2 day old chicks (nasty warning)

[Smotheroffive]

...being crushed alive en masse!!

I know this from films shown in my DCs schools.

AIBU to be so shocked and upset about this, or wondering if enough people know and it doesn't even bother them, or perhaps have no idea this goes on.

I have always tried to buy free range eggs, and bacon, etc, but also organic assuming their standards of animal welfare would prefend such awful treatment of live young.

Does this happen routinely in organic farming too? surely not, or I think I might have to stop buying eggs! AIBU to consider doing that?

[Grace212]

you do sound a bit naive OP

does it really matter if they get to live longer as pet food?!

[Smotheroffive]

I am not naïve, and clearly the schools are doing a bad job, I am asking questions about whats actually going on.

It's insulting to assume I don't know animals are slaughtered in the process of the farming industry. I have had a lot to do with farms growing up, I just wasn't sure about this process, and its clear schools have been misleading the DC in their care.

As regards the article above, Jamie made it clear that its battery hens that are being treated cruelly and using appalling farming practices, like staving chicks of oxygen so basically suffocating them, and was advocating for humane farming practices, not the same at all.

How are young male calves slaughtered?//I am assuming they are stunned.

I have long been unhappy about dairy farming practices removing newborns from their mothers who then bellow for them sometimes for days

[ShannonRockallMalin]

We used to raise a few backyard chickens (dual breeds so good for either eggs or meat) and inevitably we’d end up with surplus cockerels. As we were only raising them for ourselves, we let the cockerels grow up a bit then I’m afraid we ate them. But in a commercial enterprise they will be raising specifically for either layers or meat, so the males of the laying breed are useless unfortunately.

[MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals1]

It's tragic, isn't it OP?

Another thing to think about in the milk industry is the fact that cows don't produce milk unless they've had a baby cow - so every female cow who produces milk has given birth to a calve and has had that calf taken off her (and more than likely killed) to be milked. So I can understand why people are vegan!

[ThatssomebadhatHarry]

Free range makes no difference they all start off in the same place. Unwanted chicks and either ground up alive or left in sacks to die off. It’s after this they are sorted into the ones going to the battery farms or the ‘free range’ farms.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Like a pp I’ve also heard they’re coming up with an accurate way to sex eggs in the early stages of fertilisation.

Which is a good thing.

[EwItsAHooman]

Jamie Oliver did a whole programme about the farming industry and gassed chicks live in the studio over 10 years ago. The aim was to show the reality of mass poultry farming.

Wasn't there a similar programme around that time called something like "Kill it, Cook It, Eat It"? Or something like that. They had a small studio audience, killed and prepared an animal in front of them, then cooked it and served it to them. The aim was to highlight what's involved in meat production and there was an industry expert explaining each stage of the process.

[Smotheroffive]

What's sick is that the producers of the chickens, the actual farmers are getting so ripped off by the supermarkets at 3p per chicken!!?

If farmers got the amount they should, anywhere near what the end consumer pays, then practices could afford more slack and care in them.

I can do without the insulting comments tbh, I am asking genuine questions and don't need the judgement. I, as many, find this an upsetting subject. That's me saying very pleasantly what i think of that unhelpful contribution.

[MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals1]

I think male calves are either shot, or are sent to slaughter houses where they're stunned.

[Smotheroffive]

Harry your version conflicts with others versions that had been established as currently the case.

[Saucery]

Farmers would not add more care to the process if they were paid more (which I agree they should be). Why would they? The male chicks are a by product.

[XiCi]

Why are they showing this in your DC school?

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

at least they could have a life!

If you saw that life, you might not be so keen to save them for a few weeks (that's all it would be).

Their conditions are bloody HORRIBLE!

[Smotheroffive]

I have wondered exactly that XiCi and said so on this thread, asked why schools are being so irresponsible to out out such misinformation.

[Heyha]

You need to ask the school why they are espousing this practice that isn't relevant to the UK, OP. Remember they are obliged to give a broad and balanced view and not thrust their opinions on a
students. There is a proportion of young teachers spouting a load of crap about things such as farming because they were never taught properly about it themselves and consequently just believe what PETA and the like spout on social media.

Male chicks from egg layers will be gassed and often used in feeding exotic animals eg snakes, birds of prey etc. The zoos and wildlife parks will get through plenty!

Male calves are generally sold to a specialist rearers now, very few dairy cows breed pure dairy calves but are crossed with a beef bull instead which means the resulting calf has a value and will be reared the same as a beef boy or girl. Mcdonalds use beef X dairy bull calves for a lot of their produce as they are fairly cheap to buy still. The beef joints from these animals won't be as good as a pure beef animal but are perfectly ok for mince etc. The days of shooting dairy bull calves are long gone since they now have a job and therefore a value.
Much of the lamb you eat will be male as girls tend to be kept for breeding, and with pork it makes no difference either. Although I don't make ham or bacon from boars as by the time they've grown to the bigger size you need for such things they tend to be sexually mature and some people can taste the natural hormones in the meat and affect the cure. For sausages again it makes no difference as the flavourings cover any possible taint (although only a small proportion of the population can detect to anyway).

[Smotheroffive]

The life of an organic is not anywhere that awful life of a battery hen, etc!!!

Nothing like it.

If the supermarkets werent robbing farmers blind....and holding them to ransom..

[CrunchyEggshells]

This article is about the first commercial use of that genetic testing to determine the sex before birth. It is being pioneered in Germany. Let’s hope it is a success and gets rolled out here.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/22/worlds-first-no-kill-eggs-go-on-sale-in-berlin

[Meandmetoo]

How old are the kids?

[Lougle]

It's all pretty sad, tbh. Did you know that the chickens we eat are typically 42 days old (6 weeks)? This <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.ciwf.org.uk/media/5235306/The-life-of-Broiler-chickens.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiYwazf38rgAhVkqnEKHS3LAMAQFjABegQIEBAE&usg=AOvVaw1RLukYKIRgHsc7NC5nQDPk&cshid=1550682639287" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">fact sheet from Compassion in World Farming is quite useful and gives information about practices across Europe and the full range from intensive farming to organic farming.

[Heyha]

Can I also say OP it's really refreshing, as someone that teaches this stuff and also keeps a few animals of my own, to see such balanced and sensible points being discussed which isn't easy with such an emotive subject.

[Saucery]

What do you think farmers would do differently to male chicks if they were paid more by supermarkets?
I’m not knocking farmers’ decisions - I eat meat and dairy and accept there are uncomfortable truths and practices that go along with that. I just don’t see why they would put extra money into rearing a product they can’t do anything with.

[PalmTree101]

at least they could have a life!

Hilarious

And also really worrying that you think that.

[PalmTree101]

What do you think farmers would do differently to male chicks if they were paid more by supermarkets?

There would need to be an economic incentive linked to the action/behavior desired.

Like the farm subsidies for field margins and other good environmental stuff

[CrunchyEggshells]

I also remember, though don’t have a link to it, that when I lived in Germany there was an company which charged a few cents more per egg carton to pay for the male chicks to grow up and have a free range life. I seem to remember it being difficult because of them being territorial and needing lots of space, so they were castrating them. But it’s nearly a decade ago and I don’t know if this was all sustainable or if it happens anywhere here.

Such enterprises aside, they’re ground up/gassed.

So I don’t think the video shown at school was misleading.

I hope the genetic testing is a success: that seems like the most economically viable way to avoid them suffering.

[Saucery]

I’m just envisioning pen upon pen of cocks (no laughing at the back) and surely the end for them is going to be death, just like the females?