I can't eat chikcen anymore!!!

[Clay Valley Farmer]

After the battery hens are "spent" what are they processed into? I have heard hotdogs but not sure
about that.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, I heard. Don't know if it's true

If you ever try to eat a spent laying hen you will know it is not what KFC is using. KFC is the other end of the spectrum... 42 day broilers.

If the ingredient list on a product has "mechanically separated chicken" or "chicken bi-products" on the lable then I would imagine spent layers could be in the mix. Could be either human or pet food.

As for conditions of factory layers again this is very much a result of consumer demmand for cheap products. Simply, eggs can't be produced, shipped, inspected, graded, distributed, maketed, and sold at the supermarket checkout for $2 a doz or less giving profit to all involved without intensive factory farming. Cutting out all the middle steps with farmer selling to a local customer (which I am all for) it might get close to possible to do $2/doz eggs but that simply does not work on a large scale with 90% of the population living in cities with populations beyond sustainable carrying capacity. A half an hour drive from the city to the country every week to get a dozen eggs from a farmer does not work either when energy consumption is considdered.

Buying local rocks

, it cuts out most of the levels of complexity that leach profit and waste energy. This allows the consumer to get a quality product at a reasonable price and the small scale farmer to exist. Under these conditions where profit margines are not streached razor thin there is more room to allow less profit oriented farming practices such as organic feed, true free ranging, or simply keeping a layer past the first moult. Also it makes it possible to keep small flocks profitably where they are allowed more space and don't require near the same degree of antibiotics to keep the birds healthy.

In my biased opinion raising your own or buying local from a small farm is a great choice, but it is rather pointless for an individual to use that as a boycot action to protest the factory farming practices that are now basically essential to feed the existing population. Factory farming will be the same tomorrow as it was today no matter if an individual raises their own eggs, gets them from a local farmer, shops at Walmart or forgoes eggs all together.

I guess all that to say this issue in my mind is not so much an issue with the practices of factory farms as it is an issue with how our hyper complex multi-layered society is structured which by it's very design precludes the sustainable and ethical practices that would be more in balance with nature.​

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

Ok, that being said about "mechanically separated chicken" I do know that I have seen that label on hotdogs,
balogna, canned meat, and of course pet food. So is it safe to assume that the same mechanically separated chicken
is the same for hotdogs and pet food. Just wondering. Thanks.

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Mechanically separated chicken is mechanically separated chicken, I would imagine the inspections and regulations might be different but the process would be the same.

Also from a liabilty stand point pet food would need to be technically safe for human consumption else the lawsuit potential would be huge. LOL makes me think of my grandma telling me about how much my grandfather like the new "salmon feast" product she found on sale at the grocery store for a great deal. Pretty good laugh when I looked at the can and saw it was cat food. Gramps would eat near anything and grandma couldn't see or read very well.

 

[al6517]

It is so hard to respond at this point in a realistic manner because the chicken huggers still don't have a clue what makes the world go round. Every time farm animal livestock get's into the urban liberal circle and made into pet's you have the same argument about ethics. The sad part is these so called self proclaimed protectors of all, will change their minds in 5 seconds flat if their twisted idea's of reality ever really came to be and the food chain were to collaspe. it's just so sad that these folks don't posses the faculties to understand what they are doing............... what about all the starving people in the world who would love to swap places with the high and mighty huggers for one minute. Fortunately the posses more bark than bite as is allways the case and when push comes to shove on many of their issues they retreat.

 

[LegginMF12]

Quote:
x2

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
Once again, I agree with Al.

 

[TheIvoryKitty]

Quote:
Yeaaaaaaah, I agree with Al too, except I'm a bit nicer with... well, everything. I understand why people feel the way they do about their pets, and I really really really love mine too but... I don't know, I just can't defend the illogical. I'd like to continue with this post, but I don't want to get into a political debate. I go to a university, so I am constantly attacked for being a conservative libertarian - even by my teachers.

