Interesting article regarding commercially raised meat chickens in US

[Buster52]

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I assume you are talking about factory farmed and processed poultry. I doubt you use "20-50 ppm of free available chlorine" in your chill tanks for your free range, home processed birds. I assume you believe your product to be safe.

In the past, I have taken my birds to the local locker for processing and they rinse and hold the birds in a few different tanks along the line. Makes ya wonder about my free-ranged birds.

I figured this was where you were heading with your first post. Thus the "attitude".

Just because this processor rinsed them in a chlorine solution bath (assuming that was what was in those tanks) does not mean that is what they needed. People who raise their birds on a smaller scale and in the open air like Jaku, Jeff Brunty, Joel Salatin, and Tim Young don't seem to see a need for it when they process their birds with total transparency.

And that's the better way.

 

[Buster52]

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I vote "None of the above".

 

[Bossroo]

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I vote "None of the above".

So, what do you recommend we all do ?

 

[Buster52]

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I vote "None of the above".

So, what do you recommend we all do ?

Stop raising and processing them in Concentrated Industrial Fecal Factories.

 

[Bossroo]

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So, what do you recommend we all do ?

Stop raising and processing them in Concentrated Industrial Fecal Factories.

So, what do you do with the chicken after the head is chopped off ?

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

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So, what do you recommend we all do ?

Stop raising and processing them in Concentrated Industrial Fecal Factories.

Please tell us how we are going to raise 8.7 billion of them per year in backyards in 25 bird chicken tractors and only during the summer. Or on the apartment balconys overlooking Central Park from Manhattan.

For $0.79 per pound, ready-to-cook.

Everybody seems to think that it is unfortunate that our food production does not meet the high standards of Russia. Got news for you - I have been there (in poultry rearing and processing facilities) and have spent 6 weeks total eating in resturaunts. - - - Well it was better than when I was in Haiti last, three years ago. They raise all their chickens naturally there.

 

[bigredfeather]

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Stop raising and processing them in Concentrated Industrial Fecal Factories.

So, what do you do with the chicken after the head is shopped off ?

You procceed to gut the chicken. When gutting, make sure not to cut into any of the fecal filled digestive track. If you do this, it will greatly decrease the chance of contamination, if not elimnate it. This is the step the big processors skip, thus the reason they need to sanitize.

 

[Buster52]

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Stop raising and processing them in Concentrated Industrial Fecal Factories.

Please tell us how we are going to raise 8.7 billion of them per year in backyards in 25 bird chicken tractors and only during the summer. Or on the apartment balconys overlooking Central Park from Manhattan.

What makes you think it has to be just backyard operations? And why does it have to be 87 cents a pound? (It isn't, by the way... you aren't including the other cost factors) And why year round? What is wrong with seasonal eating? And why 8.7 billion?

There is this mythology that we are feeding the world. That we have to. Neither is the case. Russia is taking the first steps toward local economies. Other European countries are, as well. That is wise, because the current industrial system is unsustainable over the long term. We would be wise to follow suit. Because sooner or later, we will have to.

The answer to the dilemma is medium size farms, worldwide, along with backyard operations and urban farms. The secret is in the farming, not the technology or the industrialization.

 

[Bossroo]

The 8.7 billion figure is what is produced annually. As for $0.87a pound, that is way too high as I can regularly buy a whole processed chicken for $0.69 a pound at the local grocery stores. Why year round, well some of us like to eat or at least our kids do. Just how are the Russians going to produce enough of their own chickens to feed their population when most of that country is like a frozen tundra for the better part of the year ? I guess someone hasn't heard of commune farms ! (Great efficiency of the system by the way). Now that the commune system is no more over there, many people are raising their own gardens, however animals of any type are still very rare as is their feedstuffs. They must rely on large commercial chicken houses with their feed comming from large central grain storage elevators to feed the city populations. The European countries have quite a few family chicken flocks in the countryside, yes, however the vast majority is produced on their own factory chicken farms.How is a Beduin tribesman in the deserts of Arabia going to raise a chicken to sustain their populations numbering into the millions in their cities if not importing chickens for the food that the chickens eat? In the country of Haiti chickens are raised the free range method way. After this week, I bet that there isn't a chicken left in the country to the dismay of the owners. I did see one scared dog in a news photo op thaugh. I surmise that they will now get quite a few tons of frozen chickens produced by the U.S. comercial farms for the next years to come. Your proposed solution is not as easy as you seam to think... Most cities in the US have strict laws against raising farm animals and of those that do allow chickens they do NOT allow roosters which makes it hard to keep a self sustainable flock.. Then you have subdivisions with C&R's prohibiting farm animals. Also, there are many more areas with zoning laws for sound, smell, sight, butchering, buryial or corps' disposal and waste runoff of farm animals. Not to mention the regulations of osha, USDA, Health department and other environmental entities. How do you propose as a biosecurity that we contain any disease outreak such as the Avian Flu on the backyard operations that you favor in a timely fashion? What do you do with a chicken after you chop it's head off and prior to serving it for a meal to guard against contamination?

 

[Buster52]

Boss, you are so far in the dark about sustainable agriculture that I don't even know where to begin.

So I won't.

Well, maybe a little.

Many of the problems you cite are actually the result of or a byproduct of factory farming. The reason you have so many disease outbreaks is due to the unnatural concentration of so many individuals of a single species in a small space. Concentrated monocultures breed disease and pests that more open, free, varied agricultural environments just don't. Waste on a small farm or holding with a few animals is a blessing. In a factory farm it is a curse. Biosecurity just isn't an issue in a well-run sustainable farm.

As to zoning issues, well, the answer there is, change the law. Pretty simple, that.

And if chickens won't grow in a desert, don't raise chickens in a desert. Raise something you can. But they can be (and are) raised in cities throughout the middle east and the rest of the world.

You really need to read up on this stuff, Bossman. If nothing else, at least you will know how the other side thinks.