posted on August 25, 2000 10:37:11 PM new
Sorry for the rant - but this is way to much for me - People think that quick fixes and easy answers will save us all from ourselves, no matter if it is Ebay - or politcs - or the rest of the world - and folks it just aint so.
McDonalds caved to animal rights groups and now have "Animal friendly" rules for the eggs that it will buy. The rules will include minimum space requirements and the refusal to buy eggs from facilities that force molt their birds.
Hooray for the chickens you say??
Well, gather round for a second. Molting is a natural process for rest and changing the feather coat. Yes, producers manipulate the process - It is fairly easy to do since all birds are very light sensitive - mostly by turning off the lights and the feed for a short time. The change in light and feed (and yes they are fed for the rest of the time they are in molt) stops the production of eggs. They then are kept out of production and rested for an additional 3 weeks or so.
With molting - birds can produce for 170 weeks or so, and several Lay/Molt/Rest cycles - without molting the bird will produce eggs perhaps 70-75 weeks and then not be economical to continue and that is the end for them.
Hooray for the chicken?
This will mean that the egg industry will have to raise Millions more chickens - and KILL millions more chickens - to satisfy the requirements of McDonalds and the Animal rights activists.
It will also mean the need to build more farms to raise the young birds before production - ("not in my backyard" - it WILL be in SOMEONES backyard) and there will be complaints about flies, smells, and what to do with all the extra manure. (1000 tons of feed is about 1200 tons of manure to get rid of - with the extra moisture)
Just for Reference - a million bird farm will eat about 115 TONS of feed a day. I'll let you all do the math.
posted on August 26, 2000 06:45:13 AM new
Why would anyone want to support the garbage nutrition and landscape blight of the fast-foot chains by eating their lousy crap anyway?
Try asking your local franchise operation manager about the Exploding Flavor Pellets.
posted on August 26, 2000 11:38:25 AM new
Gee I guess my rant about McDonalds is not such a big deal then. I wanted a ham, egg and cheese bagel this morning at 10:30. They said they may not have any because they were getting ready to quit making breakfast. Hu? at 10:30? Since when is 10:30 to late for breakfast?
Why do I keep going back there?
7 months and counting
Edited for spelling
[ edited by tokay99 on Aug 26, 2000 11:39 AM ]
posted on August 26, 2000 01:19:16 PM newWhy do I keep going back there?
Probably some addictive drug they put into the "exploding flavor pellets"...
Nice to see there are some cool heads out there regarding the PETA thing. We have quite a menagerie here (including Charlotte, our Golden Silk spider, who has had 2 - um, litters? and appears to have taken up permanent residence in the camellia), but PETA crosses the line waaay into lunacy. I often wonder if any of these folks have ever actually worked on a farm.
posted on August 26, 2000 05:03:10 PM new
Damn, a careful reader! I'm cracking up too much to fix it. I'll be thinking "toenails" every time I pass one of those joints now, femme.
posted on August 26, 2000 07:49:53 PM new
Actually, PETA had to pull the ad. Apparently they neglected to get the permission of the person whose photo they used. Apparently also they have absolutely NO problem using some human person's misfortune (prostate cancer) to promote their own wacky agenda. So much for sensitivity to one's fellow creatures, eh?
posted on August 26, 2000 10:08:21 PM new
We have chicken farms here where I live. They also take the manure and spread it on the cow pastures so the hay will grow better.
It's been hot as hell.
My 10 year old describes the odor on manure spreading day as "cow poop gone bad". If it doesn't rain (and it hasn't, we're in a drought) the stench lasts about three days.
I comment on the above because that's what what I think of when I think of PETA; Cow poop gone bad.
posted on August 30, 2000 06:15:12 AM new
I just read a an article about this in the September 4 issue of [/b]US News & World Report[/b]. It stated that the space allotted to each hen would increase from an average of 48 square inches, (a bit more than half of a page of 8-1/2 x 11 paper), to 72 square inches, (a bit more than ¾ of a page of 8-1/2 x 11 paper).
Sounds pretty cramped to me. I’m not a farmer, so I don’t know if chickens enjoy being this “cozy”, but the image definitely gives me the heeby-jeebys!
posted on August 30, 2000 02:48:42 PM new
We free-range our chickens - keeps down the mole cricket population - but then we keep our hens until they keel over of their own accord too AND we actually bury them! (which we admit is kinda weird)
My recollection is, however, that people who actually "do" eggs as a business keep their hens maybe a year and a half-2 years if they're good layers - so we're not talking about years in solitary confinement, so to speak. Our hens spend about 3 hours a day on the nest laying anyway...so it's not quite as hideous as it sounds and, I'd submit, not a heckuvalot worse than keeping, say, a canary in a cage (and that's purely for entertainment!).
I wonder what would be an acceptable amount of space per hen? Are we talking completely free-range here, with the opportunity to socialize? Pretty pricey, not to mention there is a reason the term "pecking order" sounds kinda nasty. You should see how our other 2 hens pick on whichever one is "broody". And our girls are very friendly - one likes to be carried to the gate to get the mail and another hangs out with Val when she works on the Mustang - and share half an acre.
posted on August 30, 2000 05:13:17 PM new
Hart Et Al - Thank you all for the discussion. I had gotten so used to the threats from these folks that I was suprised that this thread did not fall into a flaming pit.
To the matter at hand - while some systems do go down to 48 inches - the norm is about 54 inches. And yes, to you and me, it looks awful small. But, one thing is very, VERY, certain. If a bird is sick - it won't lay eggs well - if it is too cramped - they won't lay well (and yes, the term pecking order does come into play) If they are too hot, or too cold, it affects them.
