Large egg operation story

[jtbrown]

A few years ago went to western Ohio for a wedding. My family stayed with a very dear friend of my mothers. Well, as some Ohioans know, there are a lot of very large scale poultry farms there. Well, mom's friend had a hhhuugge poultry barn, of the type I see referred here as battery farms. Well while we were there, her husband took us out to show us the operation. He showed us the barn, talked about the need for ventilation with huge fans in dead of winter due to the heat produced, show us dropping areas, how eggs fell to back of cages (awful, but I am not focusing on the horrid here,

suffice it to say it was years ago, I was repulsed and made effort to buy small and local), etc. Then he took us to packing room and told us how local teens get jobs here, a few hours a day they put eggs into crates into these racks, etc. And trucks come to pick them up. He said the eggs go to a sorting place where ladies supervise the sorting and packing to get to consumers. Said that a few months ago they had to fire their teen help because found that someone was writing random curse words on eggs as they were being shipped. It was found at sorting plant. Some how, I have to smile, thinking about those random $&@/ words written on those eggs. I hadn't thought about this for years. This is my one and only experience with seeing large scale production, and while very gross on one hand the thought of 'foul' eggs cursing at people makes me giggle.

 

[chickened]

Sounds like something a teen would do while doing a boring job. I have been to an egg farm they are not as bad as everyone says. I have seen worse in private backyard farms.

 

[Katy]

I spent my teen-age years working at my neighbors large poultry farm sorting eggs....never occured to me to write cuss words on the eggs!

I agree with chickened....I've seen poultry treated much worse in people's backyards than the caged hens there were treated. Hen's that are mistreated don't lay well or at all so from a business standpoint if nothing else it would make no sense for a large scale producer to not take good care of his hens.

 

[jtbrown]

I have to admit the scale of the barn the number of chickens, was all a bit overwhelming to me. Up until that time I pictured (ignorantly) my grandmothers backyard as where the eggs in those cartons at the grocery store come from. He showed great pride in the efficiency, cleanliness of the facility and they were good people. And even he had to smile a bit when he told me they tracked down the curse words to his farm! I am new to this, I speak for me when I say that my chickens get queenly treatment at this house. However, I agree with you, it wasn't horrible, not the pit of despair sometimes described, they were livestock, and were treated as such. As I read this forum I realize how fragile birds are, so i guess they wouldn't live or produce eggs efficiently if conditions were not optimal. However, still prefer, think better for us if smaller scale more locaL food production were the norm, but that's just me.

 

[PineappleMama]

*snicker* Well when you're in a foul environment it rubs off.... it's an osmosis kind of thing.