Aggrevated at Farmers Market customers complaining about prices

[Buster52]

Quote:
Could you please cite your sources that show that commercial chickens in the US are given steroids? Also, where can I buy chicks that only take 30 days from hatch to market?

I'm assuming the statistic of 1/4 of all mass produced poultry that don't live to adulthood refers to the culling of male leghorn chicks?

They are not given steroids or hormones, but their genetics hardly require it. My belief is that if it weren't for those genetics, they would. Hard enough to keep them alive to butchering age of 6 to 8 weeks anyway.

And those little Cornish Hens folks here have been talking about buying whole and cooked are slaughtered at 4 to 6 weeks of age.

But even if butchered at the ripe old age of 8 to 10 weeks, I would hardly consider that an adult bird.

ETA:
But since it is the same hybrid most backyard producers and sustainable farmers raise, that's hardly relevant to the discussion. Only the issue of routine medication is, which most of us don't do.

 

[TimG]

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I'd say 100%, just the same as the meat birds I raise and put in the freezer.

 

[TimG]

To those who are sure that the chicken you raise tastes better than the chicken sold in the grocery store: I honestly don't notice much of a difference. Maybe it's that my sense of taste is not as finely tuned as yours (quite possibly true, I don't think I have a good sense of taste).

But, there are those that buy Wonderbread, not because it is cheaper, but because they like the taste. I can't imagine thinking that Wonderbread tastes better than a loaf of homemade bread. Most likely, they prefer the Wonderbread because that is what they had growing up and is what they think of as bread. Similarly, if someone was raised on mass produced chicken, even when they can taste the difference between mass produced and home grown, they may prefer the mass produced -- it is what they know as chicken.

I suspect most of us have some seemingly unnatural fondness for something that just isn't as good as the real thing, whether it be Twinkies, Spam, Wonderbread, Doritos, or Perdue chickens.

 

[card5640]

Your prices are wonderful, in Maine the farmer's market price is 5.95 per lb for whole birds, I do 24 crosses a year for my family and when we do buy beef we buy local and we get or grow 2 turkeys a year and 1/4 of a pig. Thats all our meat for a family of 5, we eat less meat so we can stick with organic local. Let the comment fools pass you buy and do not take it to heart, society is a long way off from being totally educated about meat/veggie costs.

 

[koop]

Quote:
Amen, don't try to sicken the customer.

I guess I don't know how chickens are raised or something, but what it a battery raised chicken?

Here barns are enclosed (we do get winter, and hot summers) but it is all open inside, chickens can go from one side to the other, from one end to the other. Sure that is not free range, but unless you just want a seasonal chicken, its the only way to do it. The chickens are put in batteries when they ship them to the plant, it happens at night for the next days kill, so they are slaughtered within 12 hours. I can't think of any other way to transport them so how should it be done?

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Battery cages in layer operations. Six to eight birds to a cage without room to even turn around, cages stacked 8 feet high in rows 300 to 400 yards long in a building with up to one million other birds. They are there from the time they are laying age to about one year old when they are taken out and butchered for soup meat.

It applies only to layers, not meat birds. That is how you get those 99 cent a dozen eggs.

I don't see any reason not to inform the customer about such practices. That makes mine stand out even more. A simple picture or two showing birds with clipped beaks crammed into these cages in these long rows isn't going to sicken anyone, contrast it with my pastured, healthy, happy layers, and nobody is going to complain about my more reasonable priced eggs.

 

[agnes_day]

i dont see the issue...its an efficient way to get eggs, and that they are using them for soup meat when through producing is a good thing.

 

[agnes_day]

also, i didnt mean that to sound as if i am callous and cruel, but people do have to eat and not everyone has the ability to raise their own chickens. its just the way things are.

 

[Red Maple Farms]

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I read a study that free range chickens aren't happier after all. The stress associated with free ranging due to keeping a watchful eye out for predators is the same for a chicken sitting in a cage with few worries. They did this by measuring the chemical associated with stress in birds.

I know there are days when my ducks refuse to leave the barnyard and venture out onto the pond. They will huddle under the safety of the brush around the coop. These are the times I see there are predators in the area such as bald eagles, hawks, etc.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468565/Battery-hens-happy-birds-roam-outside.html

 

[onthespot]

If I was selling at a farmer's market, I would probably just have a sack of feed on display, with the price in heavy black marker on a fluorescent card. Next to it I would have another see-through container with how much feed it takes to grow one out to market size. A little display of what growing one out, from day old to harvest, all the care at the various stages... I think that would be enough to show why the prices are higher.