So, to bring it back to chickens (lol) it's someone's own prerogative to love their chickens as they would another pet, like a dog, and to decide not to eat them if they don't want to - but they cannot logically attack someone else for eating chickens, or meat, or whatever. It's just not possible. We are omnivores and eat meat - that's just nature. Similarly, in order to get that meat, we have to kill it. That's also nature. There's nothing immoral or crude or weird about killing animals to eat them. I just don't understand any other argument.

However, just like others can't say anything against us meat-eaters, there's no reason for us to care if another person views their farm-animals as pets. They're not doing anything to us by not eating their pets, so who cares? As long as everybody has a valid, and logical reason for what their doing (like, "I don't eat my chickens because that would make me sad, and I like to avoid being sad," or "I eat my chickens because I'm a human being and we eat meat").

The only time I ever get peeved is when people have illogical reasons for doing things, don't think their reasons through, or (what really irks me) when people try to tell other people what the heck they should be doing! (Like, "you shouldn't kill animals, because it's immoral")

Yep, that's the nicest way I could put all that.

Lol.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
Yeaaaaaaah, I agree with Al too, except I'm a bit nicer with... well, everything. I understand why people feel the way they do about their pets, and I really really really love mine too but... I don't know, I just can't defend the illogical. I'd like to continue with this post, but I don't want to get into a political debate. I go to a university, so I am constantly attacked for being a conservative libertarian - even by my teachers.

So, to bring it back to chickens (lol) it's someone's own prerogative to love their chickens as they would another pet, like a dog, and to decide not to eat them if they don't want to - but they cannot logically attack someone else for eating chickens, or meat, or whatever. It's just not possible. We are omnivores and eat meat - that's just nature. Similarly, in order to get that meat, we have to kill it. That's also nature. There's nothing immoral or crude or weird about killing animals to eat them. I just don't understand any other argument.

However, just like others can't say anything against us meat-eaters, there's no reason for us to care if another person views their farm-animals as pets. They're not doing anything to us by not eating their pets, so who cares? As long as everybody has a valid, and logical reason for what their doing (like, "I don't eat my chickens because that would make me sad, and I like to avoid being sad," or "I eat my chickens because I'm a human being and we eat meat").

The only time I ever get peeved is when people have illogical reasons for doing things, don't think their reasons through, or (what really irks me) when people try to tell other people what the heck they should be doing! (Like, "you shouldn't kill animals, because it's immoral")

Yep, that's the nicest way I could put all that.

Lol.

LOL..... yes Kitty you do say it nicer than I hehehehe, your a young smart person and I am an Old grouchy dude with teenagers LOL. I think you did phrase that very well though.

 

[Two Creeks Farm]

Chicken huggers LOL! That made my morning!!

 

[horsecrazychicklovingkid]

I wouldn't want to eat my few special chickens that follow me around the yard and jump up in my lap, but i probably would if i had too. But, I had a black Sumatra Roo that attacked me that i raised and handled from hatching. I was perfectly happy having him in chicken and dumplings, though he was just too tough. We eat all the mean roos. My dad kills them, I couldn't handle it, but i have no problem eating them. I do my best not to get attached to my roos, so it won't bother me to eat them. I think of how much healthier it would be, without all the hormones and who-knows-what that store-bought chicken has in it. Chicken is actually my favorite meat. Last year, I decided to stop eating chicken because I had chickens, well, it didn't work. I was sneaking pieces of chicken while my dad wasn't looking.

My chickens have eaten cooked chicken and scrambled eggs, and they don't care whatsoever. It's kinda gross, especially when it's their own eggs, but oh well.

I know a lady who loves chickens but she can't eat them because when she was young her brother once kept a head-less chicken alive for like 2 weeks by feeding it through a tube. She had to see her dad slice their heads off and the chickens run around the yard head-less and she just can't eat chicken anymore. I understand her reason.

People used to make chicken food jokes around me all the time, it was really annoying, but now I'm fine with it. I look at it this way; as long as you end it quick and painless, it's better than the life they would have had as an extra roo that i can't show or breed.