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?

[Smotheroffive]

The maximum flock size allowed under Soil Association organic standards is no more than 2,000 laying hens or 1,000 chickens and other poultry reared for meat. To put this in perspective, intensively-reared meat birds are commonly housed in groups of up to 30,000 in a shed! Having fewer birds encourages better outdoor range use and makes it easier to manage bird welfare on an individual level, which helps to ensure the birds are kept to the highest standards of welfare. Organic poultry must have continuous and easy daytime access to an outdoor range covered with suitable vegetation, except in adverse weather conditions.

This from the soul association, so not just minimum space requirement but access to large outdoor space, not having the painful beak clipping procedure, able to eat a natural diet which includes bugs (making eggs contain the nutrients they are supposed to!) ..and covers humane dispatching also, no gm feeds allowed, spaces have to be rested between flocks to ensure nutrient value recovers in the ground properly.

Makes me wonder what nutrient value there actually is in a non-organic egg now!

[Heyha]

But free range covers almost all of that- I've never had a beak-trimmed hen from him and I watched his attack and strip a foolish pigeon that landed in their range so I'm certain the vegetation and bugs will persist. They have a break between batches to deep clean inside and rest outside. In bad weather they have the bark chip covered area down each side of the roosts. The major difference is that he has 6000 birds in a batch and it is bloody noisy (I've been and helped at new batch unloading time!) whereas I expect 1-2000 would be substantially more peaceful

[Smotheroffive]

Yeah, I think apart from the numbers of birds there's the length of break, and no gm foods, that no pesticides are used on the vegetation they eat from of course, and that they are not fed any growth promoters or treated with ABs routinely, and don't need to be because of better animal husbandry practices that limit disease opportunities anyway. Eating one organic is worth two non.

[Badcat666]

It does pee me off when people show incorrect shock tactic farming videos that are either out of date or are nothing to do with how things are done in the UK.

PETA are the worst at this. this is an organization which has one of the highest kill rate of shelters in the USA because they would rather kill an animal than have it be someones pet.

As others are said, they are gassed and loads are sold to zoos/ exotic pet keepers and birds of prey keepers/ breeders. Also you can buy frozen day old chicks for raw feeding to pet cats and dogs which, as a cat owner who was looking at raw feeding before I lost my kitten, I thought was a brilliant idea!.

[Smotheroffive]

Oh gawd you lost your Kitten

Sorry! I did read your post but forgot everything else once I read that.

[Heyha]

The use of hormones, growth promotors and routine antibiotics is much more common abroad than here- a lot of these are banned in several species in every system but I forget exactly which so don't want to misinform. And it's perfectly possible to have poor welfare organic systems, it isn't automatically better. Just more likely to be. But an organic pig outdoors last winter will have had a much crapper time than an indoor one. A sheep that gets fly strike and is eaten alive by maggots because the farmer chose not to use effective conventional insecticides to prevent this probably wouldn't agree either.

Organic systems can and do use medications and pesticides if required (just not all of them). I personally have more issue with soya itself than it being GM- surely if you're going to trash the environment growing soya you may as well at least grow it as efficiently as possible, and that means GM?

But they don't tell you all this because they're too busy rubbishing conventional farming and that therefore means people don't ask to many further questions. That's why as I've said before a lot will follow organic principles without doing it wholesale. I do fecal egg count for my sheep rather than automatically worming them but they get their tetanus jab annually and they get sprayed with anti-fly strike stuff as well as I perceive those two treatments to be more important to welfare than avoiding chemicals at all costs.

[Heyha]

This is a it old but explains some of the realities of sticking to the soil association instructions slavishly. The livestock bit is about halfway down.
www.land-care.org.uk/environment/current_topics/2005/watkins_organic_18_01/watkins_organic_18_01.html

[Smotheroffive]

It does state animals must be kept in, only that they are out weather permitting and must have measured and controlled space when indoors. So they must be protected from adverse weather.

They also are not prevented from veterinian intervention when ill and therefore not be dying!

There's definitely a balance to be struck and there are cruel people in every walk of life, especially where there's money to be made for as little effort as possible for animals welfare

[Smotheroffive]

Frankly I'm shocked at the carnage that farmer has allowed,knowing what they do about the extremely poor quality,but 'free', grazing, or rather over-grazing of the land so that it is continually riddled with liver flukes and various other parasites. That was horrific and bloody stupid to expect that farmer would not be sending its farm animals to death by grazing them on significantly substandard grazing land.

I wish that had a 'makes nasty reading' warning on it.

It's clearly not the answers to try to force animals into highly unsuitable environments and expect them to thrive! Also knowing that you cannot make up somehow for the lack of vital nutrients that other organically farmed livestock will get from their mixed farmed land, how was that ever going to work? The farmer was a doctor,so knew all of this, and still went ahead resulting in the painful deaths of many animals and their young.

