[martin14]

Strutz Strutz:

I remember thinking as a kid that they were different from the chickens "in the city" as their eggs were bigger, yolks orange rather than yellow, and double yolks were not unusual.

Dont know what Canadian egg farms have been doing, but the store bought eggs here
are really.... bad.

[Caelon]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Caelon Caelon:

I never saw a dairy like they were trying to represent as the norm.

Did you ever work in a factory farm?

I never worked on a factory farm but sold feed to livestock opertions. What is your definition of a factory farm? There are still dairy farms with 25 milking cosws or less. The largest I had serviced was about 200 milking cows, largest hogs was 200 sows farrow to finish (400 pigs per year), largest layer was 10,000 caged birds, broiler breeder 8000 birds and broilers 40,000 birds.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Calves were housed initially in crates where they had room to turn around and were not restrained.

Don't you think its inhumane to force a creature to live a crate, regardless of whether they can turn around or not?

Nope. The calves in crates were in the first four weeks of life. They were kept warmer and given extra care. As they matured they were moved to pens with other claves of the same age. Healthy animals make money and sick animals cost money. The incentive for the farmer is to produce healthy animals and the young calves in crates get individual attention; thus healthier stock gets moved to pens later.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

[

$1:

Antibiotics are used in the the livestock industry to prevent disease and promote optimum growth. Each antibiotic has a specified period before slaughter that it must be withdrawn. The withdrawal period is to remove all traces from the meat before the animal is slaughtered for human consumption.

Again, there is a difference between Canada and the US regarding drug use, but there is a book by former Health Canada scientist-turned whistle-blower Shiv Chopra called "Corrupt to the Core" where he details how government offices were broken into, files were stolen and scientists were bullied and threatened by department officials to approve drugs they felt were unsafe for humans and/or animals.

I cannot answer for what happened at Health Canada. I can only relate what I observed for myself. Antibiotics were used at prophylactic levels without perscription. Higher levels required a veterinary perscription. Sort of like the difference between over the counter medicines and going to your doctor. There are always individuals that will abuse a system, but the vast majority follow basic guidelines as time has proven it produces the best results. So if a farmer used a tetracycline as a prophylactice this time next tiem he would switch to a different drug family to prevent creating drug tolerant bacteria. It can be very exepensive if you have an outbreak that cannot be controlled by convenetional means. Again economics helps to police the industry.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Further, you miss two important facts about the use of antibiotics in farm animals: 1) The over-use of antibotics on healthy animals to "prevent disease" rather than CURE disease has given rise to an explosion of anti-biotic resistant bacteria. Farm use is the single largest cause of this. The only reason heavy antibotic doses are given to healthy animals is because so many animals are kept in such unnaturally close quarters that diseases spread so rapidly. No doctor would give antibiotics to a healthy human, but we give it to healthy animals to protect the merchandise and the result is antibiotic resistant germs. 2) The effects of "optimum growth" you refer to is shown in the video: animals such as hogs and chickens become so large they can not support their own weight and many starve to death or have respiratory and other problems that cause animal suffering.

1)I answered part of #1 above. The close housing or intensive livestock operations are what produces the cheap food you have in the supermarket. Our prices are higher than the Americans and consumers are always whining about 'why is food so much cheaper there than here'. The three major reasons are economies of scale (1/10th the population over a bigger area) plus the higher cost of housing (winters) and marketing boards for dairy and poultry. Yes 'healthy' people can have antibiotics. Just go to your local supermarket and pick up your favourite over the counter medication.
2) The video takes an element of truth and makes up s%&t from there . For example the bbroiler chickens were not too heavy to walk. There are about 0.1 to 0.2% of the birds with end up with a slipped tendon over the hock. It usually affect one leg, but in rare cases both legs are affected. The birds are culled as chickens strive for dominance and unhealthy animals are a target. Your videos als show bright lighting. Broiler chickens only have bright lights for the first week then the lighting is reduced to the point that you would only be able to read the headlines of a newspaper. The birds are more docile, grow faster and there is a lot less canibalism.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Andyt is correct in that if you wish all livestock to be raised as they were 100 years ago then the prices would sky rocket. There would be so much less available in the grocery stores that supply/demenad economics would cause a dramtic increase in prices.

