Cruel disposal of unwanted chicks?

[EweSheep]

The biggest hurdles are FEED and ROOM to care for the male chicks. Therefore it would not be practical. Past threads have revealed the reality of the doom of these male chicks, it just can not be done for thousands, thousands of male chicks to be raised for meat and no one can afford to feed and house them all. There are alot more city folks than farm folks.

Well, we'll be buying a 'Fry Pan Special,' so there's a bunch of male chicks who will have a glorious life scratching, pecking at bugs in the great outdoors, doing what chickens love to do best...before we whack off their heads and eat them.

What saddens me is not that male chicks are done away with immediately.

I am sad to think of all those potential chicken dinners which could have been donated to a local Food Bank to feed homeless families. If only the government would make it easy (less red tape) for farmers to raise excess meat animals and produce for the hungry! It's absurd how much waste we have in the is country.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If it were profitable to raise the excess chicks for meat, people would do it. But the broilers have a monopoly on that market. There is just no comparison between the amount of meat a broiler chick will put on per pound of feed compared to the non-broilers. And don't think it is only roosters. Excess pullets are treated the same by the hatcheries.

When I process a chicken for my table, I consider the most humane method to be one that is quick and sure. It does not matter how gross or messy it looks to someone else, if it is quick and sure to the chicken, you can't do any better.

I'm not going to say that each and every hatchery is perfect, any more than I'll say every farmer is perfect. You are dealing with human beings and human beings are different. But in general, I feel very comfortable saying that most people that deal with animals for a living do not go out of their way to be cruel to the animals. There are many animal husbandry practices that to a casual outside observer may seem cruel, but if you really know what is involved and what the results are, those practices are not cruel at all.

One practice I'll mention, spaying and neutering cats and dogs. Some people may consider that cruel and inhumane, but I consider it good animal husbandry for a whole lot of situations.

 

[Moonkit]

I think the issue is that the method is imperfect. The videos (and other similar ones) show how some chicks make it through the grinder, still alive, but badly maimed. When the "remains" are cleaned up.. these maimed but still living chicks are thrown into the dumpster and no further care is taken to make sure that they are dead.. leading to what some would consider needless suffering as the chicks surcumb to their injuries.

As for me.. I know that there are simply too born many to insure good care for every one. I take comfort in the fact that, at least for my 10 hens, I know they'll live a much happier life with room with stretch their legs and be chickens. I know that I made a difference for them.

There are organized people out there that want to end all ownership of animals. They like to put out videos vilifying farmers who have livestock to rally the public against animal ownership.. So you must take that sort of video with a great deal of skepticism and thought and double check what you see with an unbiased source.

Think about it. It is not actually that bad. A sharp blow to the head or neck would kill a chick instantly. IF the chicks are indeed going into a grinder, the blades would be whirling really fast. The chick would immediately receive a blow to the head or spine that would kill it. It would be extremely fast.

The makers of that sort of video want you to equate it to yourself being slowly fed into a grinder, one limb at a time. It's not the same thing at all.

I've seen the equipment used to break necks on unhealthy chicks (and probably excess chicks) so I am a bit doubtful about the "grind them up alive" idea. Large poultry farms are all inspected and they all have laws they must follow, and if chicks are really being put through a grinder, it is an approved method of euthanasia.

 

[kidcody]

I also heard this discussion on the radio how chicks (males) go down on a sorting belts and into swirling blades alive! Seems that chickens don't have much animal rights.

