Commercial Egg production

[hooligan]

Quote:
Yours and the commercial or just yours?

Also you said the 650 are part of a 4-H project, what grade are you in? I don't want to ask age as that is against the rules but grade should be okay (if not mods please edit this or rephrase for me).

 

[RoostersCrow]

Quote:
Precisely... Remember though the problem is not one of getting farmers of good conscience (like CEF) to put 60,000 birds in a 100,000 house or 5 hens in a 9 hen cage. Rather the problem is one of getting an industy without a conscience to STOP putting 100,000 birds in a 60,000 house or 9 hens in a 5 hen cage.
Do you see the difference? We as people of good conscience can not ask a buisness to do the former but we as a society can require the later.

It will take regulation to level the playing field for all growers and achieve the later. Unfortunately the USDA has gotten its mission completely off track. It has come to concern itself only with the "buisness" of agriculture rather than agriculture as a vocation ... thus... an industry without a conscience and nothing to guide it but the allmighty dollar. This has led us to the wrong model of misuse of animals and created the political circus of animal rights vs industry.

I am going to try and stay away from this thread now... It has gotten me started on the government again...

 

[Wolf-Kim]

LOL. I know what you mean about the government.

I agree, I personally believe the battery system as a whole should be made illegal. If I remember correctly certain European countries have passed an act making the battery system illegal over there. The only people that would be upset about this would be those battery farmers that truly do not care about the birds. If the battery system were made illegal, or even severely regulated, then alot of farmers like CEF(who are attempted ethical treatment) have less competition commercially. Egg prices as a whole will rise, but it makes the competition for the farmer less cut-throat.

CEF, are your birds fed purely commercial brand layer, or is there a specially designed feed the commercial birds get? How is calcium provided to the hens? Oyster shell with free access or is it contained within the feed?


-Kim

 

[Settin'_Pretty]

When you outlaw the battery pens and the growers move those birds out onto pasture, then what do you do about rain washing that waste into streams and polluting them?
The waste is managed as it is right now.

Growers now have very strict safeguards in place, for example growers who raise meat birds for the big companies like Purdue, Tyson, etc, aren't even allowed to raise a handful of hens for their eggs on their farms.
How are birds out on open pasture going to be protected from disease?
Grown in house there is little chance of contamination from wild birds flying overhead and droppings landing where they can transfer disease.

What do you do about the added expense/costs of food for people who are barely getting by now and need those low cost eggs and meat?

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.

It's illogical to call for the closing down of that system without first addressing the pollution caused by the change, costs from loses and disease, and added expense of the new system, and food shortages that would result from doing so.

In addition, if these billions of chickens raised in houses every year were moved outside, then confining a disease outbreak would be considerably harder, and if something like bird flu broke out on one farm, it would spread like wildfire to all farms anywhere near that farm by wild birds before it could be contained.
Would you rather see uncomfortable chickens in a house, or billions of dead chickens spread out over the countryside?

As much as I dislike the battery pen method of raising FOOD for the masses, the alternatives don't look any more promising.
If those birds are moved outside, then disease could effect all of the little guys, and the pet chicken people.
It could cripple the industry all together and wipe out the chicken population in as little as one year, like the great plague did in England back in the 1800's.

People on this board who keep calling for that system to be shut down, should also look at the consequences of just what it is that they are calling for, and address as well what would result and how that result could be dealt with.

I notice that my posts in this thread were removed from yesterday, I think that's sad that political correctness should be held as more important than truth and fact, I think it will come back to bite those who removed my posts, but that's up to them.

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

You dont need to move all the birds out doors. Cage Free can be used with a run or deck. And yes egg prices would skyrocket. Then there would be even more people with BYC LOL

 

[TheMartianChick]

Settin'_Pretty :

When you outlaw the battery pens and the growers move those birds out onto pasture, then what do you do about rain washing that waste into streams and polluting them?
The waste is managed as it is right now.

Growers now have very strict safeguards in place, for example growers who raise meat birds for the big companies like Purdue, Tyson, etc, aren't even allowed to raise a handful of hens for their eggs on their farms.
How are birds out on open pasture going to be protected from disease?
Grown in house there is little chance of contamination from wild birds flying overhead and droppings landing where they can transfer disease.

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.


In addition, if these billions of chickens raised in houses every year were moved outside, then confining a disease outbreak would be considerably harder, and if something like bird flu broke out on one farm, it would spread like wildfire to all farms anywhere near that farm by wild birds before it could be contained.
Would you rather see uncomfortable chickens in a house, or billions of dead chickens spread out over the countryside?

The overcrowding of chickens in the battery cages is the biggest cause of "poultry illnesses"! When you cram too many birds into close quarters, they are going to get stressed and be more susceptible to illness. The way that those illnesses are managed in commercial farms is by administering antibiotics to all of the birds...That's not a real solution... It makes more sense to medicate only the birds that are actually are sick and even then I don't want to eat those eggs. People shouldn't have to consume medication for breakfast unless it is prescribed by their own physician!

The more antibiotics that are fed to any animal (or human), the more likely it is that superbugs, viruses, resistant to normal courses of antibiotics will be created.​

 

[RoostersCrow]

Settin'_Pretty :

When you outlaw the battery pens and the growers move those birds out onto pasture, then what do you do about rain washing that waste into streams and polluting them?
The waste is managed as it is right now.

Total nonsense. Number one... no one said anything about moving those birds outdoors. The cost to feed a bird is just the same when you provide a couple square feet per bird as when you provide 3/4 sq ft per bird. The only cost difference is in the startup capital and maintenance, both manageable and both have little to do with market price.

As far as the waste being managed now..... chicken poo! They dig it out and spread it on the fields anyway or turn it into chemical fertilizer. It all washes into the same streams in the same chemical forms in the end... Unless, that is, the industry has found some way to violate the laws of physics as well as the laws of nature.

Despite all the arguments to the contrary... the ends do not justify the means... never have and never will.

And when that armageddon of poultry disease arrives at the door ( and it will ) .... It will be the few free ranging and backyard flocks that will preserve the gene pool. That is if the USDA and programs like the NAIS don't finish them off first.​

 

[hooligan]

Well said, RC.

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

I agree with everything except the market price. Even though it is governed by The amound of eggs in the market place and if people want a certin egg. The start ups cost does have a small impact on prices but very little.

 

[RoostersCrow]

Quote:
Agreed... My point though is that startup costa are amoritized over years of operation so do not directly (meaning in direct proportion) translate to higher prices. However, higher startups could be an impediment to some operators entering the market ....

LOL... Do you think addressing susch an initial startup problem by providing assistance to guideleine compliant operations might be something the USDA should set itself about? I think that is called a sound policy driven management program rather than a politically corrupted one.