Preaching to the choir... PICS

[dichotomymom]

My "backyard" processing couldn't be any more sanitary but then again, it's just me and my family, not some hired hand who is helping us. As someone who has benefited from commercial ag farming and understands the pains the small independent farmer goes through, I give my eye teeth for opportunities to support them even if it means paying a little more. If your operation is small, you're more likely to be attentive to problems and can cull when needed rather than not seeing a broiler with broken legs that can't make it to feed. So in my eyes, tractoring is always to be more humane simply because it allows more visual contact for health reasons and more "earth" contact for the birds.

 

[pixie74943]

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20,000 chickens wouldn't be considered a barrier? What exactly would allow a chicken in this photo to walk a straight line from one end of the barn to the other?

Come on Jeff, your pictures were carefully selected to boost your argument. The first picture by pixie74943 of a broiler house in this thread looked pretty decent. After that I could tell the pictures were from selected sites to show these broiler houses in a negative light. Your picture of your meat birds relaxing in a chicken tractor was also done when they were still young and not as cramped. I got the two square feet per bird statistic from your website. Remember the factory farm for fois gras? That was a terrific barn. I also remember the picture of the meat birds free ranging with poultry netting that you provided one time. That was a great operation.

Just remember, when you tell customers about the cruel conditions that the birds endure in broiler houses, I tell customers about the cruel conditions that birds endure in both chicken tractors and broiler houses.

You are trying to tell me that high density stuck indoors in BETTER than being in a tractor, with fresh air, fresh grass and lower density? What exactly do you want from us? 99% of people do not live on 500acres, we dont have that space. We do what we can with what we have, and you seem incapable of seeing how it is better than high density farming.

Oh, and the first picture by me, what is okay about that? That first broiler house that you called 'okay' was the same one that had a naked chick/hen (looked about 4weeks to me) with a broken leg. I can assure you that NO reasonable person raising backyard broilers would allow something like that to happen. More than half of the broilers in commercial farms are naked, the backyard birds are not. That alone should be a testament to their health and happiness!

 

[Buster52]

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My point is that I buy my chicken at a grocery store because I will not pay the high prices that people want for birds raised in a chicken tractor. To me, high density farming is just that. Whether it is done in someone's backyard or in a commercial broiler house, I see high density farming techniques being employed. Therefore, the lowest bidder (and USDA inspected) gets my money. I see pro's and con's to each system, and the difference just isn't enough to make me pay more to support the chicken tractor farmer. Furthermore, I am also quite sure that less than sanitary conditions are being employed in backyard chicken processing operations.

Okay, I appreciate your honesty. If you would have said that a long time ago, we could have saved a whole lot of time and effort by cutting to the chase, as they say.

I don't sell my birds. I raise them for me and my family and extended family and a few friends. One purpose for doing so is because I don't consider factory farming to be sustainable, ecologically speaking. But the main reason I do so is because I don't believe industrial farming is humane, and I refuse to support a system that mistreats animals. I felt like every time I bought industrial meat, I was participating in the inhumane treatment of animals. I just couldn't do that any more.

This stuff is a lot of work. I see my birds and interact with them on a daily basis. I care about their welfare and sometimes have agonized over the most humane method for dispatching them when the time comes. If I thought for one second that tractoring was inhumane, I would stop doing it immediately, since that would sort of defeat the primary purpose of raising my own birds. I do think a netting system would be better for them, so I will give that a try, but only because I think it might be better for the birds, and not because I feel tractoring is inhumane. If it turns out I find netting isn't better for the birds, I will go back to tractor raising.

My participation in this particular discussion was to defend a practice I believe was being unjustly maligned, and because I felt (and still feel) your defense of factory farming was completely without merit.

 

[DuckLady]

Ok, I cleaned up.

Be nice.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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Well actually you still do support this type of farming, indirectly. Especially if you buy any products such as bread, cheese, etc. that use eggs or milk as ingredients. Most people really don't think about where their food comes from.

Like chocolate? I know farms in Pennsylvania that supply Mars and Hershey with milk.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Come on, way off topic.

Have a good Christmas.... officially signing off... for a day!

 

[dichotomymom]

Like Brunty said, off topic but unless we are completely off grid AND completely self sustaining, there is no way to avoid even the indirect connection between our foods and commercial farming. It's no different with any industry that we can't see: clothes from sweat shops, products made my consenting adults but who are barely eeking out a living etc....

 

[kman]

sanitary conditions not being employed in backyard flocks, maybe your right. but hear is my question for you have you ever been in a processing plant. I have and i would in no way at all condsider it as being sanitary. i quite eating chicken all together took a long time to get over the things i have seen in their.

i use to do a lot of weekend work at the processing plants, hatcheries and rendering plants but not anymore, i got my own flock and ever time i went in their i could only think about my poor little chickens. o i am a electrician just to give yall an idea of what i was doing at places like that

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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I commented on his assertion that he refuses to support a system that mistreats animals. I realize what I am saying is not politically correct for this board, and contrary to how you make your living.

 

[Buster52]

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Well actually you still do support this type of farming, indirectly. Especially if you buy any products such as bread, cheese, etc. that use eggs or milk as ingredients. Most people really don't think about where their food comes from.

Yeah, I thought of that, and I do know where my food comes from.

But you can only do so much in a short amount of time. I have prioritized my journey toward self sufficiency/sustainability and decided meat would be the easiest and quickest thing to replace in my diet. Foods that require animal inputs are next.