42-day wonders

[Bossroo]

Thank you for the replies. So, what you are saying is basically very similar handling to the big boys, only on a small scale. What I saw the other day made my blood boil ! Some people just don't get it. Definatly not good advertising for any chicken raiser, much less for the free range operator. I was driving home on Hwy 99 in Central Cal. ( becomes I 5 about 125 miles N of here) mid afternoon. It had been raining all day, thunder, lightning, hail at times, very COLD. I was on fumes for fuel so I was pulling into a gas station just as this newer, red, 3/4 ton pick up truck was pulling out from the gas pumps. On it's side was a sign XXX Free Range Chickens. In the open bed was rows of what I would describe as beat up, old, wire turkey cages stacked 3 high and tied down with rope higher than the cab. In them were jam packed and I mean PACKED chickens. Soaked to the skin, legs, wings, and heads sticking out of the cages. The nearest processor, that I know of, is probably 50 miles farther North just off of Hwy 99. I wonder how many made it to their destination alive. Just not my idea of treating any animal humanely.

 

[greyfields]

It'd have to sell about 30 chickens to make enough money to buy one crate. It's sad to say, but there is no way to raise chickens with 5 star accomodations without quickly bankrupting yourself. Americans are addicted to $0.99/lb chicken and it makes it impossible for us small processors to charge what it actually costs us to raise broilers. It's simply done for the love of good chicken for our own tables.

 

[Bossroo]

Speaking of bankrupting oneself. The commercial operations don't allow visitors. Any vendor, Vet, etc. has to disinfect their vehicle tires, take a shower, wear disposale coveralls and masks, and walk through disinfectant foot vats with rubber boots on before entering the production buildings. Also cary out a rigorous pest control program. Not even to mention temperature and air quality control. One bug and they are out of business or at the very least NO PROFIT. At the Vet School that I worked at, we had to do that every time we went to any poultry building, different area or room in it, or between pens. We were not allowed to own any type of bird period, or visit any poultry farm. How many of you allow anyone off the street, be they visitors or customers, to your buildings, pens or pastures and simmilarly do you go to someone else's faclities without taking similar or any type precausions?

 

[mikarod]

Quote:
Wonder which processors those are? Must be the horrible ones that animal rights groups use because even in their videos, the birds are stunned prior to slitting. Head removal is done after scalding at Tyson and at George's.

Each bird is put onto a shackle and kept calm until they are stunned in electrified water (enough to stun, but low enough to keep the muscles from contracting and from causing petechial hemorrhage in the breast). The birds are then sent through an AUTOMATED slicer which will slit the jugular and coratid. If one bird is missed by the slicer, then the "backup" is waiting next. The backup is a HUMAN that checks each and ever bird and will slit the birds that the machine missed. Then the birds are sent through the scalder. Then the birds are plucked by a machine that has rubber fingers. Then the heads are removed.

 

[greyfields]

Yes. I allow visitors to come see our chickens. They are behind the poultry netting, so it's not direct contact. Part of being a small producer, we want to remove the 'anonymity' our current food system provides. Most my customers want to see the conditions in which their food was raised.

I will say that when we get our annual egg inspection, the inspectors aren't allowed to come anywhere near our actual chickens. They just check the fridge temperatures then I tell them how many chickens I have and he always wants to know what breeds. He then just looks at them from a distance and says "yes, those rae chickens".

I guess it's a risk versus reward thing. If I lost all my flocks, I'd be very saddened. But, at the same time, it's not like I'm sitting on thousands of dollars either. My typical crops of broilers are only 50 or 100, so unless it were to occur a the 9th week I'd probably be OK. It would be impossible to replace my beloved geese... yet, it wouldn't bankrupt me either.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I let people visit my farm as well. The only people that get treated different on our tours are the ones that actually raise poultry themselves. About 98% of the people do not raise poultry. For the remaining 2% of the people that do raise or come into contact with poultry are asked to wear slip-ons over their shoes. They are also aked to wear clean clothes that were not in contact with their birds.

It's not a fool proof method but it does help. Like stated, birds...crates....pens.... ect... are expensive and to keep everything running smooth standards need to be set in place.

We aren't the extreme of a commercial operation but they have to be. The way they confine their birds makes them very easy targets for disease. What normal chickens can fight off.... these can't.

As far as the processing plant goes. The one I visited stunned the bird as well, and the machines that did cut the neck didn't take the head completely off. The head wasn't taken off until the end.

 

[greyfields]

I haven't seen the stunning myself so it's good information then. Learn something new everyday.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Some birds don't get stunned though and if they are consious they mis the "cutting of neck" part and go through the scald live. They come out deformed and discolored. Still it's a poor set-up, the birds go through too fast to quality check the birds. But that's what make raising your own all that more valuble....

 

[mikarod]

I believe this is good information from a scientific database that will help in confusion:
http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/b1156-w.html

That being said, I do not deny that out of the hundreds of thousands of birds that are processed each day, that no bird is left alive. Again, that being said, a GOOD company will not allow this to happen as that carcass will be downgraded making it worth less money. A good operation that intends to make money, will not allow birds to enter the scalding tank without bleeding out.

The length of time between the scalding tank and the slitting machine is based on the average time that it takes for the bird to be rendered dead. It is based on studies. A live bird will continue breathing and will allow the scald water into it's respiratory system (yet another way to tell that the heads remain on during the processing and that only the arteries and veins in the neck are slit).

A red carcass is caused by a bird that is "alive" when it enters the tank, however that bird is only alive because it has not bled out in the time between the slitter and the scalding tank.

Brunty, it is legislative law that each bird in the production line is stunned before it is killed. Only companies that are bent on breaking rules are the ones that show a complete lack for the law and will soon be shut down by management or by the USDA and on site veterinarians.

 

[greyfields]

Well that's a great point, if the USDA inspected all poultry operations. They only have jurisdiction over processors which process over 20k per year.

So, it's safe to say, outside of industrial broiler processors, there is no "law of the land" regarding stunning prior to slaughter. For your grocery store chicken, though, it's very likely the case.