Questions regarding the commercial poultry industry for essay?

[Blackberry18]

I'm doing a paper for my English class regarding poultry abuse in commercial industries. I'm trying to get a well-rounded point of view, and my sources are currently all against poultry industry. Obviously, I'm not going to find anything that supports abuse, but what industries treat their birds well, and/or do something about the abuse? In other words, just more "positive" perspectives and resources.

Also, I know that White Leghorns (for eggs), Cornish Cross (for meat), and the Broad-Breasted White Turkey (turkey meat) are the most common, but are there any others? What about brown egg-layers in industries? I'm guessing those would be Black and Red Sex-Links, Rhode Island Red, Production Reds, Black Australorps, etc.? Any other information on breeds in the industries, but chicken and turkey?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

You're right about the CornishX and Broad Breasted White but while it is true that many layers were developed from Leghorns, egg farms mostly have more heavily selected hybrids.
ISA and Hy-line are among the larger producers of those super layers.
http://www.isapoultry.com/en/products/
http://www.hyline.com/aspx/products/productinformation.aspx

You should find lots of information for your paper at WorldPoultry.
http://www.worldpoultry.net/

There are some farms that do care for their birds well. However, when you have to house millions of birds, how well can they really be cared for.
A broiler only lives 7 weeks or so. Most layers only live for about 24 months.

Here are pics of good egg farms (as good as a cage can be) and not so good egg farms.
The first 2 are aerial view and inside view of RoseAcre in Iowa.





Less good


Bad



This is what the source of cage free eggs looks like.


Broiler house.




End of life at 7 weeks


Backyard chickens


I don't have bad things to say about the commercial production of eggs and meat.
Who would feed all those urbanites if there weren't a commercial industry?

 

[Blackberry18]

You're right about the CornishX and Broad Breasted White but while it is true that many layers were developed from Leghorns egg farms mostly have more heavily selected hybrids.
ISA and Hy-line are among the larger producers of those super layers.
http://www.isapoultry.com/en/products/
http://www.hyline.com/aspx/products/productinformation.aspx

You should find lots of information for your paper at WorldPoultry.
http://www.worldpoultry.net/

There are some farms that do care for their birds well. However, when you have to house millions of birds, how well can they really be cared for.
A broiler only lives 7 weeks or so. Most layers only live for about 24 months.

Here are pics of good egg farms (as good as a cage can be) and not so good egg farms.
The first 2 are aerial view and inside view of RoseAcre in Iowa.





Less good


Bad



This is what the source of cage free eggs looks like.


Broiler house.




End of life at 7 weeks


Backyard chickens


I don't have bad things to say about the commercial production of eggs and meat.
Who would feed all those urbanites if there weren't a commercial industry.

Thanks a lot! I'll certainly use these in my essay.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

I wrote a similar paper a few years ago (factory farming for all animals) and the reason you're finding so many negative opinions is because there aren't many farms people would consider "good". One way you could argue for factory farming is to find sources describing the difficulties of feeding such a large nation, therefore arguing the necessity for them. You could also research less cruel farming methods and explain how they could be implemented into current farming operations. Sometimes your most helpful sources are the ones that don't answer your questions directly. It all about interpretation and application.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I think many people in the US tend to forget that there are 7 billion other people in the world and they have to eat too. Some places have extreme population densities.
Countries like Singapore have 7700 people per square kilometer. Hong Kong is about 6600 per sq. km. That's 3 times the population density of the city of Los Angeles.
The city of Mumbai, India has a population of over 14 million crammed into less than 500 sq. km. That's 30,000 people per sq. km.
There are 90 cities around the world with greater population densities than LA.
You can't feed that number of people without some form of commercial agriculture. The real problem is that people don't want expensive food and factory farming comes to the rescue fills that need.
IMHO, overpopulation is the real problem.
In Lithuania, there are over 10 million broilers. 13% are in backyard flocks, the rest are on commercial farms. This one country will produce 100,000 metric tons of poultry meat this year.
And it isn't just chickens. Some of the numbers are staggering. There is a plant in Russia that processes 4,000 ducks per hour. That's 66 ducks per minute. Eventually the one plant will be producing 40,000 tons of duck meat per year.

The following link is another point of view.
https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/

 

[Weehopper]

Thank you for posting this. Never even considered the number of people in the world that need to eat like the rest of us. Refreshing to see both sides of the coin.

 

[Patrick Murphy]

Thank you

 

[Mollyper]

Nice work!