Doing things the wrong way will always be cheaper than doing things the right way. Any time you bring in quality control prices increase. All food would be (and was) cheaper without minimum standards in place.

[b]Yes, the dirt-cheap, hormone and drug-laced food where the animals are tortured to death in factory farms would no longer exist and the quality food that would replace it would cost more in comparison.[/b] BUT that quality food would cost less than it currently does because demand for it would increase. Currently, its supply is limited so prices are high. Further, it's currently marketed as a "premium" or "value add" product (often by the same agri-business that also market the cheap unhealthy garbage) so prices for quality food are further inflated for higher profit margins.

But you can get the details on that here:

I watched about 8 minutes of the video of a US program on US practices. The countries are different and so are the practices. Remember sensationalism sells and dry facts don't, so take stuff liek this with a heavy does of salt. Statements like I highlighted in bold would make it appear that you have bought the sensationalism hook line and sinker. Here is a little economics 101. It takes 100,000 square feet of barn space to raise 100,000 broiler chickens from day old chicks to 44 days of age when they are slaughtered at about 3.8 lbs of live weight and will take about 8 lbs of feed. This will happen about 6 times per year.

Now take the same area of land in the 1920's and you might get two batches (500 chickens each)of chickens raised outside. Genetics, housing and living conditions are less than optimal, but you would sell a 5 lb chicken after 11 to 12 weeks and the feed would be about 40 lbs per bird not 8. So using old methods would take 5 times the feed per bird; therefore, on feed alone the cost would jump by a factor of 5. Plus the same land area would produce 5000 lbs of birds for market compared to 2,280,000 lbs or 0.2% of the production. Do you think we could possibly produce enough chicken in a year to meet the demand of 35,000,000 Canadians?? With so flittle chicke available for 35,000,000 people what would be the price per pound. $10, $20, $100?????? Would we be sourcing most of our chicken from the US instead as we could bring it into southern Canada for less than $5 per pound?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Sadly, I don't think the types of farming that Strutz and Shep describe really play a significant part in Candian's food supply anymore. If you're buying your meat and dairy in the supermarket (or in most resaurants) and not from a local organic farmer, then the animal probably had a fate similar to those in the video. Plus it was probably overfed with hormones, pharmaceuticals, its dead bretheren and other unnatural feed that is just no good for human consumption.

Unfortunately, many of us city-slickers don't have many options.

Yeah you do, you just gotta know where to find 'em. You know those Valu-pack envelopes you get in the mail? Open them when you get them. That's how I discovered my favourite store when I lived in the Waterloo Region. They were called Box Meat Revolution. ALL of their meat was locally produced. Any that wasn't was still 100% Canadian. On top of that, they rejected suppliers that used hormones and other shit. And man, the meat was fan-damn-tastic. Honest to God, it was about a year before I could eat the shit from a grocery store again.

[Strutz]

martin14 martin14:

Strutz Strutz:

I remember thinking as a kid that they were different from the chickens "in the city" as their eggs were bigger, yolks orange rather than yellow, and double yolks were not unusual.

Dont know what Canadian egg farms have been doing, but the store bought eggs here
are really.... bad.

Yeah, most are crappy. I only notice it now when the rare time I have eggs in a restaurant, because of course, they'll purchase the cheaper ones produced the regular way.

I buy Free Range eggs that are alot more expensive but worth it because they taste better... hell, they have taste. I can't believe the difference it makes in the colour of the yolks and size of the eggs too. Spend the extra couple of bucks... it's worth it.

[BeaverFever]

Caelon Caelon:

[I never worked on a factory farm but sold feed to livestock opertions. What is your definition of a factory farm? There are still dairy farms with 25 milking cosws or less. The largest I had serviced was about 200 milking cows, largest hogs was 200 sows farrow to finish (400 pigs per year), largest layer was 10,000 caged birds, broiler breeder 8000 birds and broilers 40,000 birds.

Sounds like we're talking apples and oranges. The "Food Inc." documentary I embedded in my last post shows one typcial contract farmer with 300,000 chickens for example.

$1:

Nope. The calves in crates were in the first four weeks of life. They were kept warmer and given extra care. As they matured they were moved to pens with other claves of the same age. Healthy animals make money and sick animals cost money. The incentive for the farmer is to produce healthy animals and the young calves in crates get individual attention; thus healthier stock gets moved to pens later.

