YOU EAT REAL CHICKENS? ARE YOU INSANE??

[ChickenManTN]

I killed the first two roosters from my flock yesterday and the reactions from people upon hearing this have been amazing! First they snarl and wrinkle their noses, then they say "really?!" ...as if they can't believe that I would eat a real chicken, one that had been alive!!! One lady was actually afraid that I would get sick! Two people tried to buy them before I killed them, to save their lives. All of these people eat chicken!!! Has the whole world gone crazy? They don't seem to realize that chicken comes from chickens, and they don't seem to mind that the stuff they eat was messily mechanically gutted and soaked in a vat of fecal soup with 500 other mechanically gutted carcasses and absorbed 20% of its body weight from that fecal soup.

They seem appalled that I would eat a chicken that I raised! They would rather some invisible stranger raise them in an invisible place and deliver them in a box, neatly wrapped in buttermilk batter, no questions asked. Has the whole world gone crazy? Are you guys getting this reaction from people as well, or is it only me?

 

[kelck22]

I think anyone that can't kill for their meat should be a vegetarian.

 

[Triple Willow]

I regretfully testify before the court that the statements I made shall not be admissible in this case as they all may be considered "hearsay." Had I been under oath I would have more thoroughly researched to determine the validity of the statements, but not having been part of any commercial chicken processing operation myself, any statement that I were to make would still have been considered hearsay, and thus, inadmissible in this court.

With that consideration, the source of the information has not been properly documented as I did not know that my statements would be so closely scrutinized. Most of my information regarding the processing of chicken and other meats has come from articles and documentaries concerning the American food industry, and directly from a friend and coworker who worked for sixteen years as a butcher in a commercial processing facility. If he were to appear before this court his testimony would be completely admissible, but I doubt that it would be believed anyway, considering the nature of some of the responses that I have read.

If I were to launch an exhaustive research and evidence comparison for every statement that I hear or read, I would not be able to hear or read very much of anything. I would still be on page one of that book that gave me the (probably bogus) 20% figure mentioned in the original post. By the way, in retrospect, I do feel quite gullible and embarrassed for believing that detail, considering the significance that 20% actually represents. I'm not going to experiment on this one, because it is easier to change my position and not believe it anymore, but I seriously doubt that soaking a four pound bird in water would yield a five pound bird. If we are going to be so particular about the details, I will not openly state that the suggestion is false, as I have not proven it to be false. I will simply state that I no longer believe it to be true.

May we please adjourn the court now?

With so much drama in the BYC, it's kinda hard being ChickenManTN.

Some of those reactions made me wonder if Tyson and Perdue have PR staff poking around BYC. 

I don't doubt that last statement at all.

Having personally worked at one of those commercial processing facilities, let me be your eye witness. Of course I am sure that most people won't believe me either but whatever, people believe what they want to. Your statement about the fecal soup bath, 20% water weight gain and 500 birds in a vat is not that far fetched.

First off, yes there is fecal residue in the vat (actually two HUGE stainless steel chillers - a pre-chiller and a second chiller) which have huge paddles that push the birds through the cold water of the first chiller into the next chiller then out on a conveyor where they are re-hung on a conveyor drip line to remove some of the water they absorbed. Government inspectors take a sample of those birds just before they enter the first chiller, weight them and tag them with a number. I forgot how long they are in the chillers, over an hour. When the birds come out of the second chiller workers set aside the tagged birds and the government inspector weighs them again to see how much water weight they have gained. The longer they are in the water the more weight they gain so it is all closely timed. Of course they want the birds cold and weight gain of any kind equals dollars. I can't remember the rules on percentage of water gain that was allowed but there is water weight gained from water that YES has some fecal contamination in it. Where did that fecal contamination come from you ask? It happens all the time during processing. Those birds are ran past employees and inspectors so fast that it is impossible to see and deal with it all so some does get by them. Somewhere aroud 35 birds PER MINUTE are inspected inside and out for contamination, disease and any kind of mutilation (tears, bruising, etc). Even if the employees and inspectors are really paying close attention it is humanly impossible to catch everything. (And have you ever seen anybody half-way do their job? Reckon that ever happens?) Yes they have machines that wash the birds (with chlorine) past the point of inspection but those machines do not get 100% of the contamination out either. So, say... 9 inspection stations running at one time at approximately 35 birds per minute, that's over 300 birds dropping into the first chiller per minute for their communal bath. They stay in there over an hour so, that's over 18,000 chickens in the chillers (vats) at one time. But it gets better than that... that SAME WATER is used all day long AND it is used for the second shift at the processing plant - so 16-18 hours of 300 birds per minute dropping in those chillers and depending on the size of the plant and how many chickens they are running, the chillers might be bigger and have even more birds dropping in per minute. I remember one plant that had a chiller room bigger than my house. You would have to climb to the top of at least a 10 foot ladder to look down inside the chillers. The company knows that contamination is missed so what is their backup plan? Chlorine. The percent chlorine in the chillers has to be monitored by inspectors too and yep it does get too high at times. I believe chlorine is used in all the water throughout the processing plant. Sometimes there is so much chlorine in the water that you can taste it in the air.

