Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

That's what I was thinking too. It creates markets elsewhere.

Huge import taxes (for not producing by the same rules) could prevent this.

 

[Perris]

I don't read them usually.

I don't either but this one caught my eye.

 

[BDutch]

I don't know if embryonic sexing technology is an affordable option in Germany? I imagine the IP is tightly defended and the licensing optimised for economic return rather than animal welfare.

I saw a documentary on our national tv about the founders of the hatchery with no-cockerel-death. And I truly believe they started it for the value/well being. Not to kill so many new born cockerels.

Btw, the newborn cockerels are feed for snakes, big birds, predators in the zoo and used otherwise. They are not shredded to trow away.

Btw, i don’t want to defend the factory farming industry. But i hate what has become ‘our’ way to feed the richer part of the planet. I would rather have welfare of livestock a must and in general: make meat twice as expensive so people would eat half the amount of what they eat today.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Yes, they are quite diverse and wonderful! Although there are two ISA Browns and they're inseperable and aggressively defensive. They joined the crew at Christmas when the river was flooding. They're refugees from the river flood and haven't adapted to their suburban lifestyle yet, which is fair enough really. I ought to have more empathy for them, but their violence puts me right off.

Interesting. I had read that IS A Browns were friendly and low key generally. Perhaps these two are a bit traumatized?

 

[TropicalChickies]

By twice as expensive, I assume you mean in wealthy countries? Germans only pay 2.82 euros for marinated pork tenderloin. Seven- hundred grams of pork cutlet will set you back 4.29 euros. An eight-pack of poultry sausage costs 2.79 euros.

The animals are all fed soy from the deforested rainforest. At least one fifth of this deforestation is illegal land grabbing.

I saw a documentary on our national tv about the founders of the hatchery with no-cockerel-death. And I truly believe they started it for the value/well being. Not to kill so many new born cockerels.

Btw, the newborn cockerels are feed for snakes, big birds, predators in the zoo and used otherwise. They are not shredded to trow away.

Btw, i don’t want to defend the factory farming industry. But i hate what has become ‘our’ way to feed the richer part of the planet. I would rather have welfare of livestock a must and in general: make meat twice as expensive so people would eat half the amount of what they eat today.

It’s about the same in the Netherlands. Our feed industry imports poisoned GMO soy an mais from former rainforest land in Brazil. The farmers feed it to the animals (for people who buy too much cheap meat and lot’s of it for export) . And we have a problem with too much dung and bad air.
The NOx pollution in our country is way too high. It goes beyond the farmland. + Factories and traffic contribute to the nitrogen pollution too. Therefore the soil in natural/ protected area’s has become polluted too. Many flowers/plants that should grow in nature get extinct. Consequence is that insects / animals who live directly or indirectly on these plants get into trouble too.
Other plants take over and the feed industry/farmers claim that there is no harm done in nature.

From an article you might want to read. Also, there's a Dutchman trying to turn this situation around -- mentioned in the article

"Much of the soy that is shipped to Europe from Brazil comes from Central Brazil, but also increasingly from areas in the northern part of the country, regions like the homeland of dos Santos. From here, large ships sail down the Amazon to the coast, before then setting off across the Atlantic to Europe. And thus, the village of Munduruku in the rainforest has a direct link to the schnitzel that ends up on plates in Hannover or Hamburg. No country in the European Union produces as much meat as Germany, and no country in the world produces as much soy as Brazil. Soy, used as feed for chickens, pigs and cattle, is a key element in meat production – and to farm soybeans, the rainforest in Brazil is being cut down.

We have long known just how dangerous this is. Researchers have been warning for years that the Amazon rainforest is one of the most important stabilizers of the global climate. If the forest dies, it will emit more greenhouse gases than it absorbs, which could change the global climate so significantly that the livelihoods of millions of people around the world would be destroyed.

And yet this forest continues to burn every year. Layer by layer, loggers, livestock farmers and soybean producers continue to destroy the dense flora that stores vast quantities of greenhouse gases. They then use most of the exposed land to raise cattle; where possible, though, they plant soybeans. The amount of land in Brazil covered by soy has risen to more than 350,000 square kilometers."

https://rainforestjournalismfund.org/stories/soybean-farming-brazil-rainforest-trough-german

 

[TropicalChickies]

I was busy yesterday so missed most of the interesting discussion on alternatives to modern industrial agriculture, but if it's not too late to chip in, I recommend this book https://www.backyardchickens.com/re...ing-chickens-and-other-fowl-for-home-a.11619/ to anyone wanting to get their chickens multitasking (and as a useful reference book to have on hand for a whole host of other things like feed and disease too).