So what, they're not free to excersise or socialize with other animals or bond with their mother so they're in physical and emotional distress. Veal is tender because the muscles are under-developed to the point where they often have difficulty standing. They're unhealthy, but not in a way that costs money. The under-developed muscles are a desirable illness. Just like how fatty, diseased goose liver is desirable for fois-gras.

$1:

Antibiotics were used at prophylactic levels without perscription. Higher levels required a veterinary perscription. Sort of like the difference between over the counter medicines and going to your doctor. There are always individuals that will abuse a system, but the vast majority follow basic guidelines as time has proven it produces the best results. So if a farmer used a tetracycline as a prophylactice this time next tiem he would switch to a different drug family to prevent creating drug tolerant bacteria. It can be very exepensive if you have an outbreak that cannot be controlled by convenetional means. Again economics helps to police the industry.

Yet the problem with drug-resitant bacteria is exploding and food production is almost solely responsible for this. We are nearing the point where we are running out of antibotics to treat certain types of bacteria. This causes uncontrollable outbreaks in hospitals and people actually die every year. The practices that have been blamed for these drug-resistant bacteria are defended by the industry. The economics does nothing because consumers are unaware. You can check that out that news story here:

$1:

The close housing or intensive livestock operations are what produces the cheap food you have in the supermarket. Our prices are higher than the Americans and consumers are always whining about 'why is food so much cheaper there than here'. The three major reasons are economies of scale (1/10th the population over a bigger area) plus the higher cost of housing (winters) and marketing boards for dairy and poultry.

They are only "cheaper" if you selectively pick and choose your facts. US livestock operations are heavily subsidized by the government, as is corn production, which is used for animal feed. US livestock operations actually buy corn at below-cost thanks to subsidies. Feeding cattle corn instead of grass causes them to produce high levels of bacteria. When you factor in the health care costs that people bear, the costs of environmental damange from the massive animal waste run-off, the taxpayer cost of subsidizing these activities, you'll see tha the costs are not less. If you only look at the retail price you're selectively chosing facts to suit your arguments. You really need to watch that Food Inc documentary, its not some looney-lefty PETA clip, its an award-winning documentary, and there are "responsible farmers" who contribute in the piece. The one Virgina farmer featured about half-way through is probably the wisest man to ever wear a cowboy hat.

$1:

Yes 'healthy' people can have antibiotics. Just go to your local supermarket and pick up your favourite over the counter medication.

Those aren't antibiotics. Antibotics are a specific and limited set of drugs used to kill certain bacteria, fungi and parasites. They require a prescription for human use. In humans, antibotic prophylaxis is only used by doctors for certain, prescribed situations where the patient is deemed to be highly susceptible to a certain infection (for example, a surgery where there is a known risk of post-operative bacterial infection). They don't just give it to perfectly healthy people "just in case". They actually administer antibotics to unhatched chickens still in the egg. The practice is so common that even organic producers who sell "antibiotic-free" chicken admit they can't eliminate antibiotic-resistent bacteria since they have to buy their chicks and eggs in a mixed market.

$1:

2) The video takes an element of truth and makes up s%&t from there . For example the bbroiler chickens were not too heavy to walk. There are about 0.1 to 0.2% of the birds with end up with a slipped tendon over the hock. It usually affect one leg, but in rare cases both legs are affected. The birds are culled as chickens strive for dominance and unhealthy animals are a target. Your videos als show bright lighting. Broiler chickens only have bright lights for the first week then the lighting is reduced to the point that you would only be able to read the headlines of a newspaper. The birds are more docile, grow faster and there is a lot less canibalism.

Just because some chickens in your experience have that condition, doens't mean that was the case with the chickens in the video. Again the poultry industry doesn't deny this. They simply say its how the business works. The lightness and darkness issue is also adressed in Food Inc. Not all chickens are raised in the dark and not all farmers keep the lights off when they are in there trying to find lame chickens.

$1:

I watched about 8 minutes of the video of a US program on US practices. The countries are different and so are the practices. Remember sensationalism sells and dry facts don't, so take stuff liek this with a heavy does of salt. Statements like I highlighted in bold would make it appear that you have bought the sensationalism hook line and sinker.

