MACHIPONGO, Va., February 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The so-called “sport” of chicken roping involves bullying helpless hens and roosters for rodeo-style entertainment in some Wyoming towns.
According to a January the 21st article in Wyoming Life/News“It’s just like roping a calf. . . . They pull a chicken out of a little pen and they tie it up . . . Someone throws a rope around its neck and someone [else] try to grab one of the feet.”
This article features a bar called Dewey’s Place in Moorcroft, Wyoming where the “roping” chicken would be in its 9th year. This year’s event is scheduled for Saturday February 18.
Imagine tall men in cowboy robes harassing and tying ropes around the necks and legs of subdued fearful and bewildered little birds amid the yelps of a crowd of bars.
To our investigation of the “headers” and “heelers” cited in the article, Eric Mills of Action for Animals, a Oakland, California-organization based on rodeo reforms, explained, “It’s a rodeo talk for the team stringing event involving a steer and two mounted cowboys. . Then they pull in opposite directions, stretching the Chickens are obviously not made for this senseless activity.
While no animal, regardless of size, is built to be pulled “in opposite directions”, it is particularly obscene to pull in “opposite directions” a small creature weighing just a few pounds.
“For chickens at the boot level of these ‘ropers,’ it’s as if one of us is towered over by a tall tree or building in terms of proportionate sizes,” says Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns. “Imagine how scared and helpless we would be and feel in similar circumstances.”
“Chicken lassoing,” says Davis, “is an act of pure intimidation, with the inevitability of injury and death to victims inherent in the activity. The trauma inflicted on the chicken may not even manifest itself until that has After the event. A hen or a rooster doesn’t stand a chance against a towering, controlling human being determined to submit.”
United Poultry Concerns is calling for an end to the ‘roping’ of chickens. The activity, by its very nature, is inhuman and petty. Any self-respecting community will develop better ways to entertain themselves than by tying up chickens.
United Poultry Concerns is a non-profit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of chickens and other domestic birds. For more information visit http://www.upc-online.org.
SOURCE United Poultry Concerns
