Life of a Chicken

[Gerr]

I was awakened early (at dawn) this morning by a very lound steady motor noise. At first I thought it was my fan gone bad, but when I turned it off, the noise persisted. Then I realized it was these big trucks that have come to take the chickens.

I am presently renting a house in a farm. The owner raises chickens & cattle. Three months ago he got a fresh brood of newly-hatched chicks. Thousands of them. They were all put in chicken houses, each one holding about 7k. By three months, the chickens have about just enough space for themselves. They never get to see the sun or get to breathe fresh air. They are fed and fed and fed. They early one day, like this a.m., they are hauled away in packed cages to the Tyson plant to be all slaughtered and placed in neat plastic packages to be sold in supermarkets. It makes me sick. Does anyone care for the life of a chicken?

Gerry

[Amelia]

Oh no Gerry. I don't think I could stand that. It's very cruel. When I was younger the boys of a friend of my dad's got work at a turkey farm during the summer. My dad took me out there to see the place. It was soooooo depressing. The turkeys are fed til they are so bloated fat that their legs bow or break under their weight. Every morning one of the boys jobs was to walk through the "barns" and remove the birds that had died over night. These turkeys just wander aimlessly in their own filth (poop is shoveled out daily but these birds poop ALOT) day after day until they are at kill weight. No sunlight. Very little fresh air. No normal bird activities like scratching for bugs. And they are friendly too. You go into a barn and the little guys come running to you for attention. Very sad. Oh, even though turkeys are not kept in cages, the barns are packed with several hundred to a thousand poults. They over pack to compensate for die off.

Here is what a turkey farm looks like

[]http://www.plainvillefarms.com/images/FARM2.jpg[/]

Now inside a "barn"

[]http://www.menzelphoto.com/images/gallery/big/environment/agriculture/gal_env_agr_07.jpg[/]

I like this for many reasons.

[]http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/2326/mcd.gif[/]

[Pockey]

mmmm chicken <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

[Gerr]

Yep, Amelia, that's exactly what it looks like outside & inside. I haven't eaten chicken in decades, since a college schoolmate told me that he worked in a chicken farm one time, and he said that many chickens that walked kinda funny & the owner knew they wouldn't live very long, were usually sold to roadside restaurants! And I can't stand the smell of turkey meat either.

Those chickens that were hauled away this a.m. lived only 3 mos. A friend and fellow church member raises fertilized egg-laying chickens, so they are allowed to live as long as they keep laying eggs. He showed me the chicken house and they are packed! Almost no wasted space. It is so mechanized. He hardly has to go inside where the chickens are. The eggs come out in a conveyor belt and someone inside the building but outside of where the chickens are just picks them up and place them in trays.

Gerry

[Parade Orange]

I have a few weakness(few?) and one of them is fried chicken!

I like my chicken rubbed with white flower,dipped in oil, and sprinkled with salt!

Rubbed Dipped and Sprinkled

[Parade Orange]

Maybe in heaven there will be fruit off the trees that have the same taste,texture, and shape of fried chicken. I love wings with hot sauce.

[Suzanne Sutton]

[:"blue"]I'm with you Gerry, I too haven't had chicken or any other kind of meat in decades. I collect info on this and other health topics and am appalled at the cruelty that is part and parcel of the meat delivery system.

Cruelty to foods animals extends to slaughterhouse mayhem where all kinds of atrocities are the norm in preparing animals for the table....

This is really serious folks! What is the responsibility of the meat-eater as others do his dirty work? His desire for meat drives another to do the cruel work of raising and killing the animals. The act of the meat purveyors begins with the desires of the consumer. Ralpyh Waldo Emerson, assessed the situation eloquently: "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."

Suzanne[/]

[aldona]

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Gay4JESUS said:

Maybe in heaven there will be fruit off the trees that have the same taste,texture, and shape of fried chicken. I love wings with hot sauce.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

I'm with you on this one...I can still remember the taste of KFC from my "pre-health-conscious" days. I just know that's how the fruit on the Tree of Life will taste.

It's funny to see all those lifelong herbivores getting all self-righteous about how they never eat meat - a food that they have no liking for and do not find appetizing at all.

What's the virtue in abstaining from something that you have no desire for in the first place?

When we get to heaven, it's us ex-carnivores that are going to have bigger crowns - for abstaining from a food that we loved and craved for. <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/tongue1.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/soapbox.gif" alt="" />

(OK, removing tongue from cheek... <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)

aldona

[Aliensanctuary]

Let us all observe a moment of silence for the dear little chickens who have sacrificed their lives so that we may get even fatter.

