Dear Friends,
In the first week of October, thousands of young chickens will be trucked from factory farms to be “swung” and slaughtered in an annual ritual called Kaporos (“atonements”) in which the birds are deliberately punished in place of the practitioners. They are deprived of food, water, shelter, mercy and care as they sit cramped in crates on the streets waiting to be painfully swung by their wings as a chant is read: This is my substitute, my atonement. This rooster or hen shall die, but I shall go to a good, long life, and to peace. They are then cut in the throat with a knife, stuffed into filthy killing cones to bleed, then thrown, dead or alive, into trash bags and hauled to a landfill.
Once again this year, a major operation is underway to save as many chickens as can be rescued from the Kaporos ritual in Brooklyn, New York for adoption by loving homes. The skilled, all-volunteer rescue team will provide veterinary and foster care and deliver the chickens to their permanent new homes. The birds will receive the compassionate care they so desperately need.
The total budget for this year’s rescue operation is $15,000.
United Poultry Concerns, through our Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos, has donated $12,000 for this project. We need to raise an additional $3,000 to meet the goal of $15,000.
Please give what you can to help these chickens find peace and happiness in their new homes.
The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos is a project of United Poultry Concerns. Formed in New York City in June 2010, the Alliance is an association of groups and individuals who seek to replace the use of chickens in Kaporos ceremonies with money or other non-animal symbols of atonement. The Alliance does not oppose Kaporos per se, only the cruel and unnecessary use of chickens in the ceremony.
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