Official BYC Poll: What Is Your Perspective On Chickens For Meat

[jesspittman32]

I eat chicken, but not my own. That said, I would like to get to a point where I only eat my own chickens and not buy chicken. Here is my thought process: My chickens have a great life. They are free-range, have a beautiful home, and get fed great food, clean water, and are loved. The chickens that I actually eat (from the store) have a horrible life and are not loved. I don't want to support that.

So, I would like to make a deal with my animals. I provide them with a wonderful life and then they provide me with food for my family. It's just hard for me to get there, emotionally.

 

[3KillerBs]

I find the rants about commercial chicken quite uncomfortable to read, especially since this thread is on the meat bird forum.

Yes, backyarders *might* give our meat chickens a "better" life -- assuming that a tractor on grass could be considered objectively better than a climate-controlled building on bedding -- than commercial farmers, but the idea that commercially-raised chickens are abused and mistreated is simply not true. The people who promote this idea almost always have an agenda to push -- either an ideological agenda that is very often completely anti-meat OR an economic agenda because they want people to buy their pastured/organic/whathaveyou chicken instead.

I've spend the best part of the past 2 decades living in areas where chicken is raised commercially and have known a number of chicken farmers personally.

A. If they didn't like chickens they wouldn't be chicken farmers in the first place.

B. If they actually *did* abuse/mistreat their chickens they'd lose money because the chickens would not thrive and thus would not be profitable.

Remember, the commercially-raised chickens in the grocery store are just very large chicks. How many backyarders still have their 8-week babies in a little plastic tub, cardboard box, or stock tank with no more room per bird than a commercial chicken house provides instead of getting them out on pasture or into a run?

 

[Molpet]

I find the rants about commercial chicken quite uncomfortable to read, especially since this thread is on the meat bird forum.

Yes, backyarders *might* give our meat chickens a "better" life -- assuming that a tractor on grass could be considered objectively better than a climate-controlled building on bedding -- than commercial farmers, but the idea that commercially-raised chickens are abused and mistreated is simply not true. The people who promote this idea almost always have an agenda to push -- either an ideological agenda that is very often completely anti-meat OR an economic agenda because they want people to buy their pastured/organic/whathaveyou chicken instead.

I've spend the best part of the past 2 decades living in areas where chicken is raised commercially and have known a number of chicken farmers personally.

A. If they didn't like chickens they wouldn't be chicken farmers in the first place.

B. If they actually *did* abuse/mistreat their chickens they'd lose money because the chickens would not thrive and thus would not be profitable.

Remember, the commercially-raised chickens in the grocery store are just very large chicks. How many backyarders still have their 8-week babies in a little plastic tub, cardboard box, or stock tank with no more room per bird than a commercial chicken house provides instead of getting them out on pasture or into a run?

Yeah I was buying from a farmers market, non gmo CX $5 a lb. Then I found they were tractor raised, too close for my liking. I thought I could raise them for less .... Well mine have lots more room, part heritage part CX, raised by a hen but the first year I figured it was $7 a lb.... I have found a different feed supplier so it's now about $5

 

[Morrigan]

but the idea that commercially-raised chickens are abused and mistreated is simply not true.

I agree that most commercial chicken operators are trying to do the best they can for the chicken's health within the constraints of trying to make an economically viable product. And there is some unfair propaganda out there. Thanks for telling the other side of the story.

But, I would also say that the constraints of the business model still make it hard on the chickens. They are fed 24/7 for 5 or 6 weeks, until by the end, many can't walk. They are then loaded into cages and transported, in some cases, many miles over freeways, until they reach a processing center, where not all meet a swift and humane end.

Personally, my decision to stop buying supermarket chicken was made when I passed a chicken transport truck on the freeway. It was a hot day. I could see the chickens crammed into cages, bodies pressed tightly against the wires, feathers being blown off. I've since read some of Temple Grandin's work about commercial meat and egg production.

I don't begrudge anyone who buys commercially raised chicken. Life isn't perfect, and people need to eat. I realize how fortunate I am that I have the means to raise and butcher my own. But there is no question that my chickens had a better life and less traumatic end that commercially raised poultry. As long as I can raise my own, I will.

