By Nancy Thomson

Most of us are familiar with the story of the enterprising Little Red Hen. She toiled to grow the wheat, combined the ingredients, kneaded the whole thing and put it into the oven. 

 It came out a loaf of bread. Our feathered friend had also built herself a neat little house in which the bread could be baked. Working long hours Red Hen made lots of bread to sell at a profit that helped pay for other necessities, and for her chicken medical care.

There were many different kinds of non-feathered animals in the woods surrounding Red Hen's house. Many of them weren't involved in any enterprises and so lacked the possessions of the lady in the hen house.

Since these other beasts usually spent the day together doing nothing, they were used to acting in concert. They all smelled the fresh bread at the same time and marched, or crawled, to the source of the smell, Little Red Hen's house. "We haven't done anything about dinner," the animal spokesman said. "That is why we have come to eat at your house." "What is more, if some of us eat too much and wind up with a stomach ache, we want you to pay our doctor bills"

Another animal liked the hen house (something no one had constructed in his neighborhood) and suggested moving in with Red Hen. If there wasn't enough room for the hundreds of woodland creatures, their present and proposed children in the hen house, that is ok the furry creature said. "Profits from selling the excess loaves of bread could be put to building houses for all the woodland animals and their progeny."

Some of the other barn yard personnel liked having the immigrating furry creatures come to their area. These newcomers would run errands for the cows, pigs and horses because they were constrained by fences. It wasn't long though before the horses and their counterparts had to move to greener pastures. "Woodlander's" returned to the forest on visits and told the wonders of barnyard life. Immediately their forest friends packed up whatever and also headed for the new environment.

This increasing influx made the horses, cows, and donkeys lives miserable because grazing fields were becoming smaller and smaller with each wave of furry newcomers. Where to go now!

Meanwhile, Little Red Hen was having a terrible time scratching out a living. The wheat fields, needed for making bread had almost disappeared and they were being replaced with rows of animal housing. Little Hen's health care plan had been replaced with furry instead of fowl medical programs. A new regional barnyard council declared the whole farm a "democracy" thus establishing mob rule. New edictes were introduced that gave special privileges to creatures covered with fur. This huge majority of furry things kept raising Little Hen's bread contributions while lowering her ability to produce. She had stopped producing eggs a long time ago because eking out a living took full time.

Some roosters and other hens tried to come to her aid, but the new majority complained about being woken up so early in the morning by loud noises. The roosters and their culture had to go.

Troubles began arising. Usually abundant sources of water and food started to disappear. It was an unrecognized ideological problem. The fowl society had a reason for its establishment many years ago. In the distant past, the fowl community resided on a different farm. While they were fed, the independent members of the barnyard wanted freedom from a tyrannical farmer who was always telling them what to do. They winged it over to a new open area where they had to start over from scratch. Freedom, not having better accommodations or earning more feed was their motive.

The furry creatures, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to better themselves by (pardon the expression) piggybacking on an established fowl society. Little Red Hen's world, whose basis depended upon freedom and a republic barnyard turned into a welfare farm. Bread production was way behind schedule. Furry creatures taking free bread far-outnumbered Little Red Hen's ability to provide it. Open spaces had disappeared, no water, and hardly any room to stroll due to all the creature's dwellings piled one upon another.

Eventually, the Little Red Hen dropped from exhaustion. The former eggs (that had turned into productive workers) like the other hens and roosters were no more. The fowl republic's infrastructure and pecking order of law became a lawless barnyard farm.

Conditions became so bad one of the furry bureaucrats declared," this is worse then the place we left." In the forest there was wood, holes in the ground to make houses, and streams for water. We had the same things as the barnyard. It only took freedom from the bully large creatures and ingenuity to produce the same results. Time has passed by for arranging our own habitats and now by piling into this fowl situation we have lost everything.

Alas, too late the furry animals realized they had killed Little Red Hen who had laid the golden eggs.