I thought the whole point of organic was the soil, the quality of the soil, to provide quality plant life (as in, vital minerals and vitamins), you cannot be ploughing up common land and ensuring its mineral and good biodiversity. It sounds like very unhealthy land indeed, the worst for rearing livestock, catastrophic, and only works because its so heavily dependent upon medical intervention routinely. This is the opposite of organic principles or standards.

Roundup BTW, is not the benevolent treatment it has been promoted as, and causes cancer apparently

[Atleastihavethecat]

Threads like this always make me realise how progressive my grandfather was, and my father is. I think I was around 9 before I worked out that not every farmer does things the way we do.

We'd been a dairy farm for 60-70 years, but never killed male calves at birth, or slaughtered for veal. They were raised with the rest until 18 months ish. They went to the slaughterhouse for beef then. Some were sent to neighbouring beef farms for foster calves. (As an aside, a cow with a calf at her foot is really dangerous, and while I can't remember the exact figure, they are the cause of a high percentage of livestock accidents on farms.)

We also gained a bit of a reputation for taking on all the waifs and strays. We've had blind stock, underweight stock, a semi-paralysed bull, and what was possibly the worst case of neglect and malnutrition I've ever seen. Careful care from Dad meant that they all gained weight, and were well looked after before they either went to the factory, or in the case of the bull, fulfilled his breeding duties in a highly controlled environment.

We have our own chickens, so I've never had to wonder where my eggs come from. If I do need to buy, I buy local from a free-range flock, or certified organic.

We have sheep as well. Ram lambs are raised with the girls. Any lambs not suitable for breeding are sent to the slaughterhouse when they reach weight. They're exclusively grass-fed. The ewes are getting nuts right now before lambing starts. The sheep are pretty used to us, but even then they're still sheep so can be a bit flighty, so I kept an elderly ewe in the flock. She's such a pet, we use her to direct the rest to go where we want, and keep them calm. We'll be looking to hand rear a few lambs this year to act as her replacement when the time comes. (She's about 8-10 years old, and she won't live forever, but she will live out her whole life here)

It's very possible to use conventional farming methods, while having a high emphasis on animal welfare. However, yes there are people who will only look for shortcuts, or a get rich quick scheme.

Heyha All my girls were treated for fly-strike, but we still had a few that really suffered. Can I ask what you used? Our stuff clearly wasn't very effective! I ended up re-dipping most, and spraying fly repellent.

We also had a late lamb last year, but she was the bloody ringleader of any trouble! Still is. She's gorgeous, she knows it, and she has the attitude to prove it. We call her 'the baby'.

[Atleastihavethecat]

Oh, also, apparently in America, some of the hatcheries use the male chicks as padding for when they're mailing female chicks. This seems worse to me than using them for feeding exotics, or raw food diets.

[Smotheroffive]

Jesus Christ atleastihavethecat !! Wtf how upsetting

...but I do want to come and live/work play with the animals on your farm

There are loads who care about the welfare of their animals, heart-warming to hear it.

[Heyha]

But that farmer WAS following organic principles as set out by the Soil Association, to the letter, the link is setting out why he was moving away from it because of the impact it as having after he had been 'sold the dream' of organic. Uplands are entirely suitable for livestock (and not much else). It just helps if you are allowed to use modern tools to support.

You'll notice most of the SA standards have huge swathes of the most restrictive stuff crossed out/amended, last time in June 2018 by the looks of it. So even they must be realising that changes were needed- which is positive at least.

@atleastihavethecat sounds like you think like I do I just used Crovect once this year, we didn't shear til June either which I was twitchy about but was close checking every day. I think because of the breeds we had at the time there was some resistance as well, but I've added Longwools this year (all bought in sheared) so I'm very worried about them- I think I might shear early May and bring them in for a bit if it's wet or not warm enough to leave them out with short coats on.

I've used the herbal stuff the SA recommend (the horse stuff in the white bottle with green writing) in the run-up to shearing as well but I wouldn't want to rely on it, it needs doing daily. I won't say on here what I think about their repeated recommendation to use homeopathy as that's another thread entirely for humans AND animals!

[LunaLunitaLunera]

The meat industry is beyond criminal. There is no way to slaughter anything humanely. Change the word chicken/cow/pig for person/cat/dog and we would all be up in arms.

Grass fed,organic, red tractor etc are clever words used by advertisers to make the general public feel for comfortable purchasing these products.


Many abbatoirs slaughter via Halaal regulations. They are not stunned prior to slaughter, but are dipped in electrfied water hoisted upside down,throats slit and left to bleed out.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/08/what-does-halal-method-animal-slaughter-involve


Our local abbatoir ( Halaal) dips spent chickens in giant vats of boiling water that is electrified so as to kill them. They recently were fined as there was no electric current in the water so the animals were boiled alive.

This abbatoir kills 10,000 hens every hour and 9,000 pigs everyday. Annually around 114 million in UK. There is no humanity in this process. If you buy meat you fund this industry.


m.youtube.com/watch?v=rb1rjsI61VM&feature=youtu.be


This is a short documentary called Land Of Hope and Glory. About the British meat industry.


It's time to stop being offended by vegans and being offended by this outdated industry.

