Well i am going to start telling u that love theminhag of chickens and u want to know why? it is because when i was a little girl my mother used to go to the market and buy chickens for kaparot, we fed them and kept them in the back yard for weeks and guess what I fell in love with the chickens but nevertheless the shochet used to come and made kaparot, I fell bad for the chickens but somehow I always felt cleansed and happy that my sins went to the chicken and not to me. After it got hard to do it, so my mother just called the butcher gave our names the made the shechita without our presence but it is a very strong minhag, and a beautiful one.
And if Hashem didnt want us to eat chicken or meat he would have given us the command in the Torah like everything else. There is not biggest Sedakah than providing food for the poor.