Being a card-carrying socialist was always a problem in the US. So
when my passion for equality reached its peak in 1978, I dropped out of
university and set off for one of the few truly communist communities
that would accept me: a kibbutz in Israel.
I'd read a lot about kibbutz and was fired up about it. "To each
according to his need, from each according to his ability." True social
and economic equality. And communal showers too, which was an added
benefit when I was 20.
I arrived at the kibbutz, filled with the arrogance of youth and the
ideals of the naive, ready to reclaim the desert and, through industry
and resolve, build a brave new future. Oy vey.
Let's leave aside the politics and the religion. And the food - oh, boy,
let's really leave that aside. Let's concentrate on the hard labour.
The kibbutz I worked on had cotton fields, where the workers drove big
tractors. It had fish ponds, where gleaming fish leapt in the cold
water. And it also had turkey coops.
Yes, the turkey coops - 100-metre long sheds filled with thousands and
thousands of God's dumbest animals. Big, white, dirty birds in closed
huts that, after they had been in there a few weeks, had an atmosphere
that contained one part oxygen for every 30 parts ammonia and 300 parts
turkey shit.
And this wasn't just any turkey coop. Our particular farm didn't raise
turkeys just for slaughter. Our coops - at least the ones I worked in -
were filled with hens. Across the way was another coop filled with male
turkeys. You can see it coming, can't you?
Turkeys used in farm production today are bred for their breast
meat.
They aren't much good anymore at doing normal things, like flying, or
running, or ... copulating.
Which means that to get fertilised eggs, you can't just let the males -
the cocks, so to speak - run amok among the hens. If they did manage to
waddle fast enough to catch one, they'd leap on her back and, given
their weight, break it. Quite simply, farm turkeys can't, well, make
love.
Yes, it's coming. Do you really want to read on?
Our farm produced fertilised eggs. To do this, we had to collect sperm
from the cocks and then artificially inseminate the hens. Thousands of
them - 8,000 actually - per flock. Twice a week.
Yes, I admit it. My first job was that of a professional turkey f!
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