Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by temporalparts | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

temporalparts

My understanding (no sources) is that better treated chickens have:

- Fewer hormones for growth

- Fewer antibiotics (diseases spread rapidly in confined spaces)

- Higher quality meat (Chicken gets more exercise and movement, as well as increased quality of feed)

- Higher nutritional value (increased exercise and sunlight, potentially)

In terms of calories though, it's probably a wash, and more inefficient from calories/money.

edit: formatting

View on HN

>Fewer hormones for growth

>Chicken gets more exercise and movement

Having raised chickens for meat on a small scale (30-40 at a time), I can tell you that chickens used for meat ("Broiler" chickens) are selectively bred to grow as big as possible as quickly as possible. There is no need for growth hormones, they grow so quickly that their bone structure cannot keep up, to the point that they are barely able to walk 8-12 weeks from hatching. If they are not slaughtered on time, they die from heart failure.

> If they are not slaughtered on time, they die from heart failure.

Wow, you weren't kidding. [1] I am not surprised that chickens have been bred to grow fast, but I've never heard of an animal that implodes because it grows so fast.

[1]

Andre the Giant died of heart failure because he grew too fast

Modern Cornish crosses are a miracle of selective breeding (aka genetic engineering).

At this point, they're not far away from muscle growing machines with just enough brain attached to partially handle themselves.

Heh if you haven't heard you should check out Mike the headless chicken. That shows you how little brain chickens need.

Wow -- that is very fascinating !

Similarly: industrial turkeys of the type that Americans buy for Thanksgiving are so heavy and their breasts are so large that they're physically no longer able to reproduce. (They use artificial insemination now.)

>- Fewer hormones for growth

The FDA bans hormones in all poultry production, companies advertising it are trying to fool you into thinking the opposite is possible, it isn't.

>- Fewer antibiotics

Zero antibiotics is very common among producers

The move to fungal sources is happening but zero antibiotics isn't common

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/chicken-...

The article doesn't really say one way or another whether it is uncommon. It also lazily veers back and forth between references to the poultry industry, and animal farms generally so I don't even think you make an inference.

Chickens are given neither hormones nor antibiotics.

It's been illegal to give chickens growth hormones for a long time. Most major chicken brands (Tyson and Purdue, who are #1 and 2 in terms of production) do not give chickens antibiotics, unless the flock gets sick. In that case, the flock is treated and then sold as a different product- usually either as pet food or an off brand.

I don't know why we use hormones and antibiotics for pork and beef but not chicken.

> - Fewer hormones for growth

This is a urban legend. Not sure if it was true at any point, but it is not the case.

Chickens were selectively bred to grow fast enough as it is, to the point that some breeds have a percentage of offspring lost. Try to make them grow any faster and more will die.

> - Higher quality meat (Chicken gets more exercise and movement, as well as increased quality of feed)

At least for cows (and most game), you don't want them to exercise too much or the meat won't be as tender. Is it different for chickens?

"At least for cows (and most game), you don't want them to exercise too much or the meat won't be as tender. Is it different for chickens?"

There tends to be a flavour/tenderness tradeoff. So you'll tend to get more flavour from more used muscles. (eg chicken breast v thigh)

That said, the average battery hen could do a hell of a lot more exercise and still not be tough.

American preference for tenderness is marketing induced for economic reasons. Younger animals have more tenderness/less flavor and the faster meat grows, the younger you slaughter at. Also, marbling is prized because corn fed beef exhibits greater marbling than grass fed beef. By elevating tenderness & marbling above all else, even flavor, American manufacturers can align what consumers prize with what's cheaper to produce.

If you go to other beef obsessed countries in the world in South America, Europe and especially Asia, a certain degree of chew is considered desirable. Take Picanha from Brazil, Bistecca alla Fiorentina from Florence of Kalbi Short Ribs from Korea.

Marbling is prized because the fat gives a buttery flavor that people like. Look at Kobe beef in Japan, it is the most expensive, prized beef because the extreme marbling shows the highest fat content.

The issue with antibiotics in farming is that they may be used to contrast unhealthy conditions.

If your chicken don't get sick because they have free roaming space and don't peck each other and so on you don't need antibiotics.

> they have free roaming space and don't peck each other and so on

Chickens are assholes no matter the square footage.

I think that's a bit unfair, just because we haven't bred all of their instinctual behaviour out of them.

chicken contact lenses (to reduce aggression) was one of my favorite business case studies: https://gohighbrow.com/optical-distortion-aka-the-chicken-co...

i won't spoil the punchline (it's not obvious from first blush).

Someone made a website for it too: https://www.opticaldistortion.com/

awesome but how do I learn more about this? Both links from that page are dead -_-

if you want the punchline, this quora answer has it (SPOILER ALERT): https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-useful-Harvard-Busine...

otherwise you can search for “ODI optical distortion business case” to find sites that have the setup and various attempts at analyzing/answering the case.

The antibiotics are needed because they're so poorly treated. The chickens wouldn't get sick if they weren't packed into battery farms. The antibiotics aren't always necessary either, it's just more profitable to have the animal spend less energy fighting illness that it would otherwise have survived.

Aside from the growth hormones which can be avoided, chickens suffer ftom contagious transmissible diseases even in exurban settings (few chickens, lots of space), so they must ne administered antibiotics to fend of diseases and collapse of the brood.

In the dairy industry, for example, organic milk would mean you have to either let the cow die if they get sick, or give it antibiotics, cure it, and then send it to the slaughterhouse as you can't milk that cow anymore, worse still you give the cow antibiotics and continue to milk it thereby making the milk worse than "normal milk", because you don't want to lose money.

That's why organic isn't always the most ideal.

Where did you get the idea that the regulation of "organic" labeling prevents treating sick animals? To my knowledge it is not true.

It does not prevent treatment, but if treated with antibiotics, that animals milk will never there after be organic. Thems the rules.

That is insane that that is the case here in the US. ( and I just checked as I could not believe it).

In Europe it’s different - https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/eu-rules-...

“When the animals are ill, chemically synthesised allopathic veterinary medicinal products including antibiotics may be used where necessary and under strict conditions. This is only allowed when the use of phytotherapeutic, homeopathic and other products is inappropriate.”

The slaughterhouse is hardly the only option.

https://www.fooddialogues.com/happens-farm-animals-raised-no...

> On an organic farm, once that animal receives antibiotics, she is no longer considered an organic animal. Rather than rejoining her organic herd, she will join a traditional herd of cows that may have received antibiotics during their lives.

Traditional herds exist because there remains a large non-organic market.

The more popular the organic religious dietary code becomes, the least viable traditional herds are.

Antibiotics are used to make animals grow faster and bigger not to make them well.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16142667/

Tyson doesn’t use any antibiotics, Purdue says they used less than 5%, and most of the rest don’t use them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com