 

[comobirder]

I am with Oregon Blues & EweSheep on this one, there is definitely the smell of agenda behind this one. PETA/HSUS/M4A etc have veganism in mind for all of us regardless of our wishes personally. Moving and graphic stories/videos do wonders to bring emotional responses to the fore that could result in action. Unfortunately, there is always unintended consequences to those actions that go far deeper than the immediacy of the emotion.Horse are just one example. The market exerts forces on the producers and, last I heard, you need to be paid for your job. I do use the fry pan special for just that reason, pretty good and decent size in about 7 months. Still leaves a lot of birds that must be dealt with. Probably a good mention about PETA, we all would like to know who footed the bill behind PSAs. This one is Mercy For Animals, another vegan/AR group.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The cockerels need to be dispatched in a humane way, that is likely agreeable to all. But, the reality remains that they much be destroyed. Hundreds of millions, likely B, Billions of pullet chicks are needed for the eggs, world wide. The males, by the hundreds of millions are simply not needed. Male meat birds, like the CX are needed, but not the males of the laying strains.

The remains are used for protein products or used as compost fertilizer. The circle of life goes on. Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

 

[adgcountrygirl]

I agree. There is more waste and excess in this country than in any other. If the government would give us a chance, I'm sure it would find that as Americans, we do care about eachother. Our government and even some citizens make it hard for us to give as much as we would like. (To the point of having to worry about lawsuits!) There are Good Samaritan laws for those of us who come across a medical emergency which are supposed to protect those who help to the best of their abilities. It is a shame they are needed. There are no laws to protect those who are trying to help people in other situations.

Well, we'll be buying a 'Fry Pan Special,' so there's a bunch of male chicks who will have a glorious life scratching, pecking at bugs in the great outdoors, doing what chickens love to do best...before we whack off their heads and eat them.

What saddens me is not that male chicks are done away with immediately.

I am sad to think of all those potential chicken dinners which could have been donated to a local Food Bank to feed homeless families. If only the government would make it easy (less red tape) for farmers to raise excess meat animals and produce for the hungry! It's absurd how much waste we have in the is country.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Well, we'll be buying a 'Fry Pan Special,' so there's a bunch of male chicks who will have a glorious life scratching, pecking at bugs in the great outdoors, doing what chickens love to do best...before we whack off their heads and eat them.

What saddens me is not that male chicks are done away with immediately.

I am sad to think of all those potential chicken dinners which could have been donated to a local Food Bank to feed homeless families. If only the government would make it easy (less red tape) for farmers to raise excess meat animals and produce for the hungry! It's absurd how much waste we have in the is country.

A sentimental thought and admirable enough, but the facts simply fly in the face of it. The reality is that the hundreds of millions of cockerel chicks that are dispatched are of the layer breeds and hybrids. These cockerels simply are not used for meat birds, as the CX or Red Rangers are. There is zero market for hundreds of millions of laying breed cockerels. The enormous feed they would consume in relation to the carcass they produce make them very inefficient to raise for food. The consumer has been conditioned to expect a meat chicken to look and taste like a CX. Sorry.

The "matter" of the dispatched cockerels is used for protein products or as compost. They aren't just "wasted". Dispatch them in a decent fashion? Yes. Totally agree. But I'm afraid there simply is no option to it having to be done.

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[[.........I am sad to think of all those potential chicken dinners which could have been donated to a local Food Bank to feed homeless families. .......]]]]]]]]

I am absolutely certain that if you write a few letters, you can find a hatchery that will donate all the unwanted male chicks you will take if you promise to raise them and donate them to the hungry. And I must say, very generous of you to donate all your time, fencing, money for feed and licensed processing to donate to the food bank.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I'm sure that I'll be stirring up a hornet's nest by saying this, but I always wonder about the folks who say that it is wrong to kill animals because the Bible says "Thou shall not kill". If one took that literally, as so many vegetarians SAY they do, then all they would be eating is leaves... because when you eat the roots of a plant you kill it, when you eat the fruit/seeds of a plant you are killing the embryonic plant. Only the leaves would be fair game because it is possible to remove a certain percentage of them without killing the plant. And even if their motive for being vegetarian is because they believe that animals have feelings while plants do not, research flies in the face of that... indeed, plants do communicate. http://www.pitara.com/discover/eureka/online.asp?story=104 , http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=257558 , http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=257558

It is MY belief that all the plants and animals of the world were put here for us to carefully tend and to utilize to the fullest extent possible.