Not Cheap Chicken

davetrousers

I have deliberately posted this on the ethical forum. Please read and bear in mind how that chicken arrived at your table.

LINK

Some key quotes (imo):

The muscles and fat tissues of the newly engineered broiler birds – chickens that become meat, as opposed to layers, chickens that lay eggs – grow significantly faster than their bones, leading to deformities and disease.

Scientific studies and US government records suggest that virtually all chickens become infected with E coli (an indicator of faecal contamination) and between 39% and 75% of chickens in retail stores are still infected. Around 8% of birds become infected with salmonella. Seventy to 90% are infected with another potentially deadly pathogen, campylobacter.

How good could a drug-stuffed, disease-ridden, !!!!!!-contaminated animal possibly taste? In practice, the birds will be injected (or otherwise pumped up) with "broths" and salty solutions to give them what we have come to think of as the chicken look, smell and taste.

Dave101t

but there will always be a market for this, if you dont like it, dont eat it, but i will.

davetrousers

Yes - Read it all.

Dave101t wrote: »

but there will always be a market for this, if you dont like it, dont eat it, but i will.

Thanks for taking the time to read the link. Your comments are noted.

nomoneytoday

I buy free range birds whenever possible, due to their better taste and texture.

Sometimes it's not possible though - either due to availability (free range Kievs?) or to people shopping solely on price... On the positive side, some supermarkets are adhering to at least the red tractor or similar schemes. They're not perfect IMHO, but a step in the right direction

One thing is probably certain though, a "£2 chicken for chavs" probably won't have the best life style conditions, and may be filled with processed E numbers and "stuff"

laying4profit

I used to be a broiler farm manager over here in the UK.After 4 years of doing it i decided to leave. I then went into Animal investigations doing various thing for the BBC & the media (Mirror,Edp).
I dont alot of stuff on Pigs,Ducks,Turkeys,Chicken's mainly and all of these were the BIG names.

Im sorry to say you want stop this happening.People will buy it as its cheap.Its no different to how other things are manufactured.Look at all the kids who work hours on end for what? Is that not the same???
Are they not denying them the right to be a child? The same as these birds are denied the right to be free.

I think there are far more important things in this life that to be worried about the production of animals for food.But heres some info for you..
Chickens are ready in 5-6 weeks normally.They will get Splay leg's,SDS,NE (necrotic enteritis).Yes they are pumped with drugs.. Its in the feed and is also given to ALL chickens through the water.
Amoxicillin was used if a problem arose.. Lincospectin was given at day 1-3.
Another medication was given half way in.. cant remember the name but is was in Viles and was mixed with powdered Milk in a bucket of water.
The feed is a high protein mix..And they are also given 24 hours of light all the time..

yes its all bad but they will do it while people buy it. Also the company i worked for is/was going to have unit overseas as the production costs were cheaper.. and then have them shipped over here.Same as another BIG household name does.

I remember killing over 6000 bird's with in 1 week just because i was told they were TOO SMALL. Thats how bad it is.

If you are interested in this animal rights stuff i urge you to go to VIVA! Juliet has the backing and support from some well known actors and superstars.

Fire_Fox

I have not read all of the link too full of emotive language, as a scientist I prefer to draw my own conclusions from the facts and figures. I went over to organic meat six or more years ago, after reading that a battery chicken reached maturity in six weeks and an organic chicken a year IIRC. I returned to battery meat a couple of years ago as an increasing percentage of our income was going on food and basic bills. Now I live alone on JSA, I am virtually vegetarian at home but still eat (free range) eggs: my cat eats battery meat.

Raggs_2

Yes - Read it all.

Read the link fully.

Couple of observations, the picture of the factory farmed turkeys showed a lot of birds with what appeared to be clean, generally well kept plumage, not the image conjured up by the article. I've seen a turkey factory, and have to say I saw the same thing there.

Even if the processing plant is hundreds (and it made it sound as this was quite exceptional), it's still only a matter of hours before the birds get there, not days, though I admit weather conditions can be an issue. The the processors accept dead livestock? I can't imagine they can.

2% are improperly slaughtered every year (saying 180 million sounds better than 2%), and we don't have a definition of what constitutes improperly slaughtered.

It's not in the farmers interest to lose too many birds, bad for profits.

I can't say I agree with factory farming, but I would be very interested in testing of cortisol levels in animals being raised in normal factory conditions. I've worked in what is classed as factory farmed dairy cattle, and as all dairy farmers will tell you, happy healthy cows give you a lot more milk (healthy calves have calves sooner, and give more milk if they are kept healthy).

I still disagree with factory farming for the most part, but I certainly question just how terrible it is, not as bad that activists try and make out I'm sure.

EDIT - One day I will get around to visiting an abattoir, always been of interest to me.

EDIT EDIT - Oh, I also found it amusing when the guy was wondering why all the doors were locked. Could it be perhaps because self righteous people come in to stress, kill and release their livestock?

Fire_Fox

Raggs wrote: »

I still disagree with factory farming for the most part, but I certainly question just how terrible it is, not as bad that activists try and make out I'm sure.

EDIT - One day I will get around to visiting an abattoir, always been of interest to me.

I use to work for of one the top universities in research labs. My department did not have an animal house but the next building did, and both buildings carried out research using animals (I did not) and tissue culture. Five minutes walk away was the Genetics department, which neither had an animal house nor carried out any animal research - all tissue culture. In my day the most frequently used were HeLa cells - cancer cells of human origin.

Genetics was regularly picketed by animal rights activists who clearly had never even read one of the research papers or they could have worked out they were picketing the wrong department!! Whenever I read of someone having their car bombed or family threatened I wonder if the activists have got the right man.

Raggs_2

Yes - Read it all.

Zoology graduate here, saw one or two half-assed pickets about animal testing in the uni.

A couple of things (one slightly related, one not so much) always made me smile. The first was a class when we were examining malaria, so they brought out an infected mouse, cut off the very tip of it's tail, and placed a small blood spot on some slides for us to look at. A lot of the girls in the class were feeling sorry for the mouse, commenting on cutting the tip of it's tail off. They seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact it had been infected with malaria (a far less enjoyable fate than a small cut).

The next fun story I heard from a physicist is the apparent reason the University decided to install a miniature nuclear reactor in one of the external campuses, not so much for the experiments that could be run, but more to distract from the rather more dangerous piece (but less publicly known) of equipment being install in the main (central london) campus .

Fire_Fox

Raggs wrote: »

Zoology graduate here, saw one or two half-assed pickets about animal testing in the uni.

A couple of things (one slightly related, one not so much) always made me smile. The first was a class when we were examining malaria, so they brought out an infected mouse, cut off the very tip of it's tail, and placed a small blood spot on some slides for us to look at. A lot of the girls in the class were feeling sorry for the mouse, commenting on cutting the tip of it's tail off. They seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact it had been infected with malaria (a far less enjoyable fate than a small cut).
.

:rotfl:

I worked in teaching labs before the research labs, and one of the microbiology lecturers used to instruct an experiment where the students infected apples. Because there were a lot of biomed students, one year he decided to order cockroaches. I walked into one lab to find my unflappable chief technician looking horrified as our new arrivals ran up and over the sides of a glass fish tank. We found all but two (males).

The funniest part was the normally PITA students were so frightened of losing cockroaches they over-gassed them and then struggled bring them round, they were model students and didn't lose a single beastie. The following year we went to the greengrocers for apples.