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Originally Posted by
Achickenwrangler#1 
Wouldn't it just be awful if you get rid of all your birds and somebody next to you gets chickens... I gather mom and pop made a huge mistake by going into real estate by selling off acres, oh well, I bet they are making more money doing that than raising a few chickens for Tyson. Nope. Still don't believe it, something else is going on, what are they not telling you, I smell a rat.
I would guess you may be right... the Tyson farmers may have forgotten the details of their own contract prior to the sale of the 40 acres. In the documentary Food, Inc. it didn't sound like Tyson chicken farmers make a lot of money - it sounded like expenses could be almost as high as the income, but once they've taken on the loans to build the Tyson regulated barns, they are stuck having to continue farming for Tyson or risk losing everything.
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Originally Posted by
mgarrett 
Tyson is a very powerful company that sadly can do a lot of things that don't seem fair at all. Watch the documentary Food, Inc. (it's on Netflix) if you want to see some of the sad truths about this terrible company. Regardless of your personal opinions about the documentary, it really does shed some light on the manipulative and terrible behaviors this company has. I would be careful dealing with a Tyson owned farm honestly because they're known to hold people (even small farms) up in litigation for years and run them dry of money. I know that sounds a little extreme, just be careful! If they say it, they probably mean business.
That documentary, Food, Inc. and how Tyson treats the chickens and their own chicken farmers is THE primary reason we decided to get backyard chickens in the first place. We don't eat as much chicken any more. We decided it would be nice to eat the eggs of a well-cared for backyard flock. Seeing those chickens in the barn, seeing how tightly crowded they are and watching how high the filth is that they are walking in, was very disturbing. How scared those Tyson chicken farmers were to show what really happens in a Tyson barn was equally disturbing. After seeing that film, I could not get those images out of my head. I don't know, but I would guess it is the Tyson chicken farmer who is more at risk for losing everything than their surrounding neighbors (unless there was a clause written into the sale agreement that the buyers didn't realize was there). Tyson may just pull the contract from the Tyson farmer.
The other part of that film that was very disturbing was the egg farms - how they send all the male chicks down that processing line to be shredded. Simply terrible!
I feel so bad for both parties in this situation.