Fashion Fad Is Fatal to Roosters
Rooster feathers look best on their rightful owners, but some salons are now weaving them into customers’ hair as an “accessory.” To obtain the feathers (which are traditionally used as fishing lures), roosters are typically confined for 30 weeks—the majority of their short lives—in tiny, stacked cages inside deafeningly loud barns before they are killed and skinned.
The owner of Whiting Farms in Delta, Colorado—one of the largest feather farms in the U.S.—described the cruel conditions in which he keeps roosters:
[We’re] sentencing [each rooster] to a solitary cage for the last 6 months, with nothing to look at or listen to other than lots of other confined roosters … [y]our sentiments can quickly shift from wanting to evaluate their necks to wringing [t]hem. Some of my most sheepish moments in life have been after hurling an especially bad rooster across the barn in utter frustration ….
Just like minks who are killed for coats and snakes who are skinned for shoes, roosters suffer when they are exploited for human vanity and profit. Please help them by telling your friends why wearing rooster feathers is cruel, not cool, and always choosing animal-free clothing and accessories.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