The end result is that if farmers were the cruel and heartless jerks that they are protrayed as being, they would be out of business. It is NOT in their interest to have the birds sick or unhappy (if "Unhappy" is a concept that can be appled to them) overcramped or underfed.
It is a business,- and it is in the farmers interest that they have flocks that churn out eggs with a minimum of fuss and trouble (by the way it is a LOT cheaper to keep them healthy to begin with - treatments are very expensive - and many diseases now have NO TREATMENTS that are legal to use)
Aint that a kick in the head! Yes, we now have animal diseases that have had cures and treatments for decades. But the USA Government has outlawed their use because of health concerns from the theoretical downstream effects. (thanks Bill) If a flock gets say, tapeworms, you must stand there and watch them die. All effective treatments have been outlawed for use in the past 5 to 7 years. Animal rights? Why doesn't PETA ask the Government why farmers cannot treat some of their sick animals anymore - now that is suffering.
So which way do you think the farmers want to go? They want to produce a product and the best way to do that is to make certain that the birds have a certain level of health and comfort.
This PETA idea of farmers as sadists who enjoy the toment of helpless birds makes me ill.
posted on August 30, 2000 05:51:30 PM new
Sorry, but while I have your attention. There is another thing that needs to be cleared up.
Hormones - "Our Chickens are Hormone Free!!" Guess what - all of them are. Hormones have not been used in the broiler industry since NIXON was president. "Our Chickens are Hormone Free!!" is the same as saying "Our Apples are Dolphin Safe!!" It is (or should be a non-issue)
And hormones were never used for egg layers - the simple fact is that you can pump them full of whatever you want - and the most they will lay is one a day - same as without hormones.
posted on August 30, 2000 11:08:32 PM new
Actually, White Hen (RIP), a White Leghorn we rescued from a neighbor's flock where she (White Hen, not the neighbor) was plucked nearly bald by competing roosters, was known to lay TWO eggs in a 24-hour period, and big honkers they were, too - big as duck eggs, double yolks. We figured she was just grateful to have a little peace. She was the ugliest thing you ever saw (she liked to hang out under the Mustang, and always had a streak down her back from rubbing against the underside of the car) and weighed at least 20lbs when she died at the age of 4.
Red Hen, one of our Rhode Island Reds, has also done the 2-egg thing - one enormous double-yolker, and then a little bitty one later on. Weird.
posted on September 2, 2000 06:33:07 PM new
Big egg industries cut the tips of the chickens beaks off and remove one wing with a hot wire (cut and cauterize) when the eggs from the hatchery hatch (gotta have replacement chickens), as soon as it's determined if they are male or female. The males get their necks snapped, and are then thrown into a bushel basket along with the other dead males. I forgot about that Faces of death video I saw when I was 16. Maybe that's why I still eat eggs.......
posted on September 3, 2000 11:25:42 AM new
I understand about the beaking, but why remove a wing? The best our chickens can do in flying competition is 30" off the ground. (Our ducks don't even know they're supposed to be able to fly.)
"Faces of Death" has a chicken segment? Talk about scraping the bottom of the - uh, bushel basket for sensationalism.
posted on September 3, 2000 11:52:50 AM new
I didn't understand about the wing thing either, since they're kept in such tight quarters. I believe it was one of the very first F.O.D.'s made. I think there about a million now. Animals was the "theme." I got so upset, but couldn't not watch. Guess it was a teenage thing, I don't know. I am, by no means, advocating that anyone should watch these videos, just the whole chicken raising thing brought what I saw to mind. I hope I didn't offend anyone.
posted on September 3, 2000 10:02:23 PM new
If I don't feel like cooking for myself in the morning McDonalds is the only choice for me because there is no other place in town that is not full of smokers sucking them down as fast as they can first thing with their coffee. I don't much care how they treat the chickens - they give me a clean place where I won't pay with an asthmatic attack for stepping inside.
posted on September 4, 2000 06:17:41 PM new
I don't think it is the chickens that need our sympathy. Have you ever been inside a corporate hog farm? Animals breed until they die, forced into crates so small they cannot even turn around. Huge abcesses all over them, lots of them the size of basketballs. Abcesses that were caused by lying in their own filth all day long. Hooves gone from being caught in the grate floor. Drinking water that is the equivilant of sewer water. And then there are the fine employees who use the rods that hold the gates to their crates in place to beat the piss out of them because they are too crippled to walk fast enough. This, people, is something that one of the biggest farm production sites in America does. If you want to be concerned about something, worry about this. Heather
edited for an errant comma
[ edited by hcross on Sep 4, 2000 06:21 PM ]
posted on September 5, 2000 08:50:01 AM new
Hi - Just an update.
On the question of wings - the answer is no for chickens needing to be clipped - why bother? - they can't fly ("Chicken Run" - remember) Doesn't happen for layers - period.
I can't speak for others - but perhaps other birds capable of flight might need it. Ducks are raised outdoors and it wouldn't do for them to migrate - But I don't know about clipping an actual wing. Knocking the outside flight feathers off on one side is usually enough to prevent any bird from flying.
McDonalds is 2.5% of the US egg market and there are about 260 million layers in the US. This means that every 70 weeks or so the industry will require an additional 6.2 million birds to be raised and the same number killed to satisfy McD's and the animal rights people. Ironic that they will cause the deaths of millions of additional animals as a result of being "Humane".
And for the comments about hogs - I would ask that the same questions be asked, that I posed above about the birds. It is not in anybody's interest to have animals sick or injured - because they cannot produce well because of it. When you hear stories like this - ask yourself "how is it to a farmers advantage to have sick and injured animals compared to having healthy ones?" But - Then, if you have actually seen this personally - the farmer is an idiot and likely to be bankrupt soon.
Thanks everyone for the continuing replies - I really appreciate the sane discussion.
(couldn't find a larger image)