Sure, I punched-up my post to underscore how I feel about those practices. But those practices DO exist in significant quantity, if not in the majority of cases. You know what sells better than sensationalism sometimes? The "All is well, dont worry your pretty little head, keep doing what feels good" line that business always puts out there. Besides, Food Inc. is pretty dry.

$1:

Here is a little economics 101. It takes 100,000 square feet of barn space to raise 100,000 broiler chickens from day old chicks to 44 days of age when they are slaughtered at about 3.8 lbs of live weight and will take about 8 lbs of feed. This will happen about 6 times per year.

Now take the same area of land in the 1920's and you might get two batches (500 chickens each)of chickens raised outside. Genetics, housing and living conditions are less than optimal, but you would sell a 5 lb chicken after 11 to 12 weeks and the feed would be about 40 lbs per bird not 8. So using old methods would take 5 times the feed per bird; therefore, on feed alone the cost would jump by a factor of 5. Plus the same land area would produce 5000 lbs of birds for market compared to 2,280,000 lbs or 0.2% of the production. Do you think we could possibly produce enough chicken in a year to meet the demand of 35,000,000 Canadians?? With so flittle chicke available for 35,000,000 people what would be the price per pound. $10, $20, $100?????? Would we be sourcing most of our chicken from the US instead as we could bring it into southern Canada for less than $5 per pound?

I don't disagree that over the past 50 years, the North American food corporations has become extremely effiecient at mass-producing food at little cost to themselves and at minimum price at the register. But Farmers suffer, and as discussed above, the costs are just realized by citizens elsewhere, such as in taxpayer subsidies, diabetes rates, obesity rates, environmental damage, etc.

And a lot of that food production is for the major purchasers such as the McDonalds and Burger Kings of the world, who only order specific kinds of foods so the entire industry and upstream market reorganizes to meet that massive demand. As a side-effect, there is actually less variety in the supermarket since the largest food producing coproations, who own up to 80% of the US food production are producing for these large buyers. So the breeds of farm animals and the farming practices behind your supermarket meat are the ones that best meet the needs of McD, not suzy housewife and her now diabetic, peanut-allergic kids. It's a FACT that our meat is less nutritious today than it was 50 years ago, yet the livestock is larger than ever and is producing more food per animal than ever.

You talk as if all this food production is just barely meeting consumer demand. There is overproduction of food. Some 25%-30% of food is thrown out while still fresh by restaurants, grocery stores and by consumers who over-purchase. A lot is also dumped on foreign markets, especailly in developing countries that aren't strong enough to contest our subsidies and puts local producers out of work.

[Caelon]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Caelon Caelon:

[I never worked on a factory farm but sold feed to livestock opertions. What is your definition of a factory farm? There are still dairy farms with 25 milking cosws or less. The largest I had serviced was about 200 milking cows, largest hogs was 200 sows farrow to finish (4000 pigs per year), largest layer was 10,000 caged birds, broiler breeder 8000 birds and broilers 40,000 birds.

Sounds like we're talking apples and oranges. The "Food Inc." documentary I embedded in my last post shows one typcial contract farmer with 300,000 chickens for example.

See that is another reason why you cannot extrapolate US data to Canada. The Americans do not operate under quaota systems like we have in Canada. Neither do they require all weather housing in the major livestock areas. When day old chicks require a temperature of 91*F in January you need well insulated barns with supplemental heat. That temperature will be reduced to 70*F by the time the birds leave. So no only is supplemental heat required but cooling is rquired in warmer temperatures. The housing systems in the US do no compare for environmental control. Nor is the cost of production as high.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Antibiotics were used at prophylactic levels without perscription. Higher levels required a veterinary perscription. Sort of like the difference between over the counter medicines and going to your doctor. There are always individuals that will abuse a system, but the vast majority follow basic guidelines as time has proven it produces the best results. So if a farmer used a tetracycline as a prophylactic this time next time he would switch to a different drug family to prevent creating drug tolerant bacteria. It can be very exepensive if you have an outbreak that cannot be controlled by convenetional means. Again economics helps to police the industry.