 

[Pye Wacket]

I definitely have no agenda. I eat meat. I am not a vegetarian. I don't care much for meat but that is a taste/texture thing with no ethical component. I prefer chicken and given I've not kept chickens for 20 to 25 years, I have over the years eaten a LOT of grocery store chicken. I don't feel bad about that AT ALL.

However it IS true that commercial poultry is raised in horrendous conditions. If you don't think so, you're either an industry shill or you have never seen a commercial chicken concern. They are not farms. And the farmers are as abused (by the poultry companies) as much as the chickens are. The smell from one of those barns is just about enough to knock you dead and frankly I don't see how the chickens stand it. Debeaking is a disgusting practice necessitated by close conditions to keep the chickens from pecking each other to death. Which they occasionally manage anyway.

I can't afford yuppie chickens, especially from actual farmers who actually raise them free-range and organically. I don't care to buy from commercial "organic" concerns where they bend the rules right to the point of breaking (and occasionally beyond) and charge a premium price for birds raised only slightly more humanely than the factory chickens.

I would prefer that factory farms would switch to more sustainable less horrifying methods of producing meat, but frankly I have no idea how to do that without greatly increasing the cost of meat and/or greatly reducing the amount we are able to produce. The regulation of the term "organic" was supposed to help and it has not. If anything it's made things worse, by pawning off on a lot of well-meaning people a product that is little different from the one they are trying to avoid for ethical reasons.

While it would be nice if everyone would eat less meat and therefore make it less necessary to churn out cheap meat by the ton, that isn't going to happen any time soon, and the vast majority of the "solutions" would greatly increase the price of meat - which would only hurt people like me, the poor and near-poor. The better off all the way up to the wealthy would just keep on eating meat even if it is more expensive.

We are omnivores. Get over it. In the US many of us could do with considerably LESS meat, but humans EAT MEAT and there is nothing wrong with that.

Suggestions that result in pricing meat beyond the ability of poorer people to purchase it is a lot worse than accepting factory chicken. Because the well off will still get theirs. It's the rest of us who will suffer.

 

[Ruthster55]

Regarding commercial chicken, if you have to buy it, I would recommend Perdue or Whole Foods 365 over other brands.

Perdue has been reducing the density in their broiler houses and adding “enrichments.” The enrichment that won in a contest was a “carpenter bench” for the broiler chicks to explore. (Hammers, nails, and saw not included).

Those interested can search “enrichment broilers” or “Perdue broilers” or similar phrases.

https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/21573-temple-grandin-rewarding-enrichment-for-chicken

The news surrounding Tyson has been awful lately regarding horrible treatment of both their workers and animals. Don’t buy Tyson.

 

[chickengr]

after I ate my own chickens I cannot eat the supermarket chickens any more - they have no taste.

my 5 yo hen recently passed away. I promissed to keep her till she dies naturally. I did it. and I am not going to do it ever again. she was suffering for at least 4-5 days. now I believe that a quick end is much better than diying for days, maybe weeks.

I will never be able to butcher myself, no doubt.

 

[3KillerBs]

However it IS true that commercial poultry is raised in horrendous conditions. If you don't think so, you're either an industry shill or you have never seen a commercial chicken concern.

That's really very insulting to claim that I am lying about my personal experience.

 

[Featheredwonderment]

We just started this journey of raising our own meat. It's been a learning curve, to say the least . So yes, we eat out own chickens. Yes, it's was weird for me at first. When you raise something, you care about it so it was hard mentally. In my head I have to tell myself it's like a grandma cookie. Made/raised with love. First eggs that we cooked up from our layer chickens, I was being silly..I would take a bite and say ohhhhh that was the cantaloupe I fed them or that was the cucumber.... Then I started gagging (for real) cuz that was the frog I remember seeing one eat and all I saw was arm and legs sticking out....lol. THAT was weird...I got over it though.

 

[Timmy59]

2nd gen small farmer, eating our own produce is a way of living.. Our food is far better than those who get it from say wally world..