WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA STATE CHICKEN CONFINEMENT LAW FOR EGG FARMERS ?????

[HighStreetCoop]

Look on the bright side; the citizens of California of going broke from all their free government giveaways, social programs & crazy laws and soon they will all be swiping their EBT cards at the grocery store to get their expensive pampered eggs for free.

I never understand why people get so excited about forecasting gloom and doom for California, but here’s a dose of reality … California has the highest GDP of any state (Alabama isn’t even in the top 50%). Since Brown took office, we’ve eliminated our deficit entirely and are now running a surplus which is slated to shrink our total state debt down to almost nothing in the next four years. Alabama meanwhile is still running a deficit which is expected to grow exponentially. I’m pretty confident about which state is a better bet for long-term financial health, and it isn’t Alabama.

 

[Bo Garrett]

Quote: I fully agree, the same is said of poultry farming and it is blatantly untrue.

 

[Bo Garrett]

Quote: Yes, when I was on a confinement farrowing operation as well as feed out operation they had them intravenously hooked up to antibiotics "pumping them full" there were times I thought they'd pop!!! No wonder people cannot make an informed vote when they get this sort of information!! Commercial sows are just as good of mothers as any other sow with the exception of a feral sow, I raised pigs and my sows were on dirt pasture but when it came to farrowing they went in a crate because you can't sell pigs that never get raised and they will manage to kill some if not all at times. They do not wallow in their own feces, how many commercial farms have you been on??? These farms typically have grated floors and have a flushing system that removes the waste on a timed regular basis. It is for both reasons, the farmer cannot sell dead piglets and the sows cannot make him money if they aren't producing piglets. So let's do the math 1000 pigs on how much paddock pasture? Where does all the feces go? You would need untold numbers of acres to accomplish this in a commercial setting and your feces would remain in the pasture harboring parasites until the next rotation which would not be long unless you had a pig farm the size of Alberta, Canada.

 

[AccidentalFarmr]

"Dirt pasture"

was it dirt or pasture? raising on dirt doesn't represent a pasture run operation, it's a step away from living on concrete. if you have to confine your sows to keep them from killing their piglets it sounds like you need smarter sows. save the best, eat the rest. now maybe you need to relax a little.... i never claimed that pasture based systems should replace all factory farms, but there are plenty of customers that prefer pork that tastes like pork, and not the box it came in, and like supporting their local producers. not everyone can or wants to spend the extra money on pasture raised meat, but there's certainly room for both types of operations. fast food chains and those that prefer inexpensive "other white meat" need to get their food somewhere too, and that's fine.

Alberta, Canada is what... ~250,000 square miles? if you need that much room to graze 1000 pigs on a rotational system then you're doing something horribly wrong. the pastures of one of the closer farms to me that i visited this fall has a carrying capacity of ~1000 pounds per acre and allows a resting period of 25 - 30 days where the hogs are followed by chickens; so let's do some math.... at an average of 125 pounds per pig, that's 8 pigs per acre, and for the mathletes, 125 acres per 1000 hogs, which is about the size of an average 18 hole golf course. now Alberta on the other hand is in the realm of 163 million acres.... do that math. even if you expanded that allotted space 8 fold and never returned to the same paddock in a year you're looking at a couple hundred million pigs. go canada.

 

[Bo Garrett]

"Dirt pasture"

was it dirt or pasture? raising on dirt doesn't represent a pasture run operation, it's a step away from living on concrete. if you have to confine your sows to keep them from killing their piglets it sounds like you need smarter sows. save the best, eat the rest. now maybe you need to relax a little.... i never claimed that pasture based systems should replace all factory farms, but there are plenty of customers that prefer pork that tastes like pork, and not the box it came in, and like supporting their local producers. not everyone can or wants to spend the extra money on pasture raised meat, but there's certainly room for both types of operations. fast food chains and those that prefer inexpensive "other white meat" need to get their food somewhere too, and that's fine.

Alberta, Canada is what... ~250,000 square miles? if you need that much room to graze 1000 pigs on a rotational system then you're doing something horribly wrong. the pastures of one of the closer farms to me that i visited this fall has a carrying capacity of ~1000 pounds per acre and allows a resting period of 25 - 30 days where the hogs are followed by chickens; so let's do some math.... at an average of 125 pounds per pig, that's 8 pigs per acre, and for the mathletes, 125 acres per 1000 hogs, which is about the size of an average 18 hole golf course. now Alberta on the other hand is in the realm of 163 million acres.... do that math. even if you expanded that allotted space 8 fold and never returned to the same paddock in a year you're looking at a couple hundred million pigs. go canada.

