There are many fantasies circulating around the world of chickens raised for our food. Strange rumors circulate in the corridors of our varied humanity in periodic waves about how the poultry industry practices elaborate (and absurd) processes that, if they were true, would be costly and counterproductive fatigues.
If there is in fact one animal that, in its own right, is easy and cheap to raise … it is the chicken.
If anything, the complication arises when, in order to meet the mass demand for its meat and eggs, farmers must organize themselves to co-habit thousands of chickens while ensuring the welfare of each animal and guaranteeing the welfare of those who will eat them.
Of course, because if chickens were not healthy and well fed, they could not even enter the human food chain.
We know that here and there a few crooks are always there, but this has little to do with the fantasies that “flare up” in the minds of those who see the devil everywhere.
Is that why the devil’s chicken was born in the kitchen? We smile a little.
But let’s return to the topic of this article by listing a first set of answers to some questions people have about chickens:
ARE THEY BRED IN BATTERIES?
Many people also think so because of the many animal rights campaigns condemning battery farming (which are then cages) despite the fact that chickens have not been raised in batteries for at least 50 years.
Those that used to be kept in cages were instead laying hens, animals that are much lighter and better adapted to this type of rearing. However, even for laying hens, cages are a rearing system that is being phased out in favor of floor rearing. However, the transition still takes time because the cost of transforming a farm is precisely a cost that must be addressed with the proper allocation of resources and plans for restructuring and management.
DO THEY GIVE HIM HORMONES?
Hormones are banned, first by Italian health authorities who conduct thousands of spot checks every year, then by a European law, and then again by common sense because they are useless in poultry. Some might think that the fact that today’s chickens are bigger than 30 years ago then “means they pump them.” Instead, the larger size of today’s chickens is related to different and very natural reasons.
In fact, one can safely say that the reason is comparable to why, today, many kids at 14/15 years old are much taller than their peers 30 years ago. This is because nutrition, hygiene and the ability to prevent diseases that used to interfere, big time, with people’s development have improved.
The food available today is better cared for, better assimilated and more balanced than it used to be. This happens to us humans, but as the research and care that humans develop tends to transfer it to all their activities, here is where even chicken benefits from treatments that make it healthier and “fleshed out.”
DO THEY GIVE HIM ANTIBIOTICS?
We know from the news that bacteria, including those responsible for human diseases, are increasingly resistant to drugs. In Italian poultry farms, antibiotic therapy is used as it is used in our own homes only when the need arises.
So too in poultry farms, but only if strictly necessary, that is, when chickens should become sick. But in this case, it is mandatory for poultry farmers to observe the so-called “withdrawal time,” that is, the time it takes for the animals to dispose of the drug before being sent for consumption.
It should also be noted that antibiotic use on poultry farms, when and only if it is needed, is done according to a much more refined and targeted procedure than for human antibiotics, because for chickens, through an “antibiogram,” the specific antibiotic is chosen for the type of bacteria that have occurred and only in the dose needed. Antibiotics used for humans, on the other hand, are in equal doses for all, broad-spectrum and without certainty that the spectrum includes that particular bacterium active at that time.
To answer any other curiosity about the world of poultry farming, you can continue to browse both this blog and https://nutriamocidibuonsenso.it/ also using the internal search tool (the magnifying glass) and remembering that you can send an email with your questions using the contact section.
Peter Greppi
Ethic advisor – Creator of the new paradigm in the poultry sector
Founder of www.ad-just.it – www.moreaboutchicken.com – www.nutriamocidibuonsenso.it – www.ioetesiamopari.it
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