Thanks @Perris

 

[Shadrach]

I wonder if everything they say is true. Enlarging the scale is probably one of the reasons there are less hatcheries.

Another thing what is not true is that there are 14 days required begore they can make an accurate selection male/female.

From a dutch site (translated one part): https://reportersonline.nl/een-eitj...e-geweten-met-de-eieren-van-respeggt-kan-het/
“
SELEGGT method
The sex determination in Respeggt's hatching egg is called the SELEGGT method. On day 9 of the incubation process, a small drop of liquid is removed from the hatching eggs. This is done in a non-invasive way. The inside of the hatching egg is therefore not touched and remains intact. This endocrine sex determination has been specially developed by the scientists of the Respeggt group.”

So innovation techniques are allmost there with one week. And why shouldn’t it be possible to afjudt the regulation from 7 to 10 days?

One more thing that crosses my mind, on this (wider) subject. Last year there was a proposal about animal welfare that was accepted by our government.
It orders that all animals should have a descent life according to natural behaviour of the species. It was said the acceptance was a mistake. Because there were a lot of chamber members not present at the vote and the board of ministers/agricultural minister claims
this new law is impossible because animals within the farming business never had or will have a life were they can live in a natural behaviour way. Now the date for this law is postponed. And they are trying to change it, in a way the farmers can keep on doing what they do know: go on with animal abuse to sell cheap meat.

From NOS (national) news - translated intro.
https://nos.nl/l/2461513
(It really is true we have a party for the animals in our national second chambers, it has 2 or 3 seats of the 150 available) . Our first chamber is not as important (mainly for check/legislation).

The cabinet is not implementing an amendment to the law adopted by the Party for the Animals on animal welfare, because it would be 'impracticable'. Instead, the cabinet wants agreements to be made for animal-worthy livestock farming, in which the welfare of broilers, dairy cows and other farm animals is central.

Agriculture minister Piet Adema requires farmers' advocates and animal protection to record the agreements in a covenant, he gave them strict and far-reaching starting points. Animal organizations are dissatisfied with this, they believe that only experts should sit at the table.

I'm completely against the termination of unhatch males.
Much more in favour of letting them hatch and then eating them.
If that means the price of chicken meat doubles or even trebles I'm good with that. We should all over here in the priviliged west be eating less meat anyway.
Killing them at three months is too early imo.

 

[TropicalChickies]

That is one way, perhaps.

Another sustainable way is pasturing the land that is too dry and has limestone too close to the surface to be sustainably farmed other ways. It is similar to how it was when the buffalo roamed it. Not exactly, they roamed in herds of millions that moved hundreds of miles over the seasons vs today's cattle in herds of hundreds that move dozens of miles over the seasons.

Like these (Flint Hills of Oklahoma and Kansas; Red Hills of Kansas. Sand Hills of Nebraska)
View attachment 3486292
View attachment 3486289
View attachment 3486290

And one of the pictures I took when I lived on the Great Plains, it was a little too late in the day for a good look.

I think there are other ways too. A few chickens and a garden works well. A few cattle can do much the same for a little bit bigger scale of agriculture. Maybe rotate the garden across a bigger area to keep the plant diseases down and not need to move the fertilizer the cattle leave. They add a lot of diversity to the diets of people and of chickens. And diversity to the farm as a whole - that adds a buffer to bad weather or maybe bird flu causing governments to require flocks be kept under a roof

Tax later, I haven't been taking my phone into the garden lately.

Edit to add, the pictures didn't load as I expected. I guess they are close enough to leave them since a few tried to fix them failed.

Good points. Indigenous tribes like the Maasai in eastern Africa have been sustainably herding cattle and goats for millenia. They move the animals constantly over the arid terrain so no area gets overgrazed. They sow new grasses and edible seed crops like kernza in the wake of the animals in the ground fertilized by manure. It's a beautiful productive cycle we could learn a lot from

 

[Shadrach]

I don't either but this one caught my eye.

I suppose it's probably difficult to get tech people who keep chickens for keeping the site running.

 

[Perris]

I suppose it's probably difficult to get tech people who keep chickens for keeping the site running.

yeh, but I think that one has been writing lots of articles/repeating hearsay.