We facilitate here a passage from an article by ALVANE, a geneticist who back in 2017 analyzed the issues surrounding slow-growing chickens by observing a certain hypocritical ideology. An ideology that even today perseveres and holds sway over issues that can all be linked to demands of the most extreme animal rights activists who manage to force, by making them worse, practices of efficiency and sustainability won over the years by research.
Thanks to the capabilities of genetic research, which is always active in the poultry sector, certain forced choices are known and possible even if they belong to solutions that are “discarded” due to side effects of environmental and economic impact.
Some companies and the GDO pander to these ideologies to avoid the disturbing siege of those who see intensive livestock farms as absolute evil.
However, these are companies forced to find alternative arguments and narratives to conventional ones to justify the higher costs to the consumer that are inevitably generated. Commercial survival choices, legitimate but necessarily geared to market niches consisting of people who can afford more expensive choices “suggested” by visionary animal welfare organizations. By reading the passage I submit-and the links at the bottom-you will better understand:
“…According to the Global Animal Partnership (GAP), an organization created by Whole Foods to set welfare standards for its suppliers, it appears to have arbitrarily decided that “slower growth” is equal to or less than 50 grams of weight gained per chicken per day on average during the growth cycle, compared to the current industry average for all chickens of about 61 grams per day. This means that to achieve the same market weight, chickens would have to stay on the farm significantly longer, 58 days instead of 44.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that slow-growing chickens require more feed per pound of growth (the feed conversion ratio (FCR) is 2.2 for slow-growing chickens, compared to 1.9 for the industry average). In total, the impact of adopting slow-growing chickens is a 34 percent increase in feed per pound of prime meat, a 40 percent increase in gallons of water and a 53 percent increase in manure per marketed chicken, and a 49 percent increase in costs per marketed chicken. Thus, in one fell swoop, this decision dramatically increased the environmental impact of broiler production by intentionally switching to a “Hummer-type” chicken instead of a “Prius.”
And for what purpose is this big step backward in terms of sustainability being taken? Theoretically for animal welfare. But what is missing from this discussion is why slower growth equals better welfare. Why is growth with weight gain of less than 50 grams per day per chicken for 58 days better for welfare than growth with 61 grams per day for 44 days? Where is the objective, evidentiary basis to support this claim? Nothing else changes in the way chickens are raised, they just stay alive for another 14 days before slaughter. …”
Those who would like to read the full article, complete with in-depth data, can find it here:
https://biobeef.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2017/02/08/are-slow-growing-chickens-better/
Instead, here are some in-depth articles on the topic from our anti-fake blog that we encourage you to read and follow:
https://moreaboutchicken.com/why-do-slow-growing-chickens-cost-almost-twice-as-much/
