After World War 2 it became apparent that by using industrial methods of production, chicken meat could be made cheaper than beef. At the outset the industrial birds were healthy and their meat was tasty.
Today, after decades of misguided breeding and lack of attention to elementary laws in nature, the entire industry is facing a crisis. The fragile birds that it has bred are vulnerable to disease and stress, require expensive raising, large quantities of drugs, feed, time and controlled and artificial living conditions. Their meat, the production of which is the industry's actual purpose, is mushy, bland and saturated with fat.
BRITAIN'S favourite meat is getting fatter. Despite its healthy image, researchers have found that the modern chicken contains nearly three times the fat it did 35 years ago. Our insatiable appetite for chicken meat has led to the mass produced industrial broiler. Those beautifully packaged sanitised plump chicken breasts aren't what they appear to be!
In AMERICA, chickens are raised in "poultry factories" where they are crowded together without enough space to move. This breeding system prevents the birds from running, and this ensures that their meat will be tender instead of tough and stringy. Because the birds are bred in such close proximity, they have to be medicated to guard against the diseases that are a natural product of living so near one another. They also receive chemicals to speed their growth so they can go to market heavier and sooner.
Attached is a pdf 'Chicken and eggs - why welfare comes first for Soil Association birds'As if Battery Farming for egg production wasn't bad enough, we now move on to the chickens you eat. Again, the principle is to supply food at cheap prices for the masses, but we have to look into the welfare of both the bird and ourselves - what are we eating?, where does it come from? how was it kept and killed? is it healthy?
Broiler Chicken Production
Broiler chickens are usually kept in windowless sheds containing anything up to 100,000 birds. Everything is done automatically from feeding, water supply and ventilation. Although these birds are not caged, they can be legally stocked at 17 birds per square meter (again, less than one A4 sheet of paper each).
They are overfed and the food supplemented with various 'grow quick' products such as anti-biotics. Hence the birds are ready for killing at the age of about 7 weeks. 'Spring Chickens' (sounds good!) are killed at 4 weeks and some slightly longer for the larger roasts.
They arrive in these sheds at only a couple of days old. Firstly, the lighting is set to maximum daylight hours but often dimmed in actual light to prevent too many fights and general aggression. During their stay, the flooring of litter is not changed. The farms will therefore go through about 5 / 6 batches per year. This allows the litter to be cleared and the shed fumigated after each slaughter.
At slaughter age 'Catchers' go around simply picking as many birds as they can in two hands and throw them into crates. The easiest way of doing this is by the legs upside down. They are then transported in Container lorries to the Slaughterhouse. One Container lorry could carry up to 6,000 birds.
At the Slaughterhouse they are shackled upside down, five aside, still alive. The Shackle Line then moves along and dips them into an electric bath. Some of these birds do not die at this stage and are conscious when they finally have their throats cut. After this it's off to the scalding tank which makes the plucking easier. The speed at which this is done is up to 150 birds per minute.
Health and other Welfare
The emphasis of this industry is speed. Some years ago it took a bird 82 days to reach its killing weight, now it is half that time. Because of food supplements and literal factory farming, many birds become lame because the trunk body has grown faster than the legs can take it. One source says that up to 80 per cent of these chickens can have broken or brittle bones by the time they are slaughtered.
Because the floors are not cleaned during their stay, they have to sleep in their own mess. This leads to painful breast blisters and hock burns (these can be identified in Supermarket chickens by the marks at the upper joints of the leg).
About 2 per cent of broilers will die of heart failure. Other known complaints are fatty liver, chronic respiratory disease and kidney syndrome. Overall about 6 per cent die before slaughter.
As far as my own research goes, there are 817 million broiler chickens sold each year in the UK. Sales increased during the foot and mouth crisis and chickens became the healthier option. In the world it's 47 billion. Do we have to put 47 billion creatures through this process? I am not a Vegetarian, but I believe strongly in humane farming. Surely these birds with all the drugs, living conditions, diseases and stressful life cannot be doing us any good at all!
http://www.downthela...et/broiler.html
Regards,
Simon