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

[Timmy59]

Because of what "these eye's " see we now have a sustainable meat flock so that we do not depend on someone else.. If my plan comes to fruitation I'll have my own coldroom / smoker combo and do all processing..

 

[MissE]

I started solely with meat birds and then moved to layers. I grew up on a small farm. We raised chickens, pigs, cows, turkeys, pheasants, and for a brief time, goats. They were treated well, kept healthy, and kept safe, but they were not pets.

My neighbor used to raise meat birds but hasn't in several years. We had him and his wife over for dinner one night and were cooking a chicken in the fryer for the first time. The smell was amazing. We had the fryer set up in front of the barn. I had 2 dozen chicks in the brooder in the barn. My neighbor walked up to them, said "Smell that? Someday you will smell that good."

His wife helped me with butchering day that year. She's been bugging him ever since to raise meat birds. She doesn't want to keep them year round, but 8 weeks of work for a full freezer is worth it to her.

 

[cassie]

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.

Just a comment. If the chickens are not packed in tightly in small cages for transport, they will pile up on each other and many get smothered. There are only a few chickens in each cage on the truck so that doesn't happen. Where I lived in California, I used to pass a chicken processing plant whenever I went to town. The truck trailers holding the chickens were parked under a big open roofed area. The chickens had shade and if it was warm there were also fans blowing. I don't remember if there were misters but there may have been.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I think if you want to buy chicken or have to, or any other animal actually, it's fine. I want to eventually be to the point where I don't have to buy chicken but that is still far off. Plus people in that mindset don't tend to think of people in apartments and such that literally can't raise their own food

 

[electrycmonk]

I hope to get mentally comfy with setting up a "freezer camp" and processing.... Eventually

 

[Kiki]

Off-topic:
The thumb down could be a simple way of saying you find a entry not good or you don’t agree. There is one hazard though. It’s a negative reaction and without explanation it doesn’t contribute to a nice and interactive forum. IMO it could make the poster to leave the forum with hard feelings or get people annoyed.
The managers/moderators @Nifty-Chicken @Kiki etc. .... probably considered using it as a no go?

I believe the reactions are staying the way they are for now.

Please don't let a reaction hurt your real life feelings... It is so not worth it.

 

[Timmy59]

24/ 7/ 365 my hand made kill cones stay on the tree..

 

[3KillerBs]

24/ 7/ 365 my hand made kill cones stay on the tree..

What did you make them from? And how are they fastened?

 

[black_cat]

My logic on the subject is......eating store bought chickens is fine, because those chicks would not be hatched if they weren't going to be grown for meat. They wouldn't exists. And they're usually cornish X, which will die anyway and may as well be eaten.
Eating your own chickens, they were either hatched for that purpose (all cornish X) or you know that they led a good life.

 

[parvani]

I started raising chickens because I wanted to taste REAL chicken, not 8-week-old Franken-chicks that would die of heart attacks if they weren't butchered by nine weeks.

Those Franken-chicks aren't sustainable. If civilization collapses (and history has shown that it eventually does, sometimes suddenly), those genetically engineered birds will cease to exist.

For thousands of years, humans have been raising and breeding chickens for eggs, meat, beauty, and even companionship. And now that long history of humans with chickens is at risk because the Franken-chicken is fast and cheap.

But Franken-chickens don't live long enough to lay their own eggs.

Have you ever asked yourselves why you can only buy Cornish Cross meat birds as day-old chicks?

I strongly suspect that the answer is, those day old chicks don't hatch from actual eggs, the kind that have shells. I suspect they all incubate in laboratory conditions, factory style, dumped out of their plastic egg sacks when mature, rinsed off and air dried, then inspected and culled for abnormalities before being boxed and shipped off to farmers and retailers.

I grow REAL chickens, and when my flock is big enough that is the only kind of chicken I will want to eat.

Sure, I have a few I name. I probably won't eat the individual hens who have become pets.

But you know, chickens are delicious. Every predator knows this. So it's not really a matter of WILL they be eaten... but WHO will eat them.

If given a choice, I'd bet that the chickens would prefer to be eaten by someone who feeds and waters and protects them, who incubates their eggs and ensures that their family lives on even though individual chickens have to die. That seems like a much better deal than being eaten by any old wild animal, who may just slaughter the entire flock and leave their carcasses to rot.

Many heritage meat breeds are becoming rare and even endangered because farmers can no longer afford to raise them in competition with cheap Franken-chicken. This is a tragedy that should be prevented.

So yes, I DO eat my own chickens. Eating them is the whole point!