Free Range Downtown Dalian Feral Chickens and The Truth About Downtown Farming in China

solarguy (68)in #life • 5 years ago (edited)

It’s not such an unusual site in big cities in China but still I find it interesting after all these years.

I was walking home from work today when I stumbled upon this adolescent chicken chirping away and pecking at little specks too small for me to see. It still had the high pitch, cute chirp that just says I’m defenseless love me. Rather the clucking sound they get once they mature.

Pet chicken are not uncommon in China, even I tried it back in 2005. I bought 2 chicks an old lady was selling on the sidewalk. Curse my impulsive purchasing habit. I kept them for a few weeks then ended up giving them away to a friend’s father since I left China soon after. I never found out what happened to them. That was in the days before Facebook, WeChat, and E-mail wasn’t popular in China back then (still isn’t today).

Anyways, Chinese people in Dalian really like urban farming. Any open space they can get their hands will grow food. Dalian is a rather young city in Chinese terms, so many people here were farmers before it really started to develop in the 1990s. A lot of farmland got bought up to build this beautiful city I call home. You can take the farmer out of the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the farmer.I coined that phrase a bunch of years ago, I think. I might have mentioned in past posts on Steemit.

Like me, they chose an unsuitable pet but were taken away by the cuteness of a little chick. I was a bit luckier and found someone to take care of them while many others just out them outside to fend for themselves. I think based on the cleanliness of this one’s conditions he was released.

(It's not headless, just getting a chicken to stand for a moment, it is like pulling teeth from a child).

I wish there had been a shop nearby for me to buy some bread to feed it. I remember a couple months ago I ran into a couple of people who found a chick about the same size and they rescued it and sent to one of their family members farm. I was very impressed.

I guess the point is we all want to provide for ourselves in whatever way we can. Many of us also want to provide for others as much we can, so long as we don’t suffer too much from it.