The True Cost of Cheap Chicken

[villager]

Source: the Independent

The true cost of cheap chicken

In a tiny space a battery chicken has 40 days to live before it is slaughtered and sold for £2.50 in a supermarket

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

A covertly filmed video of factory-farmed chickens struggling to walk and enduring distressing and unnatural conditions is set to ignite a growing campaign to improve the lives of Britain's 800 million "broiler" chickens.

The animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) shot the film at a farm which supplies meat to the country's leading supermarkets to illustrate the grim life inside chicken "coops" designed for 25,000 to 50,000 birds.

The grainy video footage shows what looks like a white carpet of thousands of birds shuffling round aimlessly in a dimly lit shed. Some are limping or lifeless. Outside are dustbins stuffed full of dead chicks.

Although their final destination is unknown, the birds were bought by a company which supplies more than 80 per cent of McDonald's chicken nuggets, as well as Morrisons and Sainsbury's.

Last night the company, Sun Valley Foods, of Hereford, announced an investigation into conditions at Uphampton Farm in nearby Leominster.

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Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3307570.ece

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. It gets worse

Here in Tyson country, I know that the chickens are fed arsenic to keep up their appetites-for eating their own, uh....you don't want to know, you'll get sick. Only buy free range chickens.

[villager]

2. Tyson county!

Yow! Is there any escape from the "local industry" there?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Oh yeah

Several local farmers grow free range chickens for meat and eggs. We have a goodly number of organic farmers, too.

[ET Awful]

5. Free range doesn't mean jack . . .

All the designation means is that the birds have access to the outside. Per the FDA guidelines, this could be as simple as an open roof over the coop or leaving a barn door open so the sun shines into cages inside.

Unless you are buying directly from a farmer you know, even the label "free range" means nothing.

[NorthernSpy]

7. some co-ops and store owners do visit farms before buying from them...

I've talked about this to people in the meat departments at local shops.

Also, there are a lot of small farms you can buy from directly.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Well, I know that the chickens are well cared for

because I know where I'm buying them from. Like I said, there are a lot of organic farmers around here.

[Initech]

15. Wow. I dont think I will buy Tyson chicken ever again after reading that.

:puke:

[Triana]

4. One reason I'm vegetarian - factory farming is disgusting, filthy, unhumane.....

...of course I could eat locally grown, free-range etc. but - well, I just don't bother.

[bean fidhleir]

6. Right on. I feel the same way (nt)

[Mountainman]

19. Me too. The thought of eating those chickens is enough to gag me.

The problem with the chicken industry is that the food they are producing is the flesh of living beings. They need to treat them as if they were rocks or something to make their profits.

[jakem]

9. raise your own...

it isnt rocket science, and the eggs taste amazing...

[villager]

10. I used to, for eggs. The Ex has that yard -- and the chickens -- now.

I'm renting a place, with a smaller backyard. Still might do it, if I knew the neighbor's cat would leave 'em alone....

[jakem]

11. once they are grown

i doubt the cat would have anything to do with the chix-

we have 21 chickens and 3 cats. once the chickens get to be about 6 months old, the cats are scared of them! :)

[villager]

12. true enough -- our old cat (and the Ex's current one) live/d peaceably enough

...with the hens...

[knitter4democracy]

14. I wish I could.

Stupid zoning laws. We might have problems with predators (the city's kept the area by the freeway into town fairly wild, so we have wild turkeys, deer, and all sorts right by our house and often going through our yard to get to the drainage pond), but I would love to have a small flock for eggs and fertilizer and bug control.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

13. Good start on this topic...

... these factory farm birds never see the sunlight until they are packed into the cages that haul them to the packing plant. These birds are bred/gentically modified to be anemic so as to concentrate the energies to making meat. That is one of the reasons why they go lame so easily. If you saw the bird before it was butchered, you would never eat it, as they look like the "sick bird of the flock" you would see around grandma's brooder house/chicken coop.