Yet the problem with drug-resitant bacteria is exploding and food production is almost solely responsible for this. We are nearing the point where we are running out of antibotics to treat certain types of bacteria. This causes uncontrollable outbreaks in hospitals and people actually die every year. The practices that have been blamed for these drug-resistant bacteria are defended by the industry. The economics does nothing because consumers are unaware. You can check that out that news story here:

The antibiotic problem as depicted is disturbing. The one thing missing from the study was tracking the meat through all stages. By this I mean sampling in the barn, after transport, before and after in the slaughter house and before and after packaging. The show lets consumers assume the meat was contaminated at the farm level when even their little kitchen demonstration shows than handling can spread contamination over a wide area.

We also did not get to review their handling of the purchased product to see if cross sample contamination might be an issue. I am not saying the problem does not exist I am just saying that the testing was not under a tightly controlled situation until it arrived at the lab.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

The close housing or intensive livestock operations are what produces the cheap food you have in the supermarket. Our prices are higher than the Americans and consumers are always whining about 'why is food so much cheaper there than here'. The three major reasons are economies of scale (1/10th the population over a bigger area) plus the higher cost of housing (winters) and marketing boards for dairy and poultry.

They are only "cheaper" if you selectively pick and choose your facts.

Well we both are using selective examples. The biggest difference in cost is the shear difference in population size. The state of Ohio raises more hogs than all of Canada. Huge operations as you have noted without the high housing costs of Canada.

$1:

2) The video takes an element of truth and makes up s%&t from there . For example the bbroiler chickens were not too heavy to walk. There are about 0.1 to 0.2% of the birds with end up with a slipped tendon over the hock. It usually affect one leg, but in rare cases both legs are affected. The birds are culled as chickens strive for dominance and unhealthy animals are a target. Your videos als show bright lighting. Broiler chickens only have bright lights for the first week then the lighting is reduced to the point that you would only be able to read the headlines of a newspaper. The birds are more docile, grow faster and there is a lot less canibalism.

Just because some chickens in your experience have that condition, doens't mean that was the case with the chickens in the video. Again the poultry industry doesn't deny this. They simply say its how the business works. The lightness and darkness issue is also adressed in Food Inc. Not all chickens are raised in the dark and not all farmers keep the lights off when they are in there trying to find lame chickens.[/quote]
The picture was definitely a slipped tendon. If you walk enough barns you recognize the symptoms. Here is one they do not mention wich the industry calls flip overs. Birds raised to hit market weight at 6 weeks will have a small percentage of heart attacks. The birds will be found laying on their backs consequently the phrase flip over. Good farmers walk the barns several times per day checking for cull, temperature, air quality , water supply, etc. They do not change the lighting for this. However a film crew would find it impossible to shoot video and would naturally ask the light levels to be raised for their convenience.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Here is a little economics 101. It takes 100,000 square feet of barn space to raise 100,000 broiler chickens from day old chicks to 44 days of age when they are slaughtered at about 3.8 lbs of live weight and will take about 8 lbs of feed. This will happen about 6 times per year.

Now take the same area of land in the 1920's and you might get two batches (500 chickens each)of chickens raised outside. Genetics, housing and living conditions are less than optimal, but you would sell a 5 lb chicken after 11 to 12 weeks and the feed would be about 40 lbs per bird not 8. So using old methods would take 5 times the feed per bird; therefore, on feed alone the cost would jump by a factor of 5. Plus the same land area would produce 5000 lbs of birds for market compared to 2,280,000 lbs or 0.2% of the production. Do you think we could possibly produce enough chicken in a year to meet the demand of 35,000,000 Canadians?? With so flittle chicke available for 35,000,000 people what would be the price per pound. $10, $20, $100?????? Would we be sourcing most of our chicken from the US instead as we could bring it into southern Canada for less than $5 per pound?

I don't disagree that over the past 50 years, the North American food corporations has become extremely effiecient at mass-producing food at little cost to themselves and at minimum price at the register. But Farmers suffer, and as discussed above, the costs are just realized by citizens elsewhere, such as in taxpayer subsidies, diabetes rates, obesity rates, environmental damage, etc.

You talk as if all this food production is just barely meeting consumer demand. There is overproduction of food. Some 25%-30% of food is thrown out while still fresh by restaurants, grocery stores and by consumers who over-purchase. A lot is also dumped on foreign markets, especailly in developing countries that aren't strong enough to contest our subsidies and puts local producers out of work.

There has always been wastage and restaraunts throuwing out food. Read up on the past with poor people getting food from the bins behind the restaraunts. A 99% reduction in the poultry supply is a little larger than a 25% over production for current domestic demand.

