How One Student and the Chicken She Saved Are Changing the World

When 16-year-old Whitney Hillman snuck out of class with a chicken tucked under her arm, she knew she was saving Chicklett's life, but had no idea the impact it would have on her own life, or other people and chickens around the world.

In the five weeks in between naming Chicklett in her high school Animal Sciences class and the day she was supposed to slaughter him, they had bonded. She hadn't given much thought to how chickens are treated before she got to know one. "I hate to say this," Whitney admits," but before this, we were the ones going up to McDonald's and getting 5o-piece chicken nuggets. But we haven't touched meat since Chicklett." Now, she's "hyper aware," from keeping an eye out for stray chickens in her community to advocating against cruelty in animal agriculture.

It hasn't been an easy message for her peers to swallow. Students started teasing her and showing up in "Eat More Chicken" t-shirts. But losing a few friends along the way wasn't enough to deter her; the big picture of the horrible way chickens are treated was too important.

Whitney has gained a lot of friends, too — including over 1,700 of them on Facebook. She's been interviewed by local media and Wild Time Radio in the U.K. Her story has been picked up by several animal groups, like PETA and United Poultry Concerns, and she and her mom, who has supported her the whole way, are becoming regulars on animal protection forums and blogs. There are rumors of a possible documentary in the works.

She didn't save Chicklett to get attention, or even as a statement against eating chicken. She simply came to the realization that what our society does to animals, particularly in food production, is wrong. "If they had been dogs, we could have been arrested," she told Wild Time Radio.

Whitney's simple act of compassion for an animal she grew to love has helped people see chickens as individuals, not the mass-produced commodities that the industry would like you to see. She'd like to keep educating others by speaking to students and starting an animal abuse awareness group in her own school.

How is Chicklett faring with his new celebrity? Whitney knows that broiler chickens are bred to grow faster than their bodies can handle, but she's done a lot of research, and with a free range life and proper diet, there's hope he'll do okay. For now, Chicklett is getting extra attention — he's fitting in with the other chickens on the farm, even though he can't run as fast as them, and he has his own pen to keep him safe from predators at night.

Let's not forget this all started in a classroom. Parents who normally have to sign permission slips for historical movies with an R-rating weren't notified that their kids were going to be slaughtering animals, and the kids weren't given a choice. Whitney says, "I asked millions of times: Can I do something else? I can't do this." Mr. Hamilton repeatedly told her the project was a requirement and her chicken had to die.

The school has continued to defend the project as a worthwhile experience to make food production "real." Mr. Hamilton "kept saying he'd much rather eat one of these chickens than one raised by Tyson," Whitney said. "But I really didn't see much difference." If this were about humane husbandry, the chicks wouldn't have been bought from the cruel broiler chicken industry and the kids would have been taught to respect the animals rather than seeing them as things to "process." Instead, the chickens were kept indoors, five or six to a cage with about a square foot of living space.

Whitney's mom, Kristina Frost, commented on my previous post about how she's still waiting for answers from the school on what gave them the right to teach kids proper killing techniques without parental consent. "My daughter does not have to kill anything because you require it."

Tell Unified District 333 to ban slaughter from the curriculum. Students should be taught compassion, not killing, in the classroom. They should be learning to be more like Whitney.

Photo: Whitney and Chicklett Hillman