Do you get the same reaction when you tell *why* you have chickens?

[cassie]

Quote:
I may be dense, but I don't see anything wrong with the way the Tyson chickens are handled. It is a little crowded, but I don't think the meaties really care. All my meaties ever did was eat, drink, poop, and plop. Their only concern was where the feed and water was and whether I was on time getting it to them in the morning. I just got some regular chickens yesterday. Brahmas, Orpingtons, and Wyandottes. They are about four weeks old and they are nothing like the meaties. They spend very little time at the feeder. They run around, take dust baths, scratch in the bedding and explore their environment. The meaties didn't really care about any of that. BTW, these chicks are in the same pen where the meaties were so it is not a change in environment.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't think I would describe CAFOs as a "little crowded".

Combine crowding with the levels of disease, increased use of antibiotics and medication to keep the birds alive until processing, the air particles so thick you can't breath without a respirator, ammonia levels so high it burns your eyes and dead and dying birds lying here and there......I don't imagine the birds "care" like a human would, but I bet the levels of discomfort are extremely high on a completely sensory level.

Nor would I choose to eat meat on a regular basis that is produced in this manner. Not only because of the horrible living conditions, but the sheer filth and sickness this kind of environment produces.

I know meaties raised in our backyard aren't the most bright of birds and seem to have had normal chicken behavior bred right out of them, but its no comparison to a commercial poultry operation. At least in the backyard they aren't filthy, diseased, in pain or sick and having trouble breathing the air.

 

[ArizonaNessa]

Quote:
Scene: Post office picking up 100 chicks

Me: I am here to pick up chicks here is my ID

Postal Lady: One minute (walks out with my package of chicks)

Me: Thank you (walking away)

Postal Lady: Miss excuse me but what on earth are you going to do with that many baby chicks?

Me: Where do you think chicken nuggets come from? (walked away)

Postal Lady: Mortified

 

[cassie]

Quote:
How do you know the ammonia levels are high? Have you been there? It seems to me that if the air and ventilation were that bad, mortality would reach unacceptable levels and the profit margin would be even less than it is. There is a large broiler producer, Foster Farms, not far from me. Some of the broiler houses are right next to the road. There is no odor. If the ammonia levels were high, we would be able to smell it. There isn't even all that much odor when they clean the houses out between batches. Foster Farms does not feed hormones or antibiotics to their chickens. I would imagine Tyson doesn't either. You can see right into the broiler houses that are next to the road. The chickens are clean and white. If the bedding was dirty, you would be able to tell. I am not saying the conditions are ideal, but they don't look a whole lot different from the way I raise our meaties. While mine are not that crowded, and I have a lot fewer chickens, mine are raised inside on shavings in a box stall. They do not have access to the outdoors and I don't clean the stall until they are gone. There is no odor, they are clean and white, and my chickens certainly look and sound content. Except when I am late getting out there in the morning. Don't get me wrong. I like raising our own chickens. It's fun, I can't buy the big roasters I like at the store, and as an added benefit, it annoys the heck out of my snooty niece. The one that thinks that ready-to-cook chickens are manufactured in the supermarket.

 

[Marie66]

Quote:
Scene: Post office picking up 100 chicks

Me: I am here to pick up chicks here is my ID

Postal Lady: One minute (walks out with my package of chicks)

Me: Thank you (walking away)

Postal Lady: Miss excuse me but what on earth are you going to do with that many baby chicks?

Me: Where do you think chicken nuggets come from? (walked away)

Postal Lady: Mortified

wish i'd been there!

 

[Kim_NC]

I love the "that doesn't bother you?" question. No, it doesn't....eating store bought crap on the other hand DOES bother me. And depending on the person I may try to educate them a bit more.

A couple weeks ago, a very nice customer at the farmers market gingerly told DH & I she was afraid to buy meat from "someone like you".

(We sell grass fed beef, pastured chicken, eggs and are adding pastured pork.) I thought "someone like you" was a poor choice of words...afterall, we dress decently, hands clean, DH shaves, etc, etc LOL. But nonetheless she was being sincere and was obviously selfconscious about saying anything at all.

OK....part of me wanted to laugh, but the rest of me was shocked at her honest ignorance. We quickly explained that all of our meat is processed at an inspected facility, USDA stamped, and that we have a meat handler's license from the state. (We do butcher for our own private purposes, but not meats to sell.)

I didn't have time for much education about the horrors of commercially grown meats - too many customers, we have a very busy booth with a lot of repeat customers. But I did tell her the living conditions of most commercially raised animals were deplorable. I suggested she try a few Internet searches for things such as "chicken factory", "beef feed lot", "factory farm", "battery cage", etc....and then visit our website to see pictures of how our animals are raised.

I hope she comes back and "takes a chance" on some of our meats.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
How do you know the ammonia levels are high? Have you been there? It seems to me that if the air and ventilation were that bad, mortality would reach unacceptable levels and the profit margin would be even less than it is. There is a large broiler producer, Foster Farms, not far from me. Some of the broiler houses are right next to the road. There is no odor. If the ammonia levels were high, we would be able to smell it. There isn't even all that much odor when they clean the houses out between batches. Foster Farms does not feed hormones or antibiotics to their chickens. I would imagine Tyson doesn't either. You can see right into the broiler houses that are next to the road. The chickens are clean and white. If the bedding was dirty, you would be able to tell. I am not saying the conditions are ideal, but they don't look a whole lot different from the way I raise our meaties. While mine are not that crowded, and I have a lot fewer chickens, mine are raised inside on shavings in a box stall. They do not have access to the outdoors and I don't clean the stall until they are gone. There is no odor, they are clean and white, and my chickens certainly look and sound content. Except when I am late getting out there in the morning. Don't get me wrong. I like raising our own chickens. It's fun, I can't buy the big roasters I like at the store, and as an added benefit, it annoys the heck out of my snooty niece. The one that thinks that ready-to-cook chickens are manufactured in the supermarket.

If you can actually SEE the chickens, I would say ventilation is better than the poultry houses around here. And the ones around here stink to high heavens and the bedding they take out of there and spread on the fields stinks like dead and rotten carcasses. The workers take dead chickens out by the double handsful each morning to put in the incinerator or into the litter piles. It would make you gag to smell the air as you drive by. Judging by just how many CAFO houses there are in my area, the smell they generate and the stories from the numerous workers they employ....I don't have to go into one to know the conditions therein.

 

[Kismet]

A few years ago a girl scout troop was visiting our farm. I took them out to a pasture where the lambs were grazing. I put grain in a trough so they would all come running, lining up in a row, all there backs even. Except for one big back that towered over the rest.
"What's that?" a little girl asked me.
"That's Nellie. She's my beef cow. She'll go into the freezer come November." The girl's eyes got big as saucers.
"How can you eat someone you know?" she asked horrified.
"How can eat someone you don't know?" I replied. It was food for thought.

We definitely need to educate people more about where their food comes from. There is a new documentary recently released called "Food, Inc." about the food industry. I've read reviews that have left the reviewers never wanting to eat again. It hasn't come here yet, but I'd really like to see it. It may be good PR for all of us small farmers.

 

[Rillion]

Quote:
I saw it yesterday. It didn't make me never want to eat again, but then I've also read Fast Food Nation and pretty much knew what to expect. I would say it should definitely be good PR for small farmers! I don't know if his farm would be called "small" per se, but Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in North Carolina was featured heavily in the film talking about the differences between cows that are allowed to roam and eat grass as compared to those which are fed corn and stuck in feed lots all day, as well as the differences between his free range chickens and those raised inside large chicken houses.

There's a BYC thread about Food, Inc. here .