The consumer demand for packaging, preprocessed foods, fast foods, etc drives a lot of what the industry does. Consumers are not willing to dress their own chickens or take 3 hours to prepare a week day meal. We could legislate reductions in antibiotics, but it would come with a supermarket cost. You currently have choices where you can pay double the price for your meat and vegetables, but the vast majority of consumers choose to purchase food based on cost. If more consumers pay the higher price for 'organic' (and I use the term in its marketing sense) or antibiotic free then the industry will adapt accordingly. If it remains as a very small percentage then it will continue as what would be termed a cottage industry.

[Caelon]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Caelon Caelon:

[I never worked on a factory farm but sold feed to livestock opertions. What is your definition of a factory farm? There are still dairy farms with 25 milking cosws or less. The largest I had serviced was about 200 milking cows, largest hogs was 200 sows farrow to finish (4000 pigs per year), largest layer was 10,000 caged birds, broiler breeder 8000 birds and broilers 40,000 birds.

Sounds like we're talking apples and oranges. The "Food Inc." documentary I embedded in my last post shows one typcial contract farmer with 300,000 chickens for example.

See that is another reason why you cannot extrapolate US data to Canada. The Americans do not operate under quaota systems like we have in Canada. Neither do they require all weather housing in the major livestock areas. When day old chicks require a temperature of 91*F in January you need well insulated barns with supplemental heat. That temperature will be reduced to 70*F by the time the birds leave. So no only is supplemental heat required but cooling is rquired in warmer temperatures. The housing systems in the US do no compare for environmental control. Nor is the cost of production as high.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Antibiotics were used at prophylactic levels without perscription. Higher levels required a veterinary perscription. Sort of like the difference between over the counter medicines and going to your doctor. There are always individuals that will abuse a system, but the vast majority follow basic guidelines as time has proven it produces the best results. So if a farmer used a tetracycline as a prophylactic this time next time he would switch to a different drug family to prevent creating drug tolerant bacteria. It can be very exepensive if you have an outbreak that cannot be controlled by convenetional means. Again economics helps to police the industry.

Yet the problem with drug-resitant bacteria is exploding and food production is almost solely responsible for this. We are nearing the point where we are running out of antibotics to treat certain types of bacteria. This causes uncontrollable outbreaks in hospitals and people actually die every year. The practices that have been blamed for these drug-resistant bacteria are defended by the industry. The economics does nothing because consumers are unaware. You can check that out that news story here:

The antibiotic problem as depicted is disturbing. The one thing missing from the study was tracking the meat through all stages. By this I mean sampling in the barn, after transport, before and after in the slaughter house and before and after packaging. The show lets consumers assume the meat was contaminated at the farm level when even their little kitchen demonstration shows than handling can spread contamination over a wide area.

We also did not get to review their handling of the purchased product to see if cross sample contamination might be an issue. I am not saying the problem does not exist I am just saying that the testing was not under a tightly controlled situation until it arrived at the lab.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

The close housing or intensive livestock operations are what produces the cheap food you have in the supermarket. Our prices are higher than the Americans and consumers are always whining about 'why is food so much cheaper there than here'. The three major reasons are economies of scale (1/10th the population over a bigger area) plus the higher cost of housing (winters) and marketing boards for dairy and poultry.

They are only "cheaper" if you selectively pick and choose your facts.

Well we both are using selective examples. The biggest difference in cost is the shear difference in population size. The state of Ohio raises more hogs than all of Canada. Huge operations as you have noted without the high housing costs of Canada.

$1:

2) The video takes an element of truth and makes up s%&t from there . For example the bbroiler chickens were not too heavy to walk. There are about 0.1 to 0.2% of the birds with end up with a slipped tendon over the hock. It usually affect one leg, but in rare cases both legs are affected. The birds are culled as chickens strive for dominance and unhealthy animals are a target. Your videos als show bright lighting. Broiler chickens only have bright lights for the first week then the lighting is reduced to the point that you would only be able to read the headlines of a newspaper. The birds are more docile, grow faster and there is a lot less canibalism.

