Hi guys....need some prayers here. My nephew was one of the 4 soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Wednesday; he grew up in Shelby Township and graduated from West Point last June. He was due to come home in January. We are heartbroken. I understand at least one other young man was from Rochester and a third may be from Charlevoix.
I am so so sorry for your and your family's loss. I will keep them in prayer.
There are 11 million laying hens in those big buildings around Michigan according to Michigan State University. And the reason they are in the buildings is that Michigan is in the migration path of wild birds and has many farms, so avian diseases are frequently spread from flock to flock. Also they can keep the temperature at 72 year round and they also keep the lights on 16 hours a day. So it is a controlled environment.
I did not know that when I moved here and brought my hens here 4 years ago. It's good to know.
Ok, that totally does make sense, and I did not know that either. The facilities that I am familiar with are not in MI so perhaps I spoke in haste, but I still don't think they are living ideally. Yes they are protecting their investment, but they are also messing with the natural order of things.
I was just very irritated when I originally read that... I have met an actual, for profit, meat/egg layer farmer. These people give a hoot for their investment, and it brought me to a new understanding. Their whole family does this poultry business, from turkeys, meat birds, to egg layers, and selling chicks. The same people who butcher for me. We got to see some of their birds and facilities. It was not something to be scoffed at and regarded as a bad thing. I think they have done very well by their birds/investment.
I did not mean to ruffle any feathers, and as I said, I am not familiar with specific farms in MI but there are plenty of farms for eggs and meat chickens around the country that have chickens living in over crowded, nasty, disease ridden pens, where birds fall over dead and are laden with antibiotics. I know this is not the way of them all, and I know that this is people's livlihoods, but I also know that some of them are controlled by big business against their better judgement for how they would like to keep their chickens, and they have no choice but to comply, or lose their income and investment. So while I do apologize if I was offensive...1. I am new to poutry in general and this board, and 2. It is not always as cut and dry that either the birds are well taken care of or in poor environments. And yes, I am sure they are trying to also take bio-protective measures, but it is not a very responsible vet who would go into a different farm with the same clothing as he wore at a farm recently treated for illness. But, I should not have generalized that it was ONLY to protect the vet, I just meant that sometimes that is the case. And I know not all chickens are treated the same, and I will admit I am not familiar with any large commercial farms in MI, but there are pletny of farms that do have birds laden with antibiotics, and disease that are treated very poorly.
But yes...I suppose I will just STFU from now on too. lol. Although I do love a good debat, I don't if it is at the cost of upsetting others.