[Heyha]

Well most halal is pre-stunned the same as any other slaughter (though I respect your objection to slaughter in general) so I'm afraid it's difficult to take much else of what you say as fact without that rather large detail being cleverly omitted. The small % of halal that isn't stunned (and ALL kosher is unstunned, but funny that never seems to get mentioned in the same breath?) is abhorrent of course and all sorts of animal welfare, farming and veterinary groups are campaigning together to make all slaughter pre-stunned by law.

Someone else has mentioned before, is having your pet cat/dog put down (humanely slaughtered) worse than allowing it to live out it's natural lifespan irrespective of quality? If you're opposed to humans deciding when an animal should die then surely that's also unacceptable?

[Smotheroffive]

Heyha the farmer made it abundantly clear that the uplands was completely unsuitable and unsatisfactory for a good outcome, also fen and marshland. In trying to overcome those things it should have been absolutely obvious to someone such as a doctor with their training that cattle and sheep would not survive without pumping them full of additives regularly.

Left to graze those unsuitable common lands is incompatible with life. It clearly cannot be done without substantial supplementation.

Not offended at vegans at all,but I am offended by horror scare stories that try to scare and intimidate others into a forced decision, using and quoting materials irresponsibly. That is disgusting behaviour.

Please stop putting nasty videos/pictures in this thread Lunalunitalunera

It's exactly that kind of stuff that this thread is set up to expose for the lie that it is.

[Heyha]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the upland bit, I think it might be more to do with stocking density and choice of breed that cause problems. Look at herdwicks, they're like rabbits around the lake District 😂 I should declare at this point that one of my breeds of sheep is 'designed' to live on seaweed so anywhere even remotely 'better' sees them absolutely flying. They don't eat grass unless they've stripped all the brambles, nettles etc first. They are more like goats in that respect, I always stick them in with the horses field to tidy up the weeds before winter really kicks in, gets them in good condition for breeding as well.

I'm not sure I'd ever have cattle in those conditions though but I know very little about keeping them generally.

[Atleastihavethecat]

I don't speak for every farmer, obviously, but for any I've spoken to, and myself, it's not being 'offended' by vegans. It's frustration. There's a lot of work that goes into farming, (even if it's done badly, more if it's done with a focus on animal welfare) and for many, it's not a job really, it's a way of life. Most people would become frustrated if a group of people spoke lies, half truths, or sensationalise everything they do. And it's so difficult to have a genuine conversation with them about what farming actually involves because many seem unwilling to let go of their preconceptions, regardless of what the truth actually is. I'm not saying that every farmer does what they're supposed to, and in any industry, there will always be people who are just looking for the most amount of money for the least amount of work, but as all vegans can't be grouped together in a generalisation, neither can farmers.

[OnlineAlienator]

Wow. That is complete bollocks about uplands, marshes and commons being unsuitable for grazing without suppkementation, drugs etc. You just have to do it right.

[Smotheroffive]

Did you read the article online?

That's exactly what it said, that the permenant pastures are mineral and vitamin poor to the extent that animals will die if not pumped with additives, and so full of liver flukes, and worms, mites etc that they will expire. Sounds like an appalling place to rear livestock!

Heyha maybe that the difference as it clearly can work. Obviously over-grazing is going drain the quality of the grazing. That was an absolute horror story of animal.suffering by someone who has the intellect and training to do better, a lot better. Laying the blame of their catastrophe at the door of organic farming principles came across and wanky and over-entitled.

[Qsandmore]

Over 70% of Male calves are raised for beef and with sexed semen the industry are aiming to make this 100% the industry is trying to resolve their own issues.

I also know that “free range” and “barn raised” is actually worse for chickens, I buy caged. The UK has killed off battery farming yonks ago and the cages are enhanced so the birds can follow their natural instincts. Consumer pressure for terms they don’t understand such as “free range” will actually get the cages, which keep the birds safer and happier banned, and allow them to be kept en mass in barns where they peck each other and are frequently unhappy and injured.

Having said that I buy from the farm down the road as I know they have happy chickens and no mass slaughter of the boys.

[Qsandmore]

Oh and drugging animals is also banned in the UK they aren’t allowed growth hormones etc. That’s America.

[Heyha]

One of the issues is that mine are on PP but because I don't have follow soil association I can give them mineral licks with molasses (they don't get enough hard feed to benefit from the vitamins and minerals added, just a bit to keep them round to my way of thinking every now and then!). That's what resolves many minor/potential mineral deficiencies but you can't give them to organic sheep unfortunately. One of my breeds is prone to cobalt and selenium deficiency so the odd time I do work them they get one with that added to it. They also got a magnesium block last year as we had so much grass come through in Spring (before it all dried up) I was worried about that as well. They wouldn't normally have had that but I used my judgement that it wouldn't hurt to out one out. As it happens there's still a quarter of it left so they evidently didn't feel the need to use it, probably time to bin it really!

[Heyha]

Worm them

[Smotheroffive]

Massive difference in flock sizes though between the barn/free range and organic, k's