I would like to take this opportunity to offer a public apology to the chickens of America.

For some years I have been slandering our feathered friends to the home school audiences of America. I have shared with more than 75,000 people my concern over the rising influence of chickens in the home school movement, and of the wicked example set for our girls by the female of that species. Not content to be hens of the barn, they perpetually cackle, cluck, peck, and pick apart their sister chicks, leaving them bare-fannied and bloody.

When my daughter Jubilee brought to my attention the behavior of our own poultry, I knew something had to be done. The only conclusion I could reach was that Chickens are evil — and not merely evil, but the most nefarious of the barnyard denizens.

I now see that my claims against chickens were over-reaching and misplaced. Though chicken behavior has an appearance of evil, it is a junior varsity evil in comparison to the dastardly deeds of the malevolent llama.

After all, it is one thing to send a sweet egg-collecting homeschool girl running to her daddy in tears after discovering that the Jezebels of the coop have plucked the feathers out of the collective tuchases of their compatriots. But it is another thing all together for a rabbit eared, inedible pack animal to lie in wait, getting its jollies from launching missiles of expectoration on those who mean it no harm.

While chickens may be evil, it is clear to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear that llamas are monomaniacal beady eyed maniacs hell-bent on spewing malodorous bile of the most pungent properties on those innocent passers-by who, out of nothing but sheer courtesy, stop to engage them in friendly conversation.