So no, what ChickenMan said is not really too far off base at all.

 

[Beekissed]

I killed the first two roosters from my flock yesterday and the reactions from people upon hearing this have been amazing! First they snarl and wrinkle their noses, then they say "really?!" ...as if they can't believe that I would eat a real chicken, one that had been alive!!! One lady was actually afraid that I would get sick! Two people tried to buy them before I killed them, to save their lives. All of these people eat chicken!!! Has the whole world gone crazy? They don't seem to realize that chicken comes from chickens, and they don't seem to mind that the stuff they eat was messily mechanically gutted and soaked in a vat of fecal soup with 500 other mechanically gutted carcasses and absorbed 20% of its body weight from that fecal soup.

They seem appalled that I would eat a chicken that I raised! They would rather some invisible stranger raise them in an invisible place and deliver them in a box, neatly wrapped in buttermilk batter, no questions asked. Has the whole world gone crazy? Are you guys getting this reaction from people as well, or is it only me?

I could write pages about this phenomenon and my rantings about it. Like you I am completely baffled and left thinking the world has turned upside down or we are now living in an alternative universe. It's just been in the past 10-15 yrs that this prevalent attitude has arisen and in just the past 5 has reached sand paper on my raw nerves proportions. It's almost as if all people have watched the same TV program or read the same website~because I know they don't read books any longer~and are speaking from a carefully memorized script when they say the things they say when they find out you kill your own animals and eat them. It's definitely weird that that many people say the exact same thing when presented with this fact...is there some drug in the water that causes all of them to use the same phrasing, facial expressions and also the same excuses for why they still eat meat~ the meat that has had the most cruel life and death of all? Or do they think that meat they are eating just died peacefully of old age at the chicken retirement home at Sunny Acres after a long, sweet life playing in the grass?

Yes, it is because so many say they are too "soft hearted" to do that or they could "never do that" that I too question their right to eat meat. Anyone with that level of hypocrisy shouldn't be allowed to taste meat, dairy or eggs out of sheer principle. If they were vegan I wouldn't even question their saying what they could never do or are too soft hearted to do, but when they heartlessly chow down on commercially raised meats and animal products, not giving a flying fling about the conditions in which those animals were raised and how they died, then have the audacity, the sheer unmitigated gall to question the level of compassion in my heart because I kill my own food animals, that I feel the need to rip that chicken wing out of their teeth and yank them down from their soft seat on that high, high horse, drag them by their heels into a broiler house and roll them around in the dead chickens in the litter there until they come to their senses.

There, ChickenMan, I'll face that firing squad along with you. No, you aren't alone and yes, the world has gone crazy.

 

[ChickenJerk]

They don't seem to realize that chicken comes from chickens, and they don't seem to mind that the stuff they eat was messily mechanically gutted and soaked in a vat of fecal soup with 500 other mechanically gutted carcasses and absorbed 20% of its body weight from that fecal soup.

This statement is just as crazy as what the other seriously misinformed people said.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

They don't seem to realize that chicken comes from chickens, and they don't seem to mind that the stuff they eat was messily mechanically gutted and soaked in a vat of fecal soup with 500 other mechanically gutted carcasses and absorbed 20% of its body weight from that fecal soup.

