Re: Sick Black Rock

Excuse top-posting - I have left the whole post because I think it is so important. Jill, you are going to get SO flamed for this! Thank you for having the guts to say it.

Reluctantly I agree with everything you have said. On the basis of my much smaller amount of experience and observation it is all too true.

Humans have out-bred the resources. Humans being resourceful have then found work-arounds - famine relief, intensive food production etc - to allow ourselves to keep on increasing our numbers and escalating our demands for an ever-rising standard of "necessities". Since culling humans is just not on except as a by-product of war, the battery chicken system is only one of our "necessary evils" and there will be more and more as time and ingenuity advance.

The loss of other breeds, be they plant or animal, is dangerous for our future. This is well recognized and addressed by the seed banks of which the most far-sighted appears to be the one in the natural deep freeze in the north of Norway. But we cannot do that with chickens or sheep, which leaves us vulnerable to pandemics within the dominant strains.

Jill, your plea for people to continue breeding the birds that have particular strengths to withstand various conditions demonstrates the value of detachment *as well as* compassion, for all keepers of animals. It's a hard balance to keep in real life, heart *and* head, dealing with present misery *and* forestalling errors-in-waiting.

A L P


Jill wrote:
wafflycat wrote:


And a good job too, as over 80,000 ex-batts have been given a second
chance due to the work of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.

well their asset register will be even more improved from the nearly £40k they had accrued by the end of 2006, but they have not yet registered their 2007 accounts.

The problem that needs to be addressed is not the battery system as such. We DO need to make sure that inspections are fully funded and frequently executed to make sure that only the best are operating.
What is the greater problem is the food demand of the humans.
The reason d'etre of the battery system is that to produce eggs in the quantities required by the ever increasing and demanding population, the free range flock could not cope.
It could not cope in the 1950's and certainly will never cope in this millennia.

Battery systems occured before the turn of the previous millennia, their advantages and their problems were already known.
As the population of humans increased so did the demand for food. Food like eggs and milk are non-negotiable, they are not something that is a uxury -- they have to be a staple for basic good health.
The poultry industry did its best to maintain productivity and animal health while meeting the rapidly increasing demand but it was a losing battle. The free range flocks were getting sicker with the demands put on them. This, in turn, lead to human health issues.
Bringing them indoors, in vast systems, allowed the intensification of selection to take place. Millions of birds were brought indoors and the strains were cleaned up of many of the disease vectors that damaged the birds health and the human health. The exercise was colossal :- testing, culling, breeding, observations, research on feed - At the same time breeding for desirable traits - productivity and efficiency - was able to be moved along at an amazing pace.
All of this was to answer the need for food. and food that people could afford.

Nowadays we have a generally affluent society, but we are not all so lucky. Food still needs to be affordable for even the least fortunate.
More importantly we now have even more and more humans. The volume of demand for a basic product like eggs is quite staggering.
The industry does its best to supply, but here in the UK we started importing eggs in the mid 1800's and we import millions each year now.

There are 41 million birds [or more] inside producing eggs for the humans of the UK at any one time.
These birds are athletes - precision genetics for the role they play in our lives.
As long as the unit is well run, they are given a stable environment, where there is no consideration of heat, cold, snow, rain, wind, wild birds passing on disease, predators, variations in food, winter, bullying from other birds, and all the rest that our ranging birds have to take on and survive. This allows the birds to concentrate their resources on one thing --- laying eggs.
The cage system maintains a status quo between the birds, allows for the best feed input and the cleanest egg output.
Eggs are no longer the dangerous food they once were [and I mean well before ms Edwina!], they are a clean, safe, easy and readily available food, as they should be.
A well run system has low veterinary input - - these are unwelcome costs.

I completely endorse very stringent checking and lots of constant training for the people in charge of these units. I know the system can be abused. But not all units are. They should not all be condemned.

As to having all birds outside
-- its a far more challenging environment - for the birds and their health and to protect human health.
-- we simply do not have enough suitable land in this country for the hens we would need to put outside, - its either too wet, too windy, too built on, too poorly drained, too many predators. Global warming is creating a far more volatile climate in the UK -- if the areas of England that were flooded crops last summer had been free ranging birds then millions could have been drowned. The forecasters indicate that this is something to get used to.
-- we would need to create birds with different qualities which would detract from productivity and food efficiency, it can be done but needs time again to bring these features to the fore, not to put birds that are designed to be protected, out there.
-- routine mortality is higher outside than in. I completely understand that if you get a problem inside then the trouble will spread with much greater efficacy and effect. But it can also be contained.
The most serious problems with H5N1 around the world have been in places where the containment was not possible due to volume of birds outside.
-- to make economic sense free range units have to be so big that they are not really free range at all -- they are vast barn units where only a small proportion of the birds bother to go outside. The potential for bullying and cannabalism is off the scale. Chickens are just like that in numbers.

I do not think that battery units are anywhere near a perfect answer, fewer humans would be. But, as that is not going to happen; they have to be fed.

I am really glad that there are people who can afford to choose to buy from small free range places, but even those people are still buying quite a lot of battery produced eggs in all the other foods they eat. Egg is in SO Much as a process ingredient. Its such an important item.
I am really glad that there are people exploring the potential of growing more food themselves -- fruit, vegetables and having chickens and ducks themselves. Particularly for the next generation who were in danger of losing contact with the land that supports them.
I am completely realistic in understanding that this is not going to sustain the whole population and nor should it.

Putting a few of these birds through the chaos of mixing them up with new birds, when they have been in settled sets for 2 years; driving them for hours around the country; handing them out to complete novices with superficial support; and to the vagaries of the outside environment, poor diet and all the hazards; particularly with the weakness of immune system and conditions that the next years will bring on; collecting monies in return; is not necessarily the most humane solution, in my view. I respect that your view is different. All I ask is that you respect mine. I have, and do think about this quite deeply. I help with the aftermath on a daily basis.

If someone wants to have cheap birds from the commercial world, why not take birds from free range units, where at least they have had a chance to develop a decent immune system, and a little savvy about having lots of "mates" and maybe have been outside a few times. These places also displenish at a similar age, and are more likely to be closer to hand. By visiting the local farmers markets and looking at eggs boxes in local shops its possible to find places in your vicinity. One can choose places where the flocks are smaller and so more likely to have spent more time outside, these will be so much more robust and happy to deal with the conditions. They are also being culled, why not re-home them?

Even better get birds who are really suited to the job you want them to perform and encourage some of the supreme excellence in breeding that this country was once famous for.
We are so in danger of losing all the best qualities of the birds we once had, there are Victorian breeders spinning in their graves to see the wastage and the dross that is being produced in their names.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Sick Black Rock
    ... What is the greater problem is the food demand of the humans. ... The reason d'etre of the battery system is that to produce eggs in the quantities required by the ever increasing and demanding population, the free range flock could not cope. ... As the population of humans increased so did the demand for food. ... Millions of birds were brought indoors and the strains were cleaned up of many of the disease vectors that damaged the birds health and the human health. ...
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