board77

We were watching "How it's made" last night, and a segment on hatchery chicks came on. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkuohLV2u0k

I was horrified by this. What sort of a way is that to treat a newborn baby bird? The segment had light hearted music playing, and they blanked out the voice of the chick when a person picked on up- but from experience I can tell you that that little bird was cheeping in distress. It was scared, and yet the cutsey music kept playing and the baby bird maltreatment continued.

I am sickened.

It'll be a long while before I buy hatchery chicks again. I'll hatch them myself in an incubator. What evil person designed such a system?

Between this show and Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe ( crushin on Mike) I don't want to know anything else.

BTW I loved how the ones that are fertlized aren't eaten. Right, just not yet.

That is pretty horrific. What's even worse is that I'll probably be eating chicken tonight.


But my major concern throughout the whole video is... what if a chick doesn't fall through the cracks and ends up falling down the shame chute as the egg shells!

I watched Dirty Jobs and it made me so sad. It made me even more determined to buy only organic cage-free eggs and free range chicken. i just can't support such horrible practice.

I don't even want to watch it. It'll make me cry.

Purple, is that you in your sig pic?


Lali

Yes, it's me.

The chicks are lucky compared to the hens that are laying the eggs though.

I'm not saying that hatching chicks doesn't carry it's own weight of sadness. We've had to kill a few hatchlings that couldn't walk- their legs didn't work right-- but even the doomed ones we picked up carefully and killed as quickly as possible. The rest are handled gently all their lives. (edit: until they are butchered, that is.)

What distressed me about the video is how callously they are flung around, with no regard for terror, pain and suffering. They just went through the trauma of hatching, haven't eated yet, haven't experienced much of life yet, and this is their introduction to the world.

I was troubled the last time I hatched chicks, didn't like putting the crippled ones down, and had resolved to get hatchery chicks next time- so as to save myself the trauma of deciding who had to die right away.

I have reversed my opinion. I will keep hatching them myself, rather than bear any responsibility for supporting such an institution. My discomfort seems irrelevant now.

Ew. They're treated like some machine parts or something. Sort this way, dump in this hatch, sift through cracks... poor chickees. I wonder how many get hurt or "broken" through the process. Doesnt seem very gentle!!!!!! Seems like some parts factory and thats bizarre.

I wasn't horrified.

The squeamishness of modern man in wealthy countries, continues to amuse me.

It's pretty obvious that they're trying to make the process safe, because each injured chick is less profit. They maximize profits by selling the scraps as well, but the main profit is in a healthy delivered chick.

I didn't find it disturbing. It was a bit insensitive I guess, but then again maybe I am desensitized.
But if you really think about it, it behooves the hatchery to have as many chicks survive as possible, so even if it is a bit impersonal I bet that method produces more live healthy chicks than any other.

All so they can eventually be killed and made into chicken salad.

The whole thing seems kind of hypocritical to me.

Anyway when you know the process for killing chickens en masse, like at Perdue, that video is kids play in comparison.

If you want to have some insight into mass production of meat and all of its nasty side then read this article.

LINK !!

It's not nice, what they are doing, and you can't make me feel guilty about that, CG. I've done my share of butchering. I know what it takes to produce a chicken dinner. There is NO reason to treat those birds like that other than to maximize profit, and it dehumanizes the people on the line to have them treat the birds like that.

It's just wrong.

It dechickenizes the people on the line to have them treat birds like that, not dehumanizes. Seriously I didn't see anything that I would call cruel. Sure, the baby birds aren't pampered, but they aren't abused which is the key point.

Quote:

de·hu·man·ize (dē-hyōō'mə-nīz') Pronunciation Key
tr.v. de·hu·man·ized, de·hu·man·iz·ing, de·hu·man·iz·es

1.To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility: slaves who had been dehumanized by their abysmal condition.
2.To render mechanical and routine.

I stand by my usage of the word.

I was expecting this thread to be about something very different.

The question I'd pose to people who don't like this is, what would you suggest instead? I ask honestly because this is something I struggle with myself. Organic/free range is great, but there's no way it's going to produce as much meat and eggs as factory methods. If you're a vegetarian or raise your own food, you've probably earned the right to complain, but otherwise it just reminds me of the guy in my old neighborhood who had "War is NOT the answer" on his front lawn and two SUVs in the garage. As long as we insist on easy motoring, war IS the answer and as long as we insist on easy food, so is factory farming. There are no free lunches. If the cost seems too high, then the only ethical thing to do is fix your own or go hungry. The problem is, if you start down that road, where do you stop? Pretty soon you'll have argued yourself into living like the Amish, and how many of us raised in the modern world have a shot at pulling that off?

Contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to what large agribusiness tells you, organic and free range farming practices COULD produce enough food for everyone. The thing is, if huge agricorporations were not pampered and catered to and subsidized, y'all would be paying a lot more for food at the market --- you might even be paying what it really costs to produce your food.

Buy organic. Buy free range. Pay that little bit more. In the end, it will bring about the necessary change.

It is instructive that food in the 1930s was about 25 percent of the average American family's income. Now it's less than ten percent...but are we eating better or just cheaper? And how much of the cost is, as vison proposes, hidden in taxes as subsidies?

vison wrote:

Contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to what large agribusiness tells you, organic and free range farming practices COULD produce enough food for everyone.

But how many additional people are other resources would have to be thrown at it? I'm inclined to think your opinion on the subject is worth more than mine, but when I look at all the chicks in the video and then contemplate replacing just that single factory with enough farms to raise them all organically with a comparable "turnover time", it seems like the scale would just blow up very quickly. I have no love for factory "farming" (mining) and have no doubt that's going to blow up on us too, probably before another generation is up, but I simultaneously find it hard to believe we could maintain our numbers without it...

I find the treatment of human beings in other countries far more horrifying.

vison wrote:

Contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to what large agribusiness tells you, organic and free range farming practices COULD produce enough food for everyone. The thing is, if huge agricorporations were not pampered and catered to and subsidized, y'all would be paying a lot more for food at the market --- you might even be paying what it really costs to produce your food.

Buy organic. Buy free range. Pay that little bit more. In the end, it will bring about the necessary change.

I absolutely agree with you. That is the philosophy in this house. We simply eat less meat to offset the cost. Organic vegetables and fruits really aren't all that much more expensive than conventional, and they taste better, too. Your just spending a few more pennies for much better food.

TheMary wrote:

I find the treatment of human beings in other countries far more horrifying.

But it doesn't mean that this isn't important. I mean, it's possible to care about both.

*~Pips~*