Commercial Egg production

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

If we are going to have a manure problem, lets at least have some healthy manure that isn't full of chemicals and drugs and isn't stockpiled until the choking stench is spread on the fields next to my home. How about manure that is spread out and tilled into the soil by the chickens themselves....not large sheds of fly incubators waiting to pass on the myriad diseases spawned in these overcrowded, unhealthy premises!

THIS is so true! It's easy for people who don't have to deal with this kind of stuff to stick up for the industry, but people like you who have to do deal with this day in and day out are the ones who suffer and see what happens first hand. That is an awful way to have to live! And this effects MANY people.

It's real easy for people who only keep chickens as pets or for vegetarians to set back and throw insults at the "system" as cruel and inhuman, but like it or not that system feeds billions of people, and until a better system is put in place, stopping it would be detrimental.

I don't see how it would be detrimental at all. If all those factory's just vanished...in my opinion people would be just fine. People in this day do still hunt for their foods , some raise their own and many of us keep a garden...We can buy from local farmers who respect their animals and treat them humanly. Isn't that how it used to be done?​

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

Well There are a lot of antibiotic But if you get UEP certified There are rules on how much antibiotics you can use. With my 700 chickens i have never had to use antibiotics thank goodness. The only thing we ever have to put in the water and feed is extra vitamins for there health and egg shells

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

anyone Have any more questions for me? Just keep it in the rules.

 

[hooligan]

Do you have any pix of your commercial set up?

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

I won't get any of the caged birds. Don't need to give the animal rights people more propraganda photos. But i will be getting some of my cage free birds. I just hope my camera will work. I put the wrong type batteries in it and it just shuts off when it wants to.

 

[hooligan]

But if they are in good living conditions it wouldn't.
Maybe some before and after pix from when you got them and what they look like now, esp if they were in such bad shape when they arrived.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Settin'_Pretty :

Wolf-Kim,
So what we have then is a whole industry being persecuted and accused because some individuals do it wrong, according to some internet site?

That's where I was thinking this was headed, which is why I jumped on hooligan earlier in this thread, (my posts were removed)

The system we have is far from perfect, I'm sure, but it's not as bad as animal rights activists would have you believe, and it's feeding billions of people.

I thought it was unfair the way colored egg farmer was jumped on almost the minute he posted, when he seems to be trying to improve the system.

I do not persecute the whole industry, I believe I'm very reasonable with my outlook on it. I believe the majority of the industry does the best it can for the birds, but they are still having to compete with the minority of the industry that factory farms. It goes back to the balancing ethics and money thing I mentioned earlier. The majority of the industry that provides antibiotics, not to poison the system, but an attempt to keep the birds alive and healthy. The flaw here though, is that the birds shouldn't need regular antibiotics to maintain life. As backyard keepers, we do not have to routinely treat our animals with antibiotics, the need for routine antibiotics should be a sign something is not right. We use antibiotics if the birds are sick, but we know that the birds got sick for a reason and we try to fix that reason. The main reason that factory farms, mainly the battery system, has to use the routine antibiotics because the conditions are overcrowded.

CEF, says that antibiotics are used in their battery system, and they do not even max out the living space. So if the farmers who are trying to be more ethical, like CEF, have to use antibiotics, why wouldn't the even larger farms with the maximum amount of birds in the space? My original information was from the web, I avoid websites like PETA just because the argument is one-sided. You asked me where I saw the information and I gave you only a single internet site, because I was rushing out the door. There are many, many sites that bring this issue up and not all are animal rights groups, the antibiotics aren't an animal-rights issue. The super-bugs that are created by the routine use of antibiotics are a human health issue in my opinion.

I've acknowledged before, if not on this particular thread, that the commercial farms do their job, which is to feed the mass population at a low cost.

I did not, or am, jumping on CEF. I actually applauded their efforts to feed the masses, stay within their budget, and still treat the animal more ethical than others in the industry.

Most people who replied to this thread did not jump on CEF, or I didn't think they did. At any rate, if CEF were to be jumped at an alarming rate, I'm sure the moderators would have stepped in to deal with the problem.

I have not generalized and said all commercial farmers are an unneccessary evil. The only statement I said that could have been inferred this way, is my statement of my personal opinion about banning battery farms as the UK has done(or is in the process of). That's all, I understand the commercial farms and high-density farms are a neccessity until a better way is figured out.

-Kim​

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Quote:
I think this is why a majority of us have our own chickens. It is why I have mine, it was after I had laying hens that I went into the more rare heritage breeds. We keep our families well provided with our free range eggs, so they won't need to buy eggs from the store.

I try to explain to alot of my family and friends why they should buy the cage-free and the pastured and the organic eggs over the cheapest carton on the shelf or just keep chickens themselves(we are afterall enablers. LOL). Most of them never realize where these eggs come from and usually opt for the alternatively farmed eggs after I've informed them. I think the majority of the population would opt for the alternatively farmed eggs, if only they knew of the battery systems used to harvest the "cheap" eggs. Most of my family and friends struggle from paycheck to paycheck, if that, and they still opt for the other eggs.

I think it's more of a lack of knowledge about the battery systems than anything.

-Kim

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

I can give you a photo of what the Old Version cages look like. It is one of the houses that we are not useing any more. And you will definately see why we dont use them any more.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Those pictures will be better than nothing CEF.

I didn't realize you had battery houses you no longer used. Are they out of use purely for ethical reasons? Wouldn't the farm be loosing money by having a house empty and not in use? I imagine those buildings are fairly expensive.

-Kim