The least I've ever spent on really awesome dog food! (Ratsicles) *More stuff added!*

As my daughter would say...

"They look delicious!"

LOL Gina.

It was in fact hatching and raising chicks in 6th grade science that set me on the road to vegetarianism. After that experience, I could no longer eat chicken nuggets (they tend to be chick-sized so the correlation was a lot clearer to 6th-grade-me than like, a full-sized drumstick=chicken like the chicks I hatched and cared for). And it kind of snowballed from there.

I'd make a lousy farmer! 

OT...

My daughter is a born carnivore. She would ask me prior to eating anything "what animal was this?" and I'd tell her and she'd gleefully tuck in. LOL. That's innate. She'd then go on an explain to her tiny toddler bro across the table..."this is cow meat...you don't eat their heads tho..."...

Oddly...he's not as big a meat fan...wonder why? lmbo...

Sorry Rats...for the OT...

I want a chicken as a pet and for some eggs but our city poo poo's poultry within 100 feet or any neighbor and my yard is big but not THAT big lol.

You know it's weird, but I agree that it's innate. I saw a handful of animals get butchered when I was little, and it never really bothered me. I knew those animals had lived good happy lives and there was no malice/cruelty in killing them- I loved animals and was hugely into nature programs and stuff so I just thought of it as completely natural- Wolves hunt, and there's nothing cruel about it, so it's fine for us to do it too.

THEN, when I was a bit older, I heard about factory farming and realized that 99% of the meat we eat DIDN'T come from the situations I saw when I was younger- that I wasn't eating happy chickens and cows that ran and played in the sunshine until they were peacefully, competantly, and humanely killed. I tried the vegetarian thing for a while but being about 12 at the time, it took me a while to realize that I was TOTALLY a carnivore. I have to FORCE myself to eat veggies to this day. So, I vowed to one day raise my own meat, so that I could be sure that what I was eating lived happily and died quickly. So, that's what I did.

But I never had an issue with the idea of killing and eating something. I guess I watched too many nature shows as a kid to be shocked by the blood and gore.

My mom on the other hand, was raised totally around livestock- and she saw rabbits getting butchered for meat every single weekend of her early life. You'd THINK she'd be fine with it. Nope, the first time she came over and saw me cleaning a rabbit she went in the house and refused to come out until I was done, and nearly puked. It just seems like it has to be innate, because it really doesn't seem like squeamishness about this type of thing is based on what your experiences are. It seems like either it bothers you, or it doesn't.

Gina, your daughter sounds like me as a kid. I used to gross out other kids at the lunch table by explaining to them exactly what part of the animal they were eating, in great detail.  

She has a scientific mind, I think that's it. Animal Planet is her favorite network LOL. She always wants to know why animals do things and what this or that is for as to adaptations.

We're trying to bump that forward because scientific and mathermatical (ugh I shuddered just typing mathematical btw) minds in us girls aren't as common as in the boys lol!

ok, explain to me why, if it only costs 4 cents per pound to raise a chicken, the ones in the grocery store are $0.80 to $2 a pound?

ok, explain to me why, if it only costs 4 cents per pound to raise a chicken, the ones in the grocery store are $0.80 to $2 a pound?

Heh, because on big industrial farms chickens are raised in huge warehouses and never get the priveledge of seeing a blade of grass. They can't run around and graze and feed themselves so they have to have all of their food brought in to them- if I had to feed all of my chickens commercial feed it would cost ALOT more to raise them. As it is I just have to buy food for them while they're in the brooder, after that they can forage on their own. On commercial farms they're also given appetite stimulants so they eat even MORE, so there's that.

So then you have all of these chickens eating 2-3 times the normal amount of feed, specifically bred to grow really huge, really fast, and they get zero fresh air or sunlight. They live in filth so they're constantly breathing in ammonia. Their breasts get so heavy that they drag the ground and they get ammonia burns on their undersides.

So, to keep all of these sad, miserable chickens alive the short amount of time it takes them to get to slaughter weight, they have to be constantly pumped full of obscene amounts of antibiotics. Because conditions are so horrible, there are STILL tons of losses.

Then theres the cost of transporting these miserable chickens hundreds of miles away to slaughterhouses and processing them. And then, you know, there's the issue of profit.

That's why store bought chicken costs so much. Hooray for industrial farming.

Wow!  I admire your ability to always have the right setup and proper care for pretty much ANY animal!!