BTW, my dad is a retired USDA Inspector in Charge, my kid brother is currently a USDA inspector, also. So I grew up with seeing and being told what goes on in the meat industry. The corporations are all for profit and quality comes second. Department managers at the packing plants, most of them, are always seeking ways to bypass the inspectors to the point that it becomes a daily game. As an example, they will try to "tweak" the formulas for processed meats (bologna, hot dogs, etc) to use cheaper meat and/or "more mechanically seperated chicken" than the approved percentages allow, forcing the inspectors to continuously do the math on input of ingredients. And this goes on at "the largest meat processing plant in the midwest".

[bvar22]

16. We will be raising our own.

We recently moved into "Tyson Country". There are several Chicken Concentration Camps tucked away in this rural paradise. Tyson is about the only commercial venture in our area.

As an adjunct to an Organic Garden and Fruit Trees, we will be raising Free Range/Pastured chickens.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x5729

We finished the Maximum Security Chicken House in the Fall,

but must wait until Spring to get our chicks. Our Chickens will be allowed to graze outside during the daytime.

The day after Chistmas, we were driving down a muddy backroad, patches of snow on the ground, and we found this little guy in the middle of the road!

We showed him (or her) to the guy at the Feed Store where we were buying Chick Food, and he said that this little chick (2 days old) probably fell off the "Chick Bus".
Tyson has converted an old school bus, and uses it to deliver new chicks to the Concentration Camps.
The "Chick Bus" even looks like the busses the NAZIs converted to gas the Jews. The windows are all blocked and metal plates welded over the back door.

Anyway, we brought him/her home and have him/her in our brooder where he is doing well.
Since he is alone, we are also giving him plenty of atttention. Although the Tyson chickens are bread only for quick weight gain and early maturity, this escapee from the Tyson Concentration Camps is special to us.
After bonding with our new critter for 30 minutes, Starkraven looked at me and said, "I can't eat him". :)

[A HERETIC I AM]

18. Graze?

Chickens graze?

Sorry...couldnt resist.

That looks like one hell of a nice coop.

Good luck with your new herd of grazing chickens! (when you get 'em)

[bvar22]

20. YES!

"Graze" DOES sound funny when talking about chickens.
"Forage" may be slightly more concise, but "graze" is in popular use among those who are raising chickens as part of a committment to a healthier lifestyle. (Google "Chicken Graze")
When chickens are allowed to naturally "graze", the select a varied diet.

The eggs are easily identifiable because the yokes are much darker and tastier.
The evidence is STRONG that chickens that are allowed to graze produce healthier eggs.
http://www.regional.org.au/au/asa/1998/7/111faried.htm
Some chickens labeled as "Free Range" are not allowed to graze.

"Chickens will lay beautiful firm dark yoke eggs if you let them graze in fresh new pasture, eating bugs, grass, and taking in lots of fresh air. Bugs are a huge part of the diet of a chicken."

http://www.foxfirefarms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=8

One of our bibles is Mother Earth News, and they recommend "grazing" for healthy poultry.

"Though we do not think of chickens as grazers, they actually eat a fair amount of grasses, clovers and broadleaf weeds. They relish wild seeds of all sorts and live animal foods such as earthworms, insects, slugs and snails. All of these foods (plants, seeds, small animals) are alive and unprocessed. Commercial feeds are anything but alive or unprocessed; they are made from highly processed ingredients."

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homesteading-and-Self-Reliance/2007-12-01/Best-Chickens-for-the-Homestead.aspx

Due to the abundance of predators in our area, we won't be able to graze our birds unsupervised or unprotected. We are working on different methods to protect our birds while they are grazing during the day.

Cheers.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

21. Chickenwire fence...

... must be in the works! Sorry, I couldn't help it, LOL.

[Javaman]

17. chicken is soylent green!!!!

oh wait...never mind.