The literature and the images on PETA’s website about the deplorable way chickens suffer are beyond disturbing. The depraved details need not be retold: suffice it to say, it should come as no shock to learn Heinrich Himmler was once a chicken farmer. But today, even lucky chickens under the best conditions have a dull existence idling on a free range under the heavy surveillance of their executioner. Comparatively, free range is good, but we all know there’s more to life than mobility. Chickens need more. There’s a new, upscale market of pampered chickens waiting to be exploited.

In the future, allowing chickens merely free range outside will be considered a moral violation. Chickens will receive more and more perks until finally progressives will only buy eggs produced by chickens that have been on guided tours throughout Europe. This is undoubtedly more humane than any free range. How do you keep ‘em down on the farm after seeing Paree? Making nests and bathing in dust, those splendours of the free range, doesn’t hold up to gazing dreamily at the Tuscan countryside. Only after such pampering is the chicken ready for execution.  Eating what we kill is humane, so long as it’s taken to Italy first.  A dozen eggs will cost only $45.

This will change when progressives complain that only rich chickens who win the genetic lottery enjoy the privilege of travel. Meanwhile, lower class chickens languish in squalid, free-range ghettoes. Thankfully, they’ll point out, a full life does not require a huge purse.

These progressives will buy chickens that have been spiritually nurtured by enlightened farmers in ways that are inherently accessible. Each chicken will be personally named and fed by hand. If they’re lonely, farmers will curl up and cuddle. Paperback editions of world classics can commonly be found for under $5. Like children, chickens will love being read to. Movie projectors will screen classic cinema on the side of barns. Even if the deeper meaning is less than fully grasped, chickens will feel cared for. In other words, conscious consumerism will expand the definition of free range to include nurturing the chicken’s mind, body and soul. This is a free range.

Then, after farmers have ensured that every chicken has had a pleasant life on the road to self-actualization, they’ll kill them in their sleep and sell their bodies.