We gave our dogs some venison (uncle's kill from last season).  I was stunned that Kenya will not eat it!!  Oh well, that means more for us humans and Coke.
 

Ratsicles

Hooray for industrial farming.

Can you raise the 10 billion chickens that the US consumes each year another way?

Can you raise the 10 billion chickens that the US consumes each year another way?

I'm afraid I'm going to sound kinda like a smarty pants here, but maybe we shouldn't eat so much meat if we can't raise it ethically.

Actually, it doesn't cost much more than a few cents per bird to get them to market, in fact.  My friend who grows broilers told me what the cost was a couple years ago (which, of course, has gone up substantially, but it would still be a tiny percentage of $2/lb).

What happened is that we are still basically paying close to the prices we expected when chickens were raised more humanely, while the producers have been doing everythign they can to lower their costs and maximize product output for input.

Contract growers bear a great deal of the expense of production, with facilities, utilities, insurance, and maintenance coming out of their pockets.  They go into contract work on spec - it takes many years to pay off an investment in facilities (which must be built to the contractee's specifications).  So that whole deal isn't really reflected in the cost of meat that goes to market.

Pigs are grown out in a very similar way, as are most "hothouse" livestock.  The farmers where the facilities are located are almost always contract producers - they don't own the livestock.  Instead they get paid for the gains they produce on the animals, while as I said they bear most of the major expenses of input.  Sweet deal for the contractees.

We gave our dogs some venison (uncle's kill from last season).  I was stunned that Kenya will not eat it!!  Oh well, that means more for us humans and Coke.

Ha, when I first started feeding raw, a few years ago, I just had Axl and Pepito, and they acted like it was toxic waste! I was switching them to a totally raw diet and I did the "tough love" thing and just offered them nothing else, and after a couple of days they gave in. After a few weeks they LOVED it. I've never had issues with any other dogs accepting raw. Butter was raised with it, Chief has been, Punch will be, so theres no issue there- but Ogre and Culley, even though they had probably never had raw before when I got them, loved it. I guess it just depends on the dog.

Pepito still does best on 100% raw, and all of my dogs except Axl probably would, but it's just waaaay too expensive and time consuming with 6 dogs. If I constantly raised meat chickens for them it would probably work, but raising a batch of them is REALLY time consuming, messy, and exhausting so I like to take breaks in between batches. As it is, I feed some kibble, some raw, and some home cooked- but I like to give raw as much as possible.  

Can you raise the 10 billion chickens that the US consumes each year another way?

Yeah, but it wouldn't be as easy or as profitable. I don't think anyone would like my ideas.

I'm afraid I'm going to sound kinda like a smarty pants here, but maybe we shouldn't eat so much meat if we can't raise it ethically.

I agree completely.

 definitely not in me!  I was pre-school age when I realized that eggs became chicks (realized much later that the eggs my mom bought weren't ever going to be chicks   )

Didn't eat eggs again until I was about 15 and they would have to be way over cooked.  Still need them overcooked. I am super fussy about meat or all sorts and fish, forget organ meats or the like and was vegetarian all through my twenties.  DH is a major meat eater and is from the UK where offal is common.  Fortunately he has taken over the raw meat/fish/etc.  I touch more yucky things for Bugsy than I ever imagined possible

Ratsicles I admire your whole set up and think it is just awesome to feed like that.  Just glad I dont have to care for the chicks and then give to the dogs...............fainted

The first time I ever gave the dogs a raw chicken wing they both looked at me like...what the heck is this?!? I just left them alone with their wings for a little while while they figured it out and gave some cursory licks and nibbles and nosed them around for a while (argh! my carpets!) and then it was like the lightbulb went on...OH! You eat it! *gobblegobblegobble*

I gotta say, I'm with Becca, I think the contractors in factory farming situations are getting utterly shafted. There's actually a lot in our food industries that is very concerning from a human wellbeing standpoint, even if you aren't that into the animal welfare angle.

I gotta say, I'm with Becca, I think the contractors in factory farming situations are getting utterly shafted. There's actually a lot in our food industries that is very concerning from a human wellbeing standpoint, even if you aren't that into the animal welfare angle.

Definitely. For those who are interested enough to read up, I reccomend the book "The Meat You Eat- How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America's Food Supply" By Ken Midkiff. You can get it on Amazon, and I've seen it in several major book stores.

It goes way beyond the animal welfare issues, if those aren't enough to sway you. It's been a while since I've read it, but it was very eye-opening, at least for me.