Just because some chickens in your experience have that condition, doens't mean that was the case with the chickens in the video. Again the poultry industry doesn't deny this. They simply say its how the business works. The lightness and darkness issue is also adressed in Food Inc. Not all chickens are raised in the dark and not all farmers keep the lights off when they are in there trying to find lame chickens.[/quote]
The picture was definitely a slipped tendon. If you walk enough barns you recognize the symptoms. Here is one they do not mention wich the industry calls flip overs. Birds raised to hit market weight at 6 weeks will have a small percentage of heart attacks. The birds will be found laying on their backs consequently the phrase flip over. Good farmers walk the barns several times per day checking for cull, temperature, air quality , water supply, etc. They do not change the lighting for this. However a film crew would find it impossible to shoot video and would naturally ask the light levels to be raised for their convenience.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Here is a little economics 101. It takes 100,000 square feet of barn space to raise 100,000 broiler chickens from day old chicks to 44 days of age when they are slaughtered at about 3.8 lbs of live weight and will take about 8 lbs of feed. This will happen about 6 times per year.

Now take the same area of land in the 1920's and you might get two batches (500 chickens each)of chickens raised outside. Genetics, housing and living conditions are less than optimal, but you would sell a 5 lb chicken after 11 to 12 weeks and the feed would be about 40 lbs per bird not 8. So using old methods would take 5 times the feed per bird; therefore, on feed alone the cost would jump by a factor of 5. Plus the same land area would produce 5000 lbs of birds for market compared to 2,280,000 lbs or 0.2% of the production. Do you think we could possibly produce enough chicken in a year to meet the demand of 35,000,000 Canadians?? With so flittle chicke available for 35,000,000 people what would be the price per pound. $10, $20, $100?????? Would we be sourcing most of our chicken from the US instead as we could bring it into southern Canada for less than $5 per pound?

I don't disagree that over the past 50 years, the North American food corporations has become extremely effiecient at mass-producing food at little cost to themselves and at minimum price at the register. But Farmers suffer, and as discussed above, the costs are just realized by citizens elsewhere, such as in taxpayer subsidies, diabetes rates, obesity rates, environmental damage, etc.

You talk as if all this food production is just barely meeting consumer demand. There is overproduction of food. Some 25%-30% of food is thrown out while still fresh by restaurants, grocery stores and by consumers who over-purchase. A lot is also dumped on foreign markets, especailly in developing countries that aren't strong enough to contest our subsidies and puts local producers out of work.

There has always been wastage and restaraunts throuwing out food. Read up on the past with poor people getting food from the bins behind the restaraunts. A 99% reduction in the poultry supply is a little larger than a 25% over production for current domestic demand.

The consumer demand for packaging, preprocessed foods, fast foods, etc drives a lot of what the industry does. Consumers are not willing to dress their own chickens or take 3 hours to prepare a week day meal. We could legislate reductions in antibiotics, but it would come with a supermarket cost. You currently have choices where you can pay double the price for your meat and vegetables, but the vast majority of consumers choose to purchase food based on cost. If more consumers pay the higher price for 'organic' (and I use the term in its marketing sense) or antibiotic free then the industry will adapt accordingly. If it remains as a very small percentage then it will continue as what would be termed a cottage industry.

[BeaverFever]

[quote="Caelon]See that is another reason why you cannot extrapolate US data to Canada. The Americans do not operate under quaota systems like we have in Canada. Neither do they require all weather housing in the major livestock areas. When day old chicks require a temperature of 91*F in January you need well insulated barns with supplemental heat. That temperature will be reduced to 70*F by the time the birds leave. So no only is supplemental heat required but cooling is rquired in warmer temperatures. The housing systems in the US do no compare for environmental control. Nor is the cost of production as high.[/quote]

Ok, I'll buy your argument that the Canadian farming industry is markedly different, mainly due to the supply management system and the fact that Canadian meat processors do not own the farm products as they do in the US, in addition to environmental needs.

$1:

The antibiotic problem as depicted is disturbing. The one thing missing from the study was tracking the meat through all stages. By this I mean sampling in the barn, after transport, before and after in the slaughter house and before and after packaging. The show lets consumers assume the meat was contaminated at the farm level when even their little kitchen demonstration shows than handling can spread contamination over a wide area. We also did not get to review their handling of the purchased product to see if cross sample contamination might be an issue. I am not saying the problem does not exist I am just saying that the testing was not under a tightly controlled situation until it arrived at the lab.