Speaking facetiously of course, apparently you are far to literal a person. Your suggested methods are neither economical or practical if they were don't you think that the commercial industry would have long since seen the practicality and economics of the pastured pig business and taken off running to buy the several hundred acres needed to paddock pasture pigs? Dirt was the answer, because if you had any knowledge of swine and their detriment to land you would know that grass would not last long with 1000 swine rooting it up, even if you moved them periodically. Once again, my comments come from experience and practical knowledge and not some whimsical idea of happy pigs bouncing around a pasture with tulips and daisies smiling up at them while the tape worms, round worms, ticks and chiggers (here in the south) are infesting them waiting to be transferred to the next pasture of utopic pleasure. Pastured pigs, like pastured poultry are a niche market and there are not many willing to pay the price for what it costs to bring these products to the market place, hence the commercial industries not converting to this methodology.
Obviously, you have your opinion and I have mine, wonderful country in which we live; we can have them, debate them and disagree if that is the case but we still can live together and someday meet and find we have common ground elsewhere.

May blessings abound to you in all you do,

 

[Happy Chooks]

I never understand why people get so excited about forecasting gloom and doom for California, but here’s a dose of reality … California has the highest GDP of any state (Alabama isn’t even in the top 50%). Since Brown took office, we’ve eliminated our deficit entirely and are now running a surplus which is slated to shrink our total state debt down to almost nothing in the next four years. Alabama meanwhile is still running a deficit which is expected to grow exponentially. I’m pretty confident about which state is a better bet for long-term financial health, and it isn’t Alabama.

Not exactly. He has now committed us to paying $62 million ($65 million - $3 million from the Federal govt) for the bullet train. And CA's welfare rates are among the highest in the country.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

[COLOR=000000]I never understand why people get so excited about forecasting gloom and doom for California, but here’s a dose of reality … California has the highest GDP of any state (Alabama isn’t even in the top 50%). Since Brown took office, we’ve eliminated our deficit entirely and are now running a surplus which is slated to shrink our total state debt down to almost nothing in the next four years. Alabama meanwhile is still running a deficit which is expected to grow exponentially. I’m pretty confident about which state is a better bet for long-term financial health, and it isn’t Alabama.[/COLOR]

That's a typical liberal tactic; if you can't beat them with brains, baffle them with bs. The GDP of Alabama is irrevelant to this thread topic. What is revellant is that Alabama has affordable eggs on it's grocery store shelves and California does not. When available they will cost CA consumers exponentially more, to the tune of 30-70% according to the article linked by the op.

 

[blucoondawg]

This is silly.

I want better service from my cable provider - but no amount of consumer pressure is going to get that. The free market only works if consumers have perfect information about the products they're buying, if the cost of entry into the market is small, and there's no cost to switching.

The only one of these that is true is the 3rd one - you need 10s of thousands of birds to compete in this market - so the cost of entry for businesses is high, and consumers have basically no information on how animals are actually kept. They don't know the difference, so they can't vote with their wallets.

No the free market only works if there is competition, cable providers pretty much enjoy a monopoly in every city that has cable, in my area if you are lucky enough to have cable offered it is only by the one company who has a line near your home, food is much different, there are many places to buy eggs or anything else, if you don't like the factory farm eggs then pay 7 dollars a dozen for the free range eggs offered at the supermarket, don't champion a law that forces those who like to buy cheap eggs to have to pay a lot more for their eggs to satisfy your liberal sensibilities. Honestly what is seen as "cruelty" by some in this day and age is a little ridiculous. If animals are being beaten and damaged physically or falling ill and starving ya ok you may have a point, but not having enough room to flap their wings in a cage for the sort time they are going to live anyways is not cruelty.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Speaking facetiously of course.... Pastured pigs, like pastured poultry are a niche market and there are not many willing to pay the price for what it costs to bring these products to the market place....

Pastured pork as well as pastured poultry is a sure sign that you have too much time and money on your hands.

 

[enola]

Pastured pigs and chickens is not feasible commercially. But lots of farmers raise pork and poultry on pasture when they plan to eat them.