HENS IN BAD CONDITIONS!!!!

[Swede]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...orrisons-one-stop-lidl-oaklands-a7374281.html

I can't stand stuff like this!

Please get your own chickens!!


What can we do??

#BEMORESUFFICIENTGETYOUROWNHENS

 

[sumi]

I've been supporting an international animal charity that is campaigning to end stuff like this for years now. They've had some success In the meantime, I'd suggest do your little bit to help bring about change and encourage people to keep their own chickens and sell surplus eggs, where they can. I've talked a few people into starting their own little egg businesses. They have been successful

Every hen they keep is a hen spared from the battery system. Every customer they get is one less for the factory farms. Every egg they sell is one less needed from the factory farms. Drops in a dam, but it adds up and it does make a difference, however small.

 

[sumi]

I've raised my own chickens for 40 yrs now and have often sold the eggs, but never charged more than $2 a doz. Yeah, you can demand more in other areas, but should you? Cost me as much to raise a chicken as it does everyone else, so why the price discrepancy? Because they can and they want everyone to know that a superior product should command a bigger price...but what is that teaching the public? That they can't afford to pay that for food just because you treat your chickens better. That's why the general public will never get on the bandwagon for sustainable food markets because the people marketing them is gouging wherever and whenever they can to prove the point that their product is better.

I went and spoke to a big supermarket's manager a few years ago about the eggs they are selling (battery farm eggs only). A rival supermarket sold free range eggs as well, at exactly double the price I sold mine at. Long story short, I talked the supermarket into stocking free range eggs and at a reasonable price. I told the manager if I can make a 100% profit on my eggs by selling them at half the price their competitors do… A few weeks later they were selling free range eggs at a much lower price than the competing supermarket, though still more than I charged, it was a good start.

 

[baymule]

Battery chickens are burned out by the first molt and are discarded and replaced. Caged eggs are not produced by happy chickens. Unfortunately there is a market for this sort of thing, just like mass produced pork-raised indoors on slatted floors over a pool of their own waste. Or feedlot beef, packed in small areas, standing in their own feces. Have you ever read about the mesh products used for dairy lots that keep the cows from sinking in the mud, thus dragging their udders in the slop? Industrial food can be some filthy stuff. But industrial food is necessary to feed the masses. The masses are not going to get dirt under their manicured fingernails in order to raise a garden. The masses are not going to look their meat in the eye, end it's life and cut up the meat to feed their family. The masses are ignorant of where their food comes from, but will be front and center on taking what you have if a SHTF situation ever arises.

 

[FarmerJamie]

This thread is reminding me how much we need to get out of this apartment. Lol. 2 years, 2 years

 

[NH Homesteader]

At least they gas them. A lot of places grind them alive. They are working towards being able to sex the eggs before they hatch in the US, and only allow the females to hatch. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

 

[Mini Horses]

Yep -- the entire system is a disaster. BUT these chickens are hatched and most often there is no way to disperse the male chicks. That's what I'm saying -- to be fair to the chicks, cruel as it is or may sound, fast gassing is more humane than many other ways.
The care, feed, space needed to raise them is just not going to be given. It is also not feasible that they could even give them all away fast enough. Maybe ship thousands to TSC to give away!

The layers? Well, I would love to put the people who are designing and maintaining (??or not??) them and the system, to be put into the system themselves for a few weeks with comparable space, feed, water & care !!!!

More inspections & penalties for failures is needed.

We will not be able to train the numbers of the consumers in time to make a difference. BUT women did campaign to stop the conditions of the horse urine collections, for the most part. It took a long, long time. And synthetic hormone production.

 

[baymule]

Aldi's sells eggs for 25 cents a dozen. We sell ours for $4 a dozen. Obviously we are not selling "bargain price" eggs. What we are selling is quality, fresh, non GMO eggs that have real flavor. People know that our chickens free range and are well treated.

Most people are going to buy the 25 cent carton of eggs. I can't really blame them. The cost of food keeps going up but paychecks stay the same. At the same time, a lot of people have useless, pretty yards that could be used to plant at least a small garden, or keep a few hens, or both. But people would rather pay high prices and complain.

Industrial food is mass produced for the masses. I don't see it changing any time soon. Male chicks that will consume a lot of feed for a scrawny carcass are not economically feasible. You can dither about over the fate of said chicks, but the production of food is a business and if any of us were in that same business, we would treat our hens better, but you can bet we wouldn't be pouring feed down the crop of a chick that will grow up to be worth less then the feed he ate.

And that is why we are not in the business of industrial eggs. We keep our little flocks, some of us sell extra eggs to appreciative customers or we share with friends and family.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

People want to be fooled into thinking a bigger price means better eggs but it's not always the case and all the work done to produce one's own eggs is being done anyway, whether the excess eggs are sold to customers or not, so why are we~as backyard growers~feeling like the customer should absorb the costs? When I was selling for $2 a doz. I was more than clearing a profit on feed and the labor was going to happen anyway, so why charge other folks for it? Takes just as much time to feed 40 hens as it does 15.

No argument, but definitely a difference of opinions.

I don't make a profit on $3 eggs. And, it does take more time at my place to feed 40 chickens than 15 and more importantly it takes more feed. I spend more time to clean a lot more waterers. I spend more time cleaning a lot more feeders. I spend more time and more effort moving a lot more feed. I pick up my hens to check them for parasites. Takes much longer to catch more hens than fewer hens. I hatch more chicks that take more feed, time, electricity. MY time and effort has value.

First, I have no way of knowing what those people are feeding or how they care for their chickens~giving meds and wormers ? Might as well buy commercially grown. Chickens confined to the same small patch soil all the time? Might as well buy commercial. Feeding commercially prepared feeds? Might as well buy commercial.

My customers tell me that is EXACTLY why they will pay more for a quality product from someone they trust. Also when egg prices were UP a while back - my eggs were cheaper than commercial eggs.

 

[FarmerJamie]

The male chick culling may be ending...
(Article from last year)

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/p...20--male-chicks-could-avoid-death-by-grinder/