Well, youre mixing issues here. While safe food handling by individuals and by industry has always been an issue since the dawn of time and salmonella, etc. are just part of the reality of meat produciion, the issue at hand is that we are loosing our tools to fight outbreaks because these bacterium are now antibiotic resistant. And use of antibiotics on the farm is the culprit. The Marketplace story wasn't about bacteria on food. It was about antibiotic-resistant bacteria on food.

$1:

Well we both are using selective examples. The biggest difference in cost is the shear difference in population size. The state of Ohio raises more hogs than all of Canada. Huge operations as you have noted without the high housing costs of Canada.

According to this Industry Canada studythe cost difference is alot more than ecnomies of scale. But the fact that meat processors like Maple Leaf don't run the entire food production cycle like their US counterparts do is good news, IMO. I gladly pay the price I pay if that's the alternative model.

$1:

The picture was definitely a slipped tendon. If you walk enough barns you recognize the symptoms. Here is one they do not mention wich the industry calls flip overs. Birds raised to hit market weight at 6 weeks will have a small percentage of heart attacks. The birds will be found laying on their backs consequently the phrase flip over. Good farmers walk the barns several times per day checking for cull, temperature, air quality , water supply, etc. They do not change the lighting for this. However a film crew would find it impossible to shoot video and would naturally ask the light levels to be raised for their convenience.

Right, you just said it right there, the birds are bred and fed to become so large, their bodies can't support them. IMO thats inhumane. I doubt any animal activist would go around clubbing and stomping chickens to make a video. Somehow, somewhere, some farmer prefers to club his chickens with the lights on. Or maybe he did it for the film crew because he didn't have a problem being filmed while he's clubbing chickens Its well within the realm of possibility. And IMO also uncessarily cruel.

$1:

There has always been wastage and restaraunts throuwing out food. Read up on the past with poor people getting food from the bins behind the restaraunts. A 99% reduction in the poultry supply is a little larger than a 25% over production for current domestic demand.

Who is asking for a 99% reduction?

$1:

The consumer demand for packaging, preprocessed foods, fast foods, etc drives a lot of what the industry does. Consumers are not willing to dress their own chickens or take 3 hours to prepare a week day meal. We could legislate reductions in antibiotics, but it would come with a supermarket cost.

I don't beleive the latter requires the former. It's not either-or. But what are you suggesting, that we do with antibiotics to keep the price of chicken down by a few cents per kg? At any rate, public health and safety has to trump prices and profits. PERIOD. Grow a chicken in 10 weeks instead of 5. The government and the market could easily reorganize themselves to do so. Government subsidies and business models would change. Maybe retail prices would go up.

$1:

You currently have choices where you can pay double the price for your meat and vegetables, but the vast majority of consumers choose to purchase food based on cost. If more consumers pay the higher price for 'organic' (and I use the term in its marketing sense) or antibiotic free then the industry will adapt accordingly. If it remains as a very small percentage then it will continue as what would be termed a cottage industry.

As above, the public health concern regarding the antibiotics trumps market trends and consumer demand. Like national defence, the govenment has a responsibility to act unilaterally if necessary to protect the citizens, even if many of the citizens are blissfully ignorant of the problem. And this is my second problem: modern consumers are completely ignorant of the goods they purchase -chicken or otherwise. Even when they are informed, today's consumer will usually prefer the shallow and immediate gratifiaction of low price and convenience over the long-term consequence anyway. And if that consequence is suffered by someone other than themselves, forget about it entirely. But people not caring about a problem is not the same as saying there is no problem. Some things have to be done even when the lotus-eaters among us can't be bothered to think about it for one second. I agree that increased demand for organic can - and to a limited extent has- made "organic" products more avaialbe. But there's still a long way to go. Alot of "organic" is just green-washed labelling by the same old traditional suppliers and standards are weak and vary from one jurisdiction to another. Prices for organic are so high because in addition to the higher production costs, retailers and producers are charging an additional luxury premium because of the lucrative health market connotation and the purchasers tend to be higher income. I sense that this will improve over time, but its been over 10 years since I've seen "organic" labelling in the common supermarket. It's still expensive as hell and since it's still the wild west in that corner of the market, there's no sure way to prove or safeguard the quality of organic food (as the Marketplace newspiece showed).