewees felt that some practices should be permissible in future. And if I do address these topics in my writing, I will not reference specific interviews. • Given the connectedness of social communities, readers (and viewers) of the project’s published materials may be able to decipher the traits of other chicken-keepers in their networks based on turns of phrase, experiences or stories captured in interview quotes, or based on photos, video segments or audio clips used with your permission per the enclosed consent form (even if your identity is otherwise kept confidential with the use of a code name).

Finally, please note that if I am made aware of extreme, wilful negligence in basic animal care (such as hens being denied access to food, water or shelter), I would be morally obligated to report this to an appropriate body (such as Toronto Animal Services).

8. What if I change my mind during or after the study?

You will be able to withdraw from the project for up to two weeks (fourteen days, inclusive of holidays and weekends) following the date of your completed interview. If you decide that you no longer want to take part in the study, I will erase your interview data and delete any supplementary materials you provided (e.g., photos, backyard maps, etc.). You do not have to provide me with a reason for your choice to withdraw.

9. What will happen to the research data during and after the study?

All information related to you and the information you share prior to, during, or after the interview will be kept confidential. If anything you say is referenced or quoted in my published materials, a code name will be used — you’ll have the option of choosing this code name yourself during our interview. I will apply a code name to your hens if I make reference to your birds. Please note that if you consent to audio clips, photos and/or video

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footage being used in my published materials or presentations, those who know you may recognize you, your yard, your voice, and/or your birds.

10. How will the results of the study be used?

I intend to publish the study’s results in a report that will be shared by email with interview participants, the City of Toronto, and Toronto Urban Growers. As well, the research findings will be detailed in my written thesis. Additionally, I would like to present highlights from the study at urban agricultural events and academic conferences. My presentations may include photos, video clips, and/or audio clips (if you have given permission on the enclosed consent form).

11. What if I have questions about this study?

If you have any questions about the study or what you are being asked to do as a participant, please reach out to me:

Stephanie Demetriou Email: [email protected] Phone: 647-802-3910

You may also contact my Supervisor if you have any concerns:

Dr. Sarah Wakefield Email: [email protected]

12. Has this study been approved by the University’s Ethics Committee?

Yes, this study has been approved by the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board. If you have any questions or complaints about the conduct of this study, please contact the Office of Research Ethics at 416-946-3273 or [email protected].

Please note that my research study may be reviewed for quality assurance to make sure that the required laws and guidelines are followed. If chosen, (a) representative(s) of the Human Research Ethics Program (HREP) may access study-related data and/or consent materials as part of the review. All information accessed by the HREP will be upheld to the same level of confidentiality that has been stated above.

If you would like to take part in this research study and you consent to the terms of participation, please review the Consent Form and either (a) return the completed form by email; or (b) simply state in the body of an email message that you understand and consent to the terms of this study. If going with the second option, please indicate in your email message whether you give permission for

149 your photos/audio/video to be used in my project outputs, as per what’s listed on the form.

Consent Form

Project Title: Inside the Urban Coop — Exploring Human-Animal Relations in Backyard Chicken Keeping in Toronto, Ontario

• I confirm that I have read and understand the information sheet provided for this study.

• I confirm that I have considered what is involved with participating in this study. I have had the opportunity to ask questions and am satisfied with any responses that I have received.

• I give permission to the researcher to use the following materials in the study’s direct project outputs (including but not limited to the researcher’s thesis, report(s), and/or study-related presentations):

Photos that I may send to the researcher YES NO Videos that I may send to the researcher YES NO Audio clips from my recorded interview YES NO

Participant’s Name:

Date:

Thank you for agreeing to take part in this study!