This statement is just as crazy as what the other seriously misinformed people said.

Agree with ChickenJerk above. There are lots of reasons to be unhappy with the state of large slaughterhouses, but what is described in the quote above is seriously misinformed. Sounds like someone's been reading PETA propaganda, honestly.

 

[davemonkey]

So why would you put it forth as fact? It harms your argument to use such obvious propaganda, no matter which side you're on.

That also means that everything else you say in your post is automatically suspect, since you start with a false "fact." Citations/sources for everything you've posted would be helpful.

I don't think his OP is harmed in any way by his exaggerations. It's pretty obvious he was using hyperbole and wan't out to establish an argument for debate.

OP, you have my sympathies and I had a good laugh at your opening post. We get similar reactions from friends when we tell them we raise chickens...to EAT. Some folks simply don't know where their food comes from, and some can't imagine having an animal that isn't a "pet".

Hyperbole: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

 

[fosterson]

I killed the first two roosters from my flock yesterday and the reactions from people upon hearing this have been amazing! First they snarl and wrinkle their noses, then they say "really?!" ...as if they can't believe that I would eat a real chicken, one that had been alive!!!

I don't eat fake vegetables. Why would I eat fake meat?

Seriously, though, I feel your pain. I had to cull one of my first birds because she was getting cannibalistic - and I had a friend from back in the big city calling no kill shelters to try and get a 'good home' for her. Nastiest hen I ever met!

She was delicious.

 

[Peplers chicks]

People today grows up in such a fast and narrow life, in such a protected invironment, I think if they were taken away and suddenly have to live on a piece of ground where there is absolutely nothing, except something like Noah and the arc, they will all die. People dont really think what they eat, and where it comes from, the naked truth will cripple them all psycological if they have to live around slaughter houses. My kids were 4 years old when I started train them to help hold the calf or chicken steady to cut the neck. And this is the brutal truth, wake up people

 

[appps]

People have been brainwashed by marketing and corporate America in general to believe that food in stores is sanitary and safe, while homemade anything is dirty, unsafe and to be suspected. It is hard to change that. I have given people eggs and had them ask me if they can be eaten. I have a sharp, sarcastic tongue, so I have been known to say, "No, actually, the eggs you get in the stores have been specially treated with a secret method that is known only to the people who have the recipe for Coca Cola, so I am just giving them to you as decoration. Don't eat them!"

It is not their fault. They are the victims of several generations of carpet bombing market. They have been told that food only comes from a store their entire lives, and when they come across someone who challenges that belief, they may react badly.

Yeah I dont actually agree. When was the last time you actually saw advertising aimed at making us believe processed food was better than natural? Rather big corporations say natural is best, push how great and important it is to eat natural and then try and convince us that they, somehow in a way that defies all reason, fit within that natural category

.

To be perfectly honest I think Corporate America is less to blame and Disney should be held accountable

. Go back 100 years and rabbits and chickens and cows and sheep were simply another form of produce. Mindless animals to be eaten with no thought to their well being other than to keep them healthy enough to eat.
Fast forward to the age of TV and Movies and suddenly the same bunnies and chickens and cows and sheeps are living talking animals with personalities and feelings. We have grown up crying when they are hurt, feeling angry at the evil humans who want to eat or kill them and awarding them human emotions and thoughts. And then you go up to someone who has grown up with that and say "Im going to chop this chickens head off and eat it" and wonder why you get that reaction LOL

Suddenly without them even probably realising they are doing it, they have put you in the same class as the bad farmer in "Chicken Run" who killed those poor little chickens that didnt keep laying. its so much easier to eat meat when you have distanced yourself from the reality that it came from the killing of an animal when you pick up a polystyrene tray than when confrounted by a dead chicken staring at you accusingly with those lifeless eyes. Just like smokers turn off the little voice saying its bad for them, we turn off the little voice saying you are eating a dead animal killed just so you could have chicken-pot-pie. So yeah you get surprised and shocked reactions because you have made them suddenly think about something they try so hard not to think about. Doesnt make them stupid or idiotic or any of the other things through this thread. It just makes them normal people brainwashed by a lifetime of Disney movies.

So yeah, my thought is less big business and more Good old Walt Disney has a lot to answer for