Why do battery hens have big, floppy combs?

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

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Believe what you want to, but it your assertion is simply not true!!!! Egg producers DO NOT, repeat DO NOT use hormones in commercial egg production. This includes feed, water, injections, and air.

Jim

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

Explain why you know that. I am not trying to say what you are saying is wrong but I want to know how you know.

 

[Davaroo]

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EDITED AFTER FURTHER REVIEW TO INCLUDE THE PREDICTED SOAPBOX:
Not anymore. Outlawed some time ago. This is a holdover scare tactic plied by the eco-foodist alarmists.
Modern layers dont need them. They are bred carefully to be superb layers - your best yard birds pale in comparison. They are carefully fed, tended, and controlled to the very day they will reduce production. Once laying drops off to the predicted point, they go to the processor and new hens take their place. There is little need of hormonal augmentation under such a Huxleyan scheme.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

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Not anymore. Outlawed some time ago.
Soapbox? Wait for it - its coming.

I know it's coming, I can almost feel it.

Although, many people confuse the antibiotics in the commercial farm's feed to be "hormones". It is true, they do not use hormones. Antibiotics, yes; hormones, no.

-Wolf

 

[Davaroo]

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Not anymore. Outlawed some time ago.
Soapbox? Wait for it - its coming.

Antibiotics, yes; hormones, no.

-Wolf

Kim, you got it.

 

[cthrash1]

Well, that blows my theory all out of perspective as to why my DS was allergic to commercial and not farm raised... Dangit now I have to do more figuring, you know how hard that can be on the brain?????

 

[Davaroo]

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Sure, I suffer from it daily. Ill make a suggestion: dont.

But as for floppy combs on the Leghorn/Med breeds, I think they look cool as heck.

 

[silkiechicken]

Yep it is true. In the US, it is illegal to give any poultry, meat or eggs hormones. It is packaging that says "no hormones" that gives the false impression. They are bred to produce hundreds of eggs a year. I have two leghorns that have grown up from chicks here. They each lay their weight in eggs every few weeks or so. It's amazing how a jumbo egg can come out of a 3 lb hen once a day, 6 days a week, if not 7. They are each going on through their two years of laying time, rain or shine, dead of winter, and one even though moult!

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/hormones.htm
No steroid hormones are approved for use in poultry.

But they do wash the eggs and certain things in the feed can be passed to the egg such as an onion or garlic flavor.

 

[Davaroo]

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This has always amazed me, too. I guess its the result of specalization.

 

[fivebigreds]

Quote:
EDITED AFTER FURTHER REVIEW TO INCLUDE THE PREDICTED SOAPBOX:
Not anymore. Outlawed some time ago. This is a holdover scare tactic plied by the eco-foodist alarmists.

Just because something has been outlawed doesen't mean it don't happen.
My soapbox moment was for the treatment of the birds in general

not hormones. Sorry if i wasn't clear .