Please pass some more chicken-fruit, please. Only the ripe ones, please. Chicken-fruit picked too soon tastes a lot like raw chicken.

[Gerr]

Just felt sorry for the chickens. No sense of self-righteousness at all. Never crossed my mind. And it was never my intention to condemn those who eat chickens. I apologize if that was the implication you got.

Gerry

[Guest]

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Gerry Cabalo said:

Just felt sorry for the chickens. No sense of self-righteousness at all. Never crossed my mind. And it was never my intention to condemn those who eat chickens. I apologize if that was the implication you got.

Gerry

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">I know what the problem is.... []http://www.jokefile.co.uk/animal_jokes/cows.jpg[/]

[Stan]

Back to the Bible on this....

A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel. Proverbs 12:10

Proverbs 27:23: Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.

We do not associate any kind of personality to animals we consume. And never really think of the process, but we can get bend out of shape when we learn of people eating dogs and cats as we can relate.

Even pigs have personalities, as do birds. Pigs have a higher IQ than dogs do...

[Stan]

The irony of this, people will panic if there is a beached whale, a chipmunk being tourtured (not a rat even though they feel the same pain)

Yet a child abused? Nahhh not all that important... a little attention in the media.. maybe...

(not wanting to change this to child abuse, it is animal abuse)

[Beryl]

One of my horrors is driving behind a sheep or cattle truck taking these animals to the slaughter houses. On a hot day the smell is terrific. Those animals, many of them, have travelled for long hours, cramped up so that they hold each other up in the truck. Occasionally you will see perhaps a leg hanging out where a poor sheep has somehow fallen, and now is trapped so that it can't get up. In the summer the ones on the top deck of the truck will have been in the hot sun for hours and hours, and, if this is the end of the day, they are going to have to stay on the truck overnight, waiting to be unloaded and shot the next morning.

The saddest part is that many of those animals are being skinned and cut before they have actually died! This from an ex slaughterhouse worker. The animals are terrified before they are shot -- they can smell the blood of those who went before. This means that all those "stress elements" are in the blood and flesh of the animal when it dies, and are then in the meat that is consumed. Animals (and birds) are fed hormones in order to make them mature early (and so save time at home), and those hormones are eaten by humans. No wonder we now have girls maturing long before they have reached their teens.

And when I think of the "sea-food" that is put into boiling water while still alive!!!!

OK. I have said enough. I am so glad that I have been a life-long vegetarian.

Beryl <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/soapbox.gif" alt="" />

[Gerr]

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claborn1960 said:

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Gerry Cabalo said:

Just felt sorry for the chickens. No sense of self-righteousness at all. Never crossed my mind. And it was never my intention to condemn those who eat chickens. I apologize if that was the implication you got.

Gerry

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">I know what the problem is.... []http://www.jokefile.co.uk/animal_jokes/cows.jpg[/]

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

[:"blue"]Thanks!!! You supplied my laugh for the day!!! [/]

Gerry

[Halfstep Denise]

How can you breathe, Gerry! The smell must be horrendous!

I'm sorry for the poor chickens, or any other animal who is treated in this manner.

I don't bite the hand that feeds me. My mother-in-law prepares the food for most of our dinners, and she sends over Chicken once in a while. She knows I won't eat anything from an animal that use to go "oink".

One method I've used to help me leave the meat alone is to watch the Food Network! I've become a stronger, mostly vegetarian again!

Halfstep Denise <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

[bonnie]

How many of you use any of the following? Being vegeterian does not exempt you from benefiting from the livestock industry. If all those that abhorr all of these practises ,and there is no doubt many should be stopped, how many of you are standing in line ready to pay an extreme amount of money for what you now pay a reasonable amount? In fact how many are willing to go without leather shoes,leather interior in your cars. How many women on here use or have ever used lanolin? You don't have to eat it to take part as surely as the one eating the chicken. A farmer is going to go for the most efficiency at the least expense of time, energy and money. He has to to stay in business

Most you could probably do with out, but are you ready to?

Raw by-product Processed by-product Principal use

Hide

(cattle and calves) Leather and glue numerous leather goods used in

paper boxes

sandpaper

plywood

Hair felts

plaster binder

uphostery

Pork skins Tanned skin leather goods

Pelts Wool textiles

Skin leather goods

Lanolin ointments

Fats Inedible tallow industrial oils

lubricants

glycerin

Grease industrial oils

animal feeds

Bones Dry bone glue

hardening steel

Bone meal animal feed

fertilizer

Blood albumen leather preparations

textile sizing

Cattle feet Neatsfoot stock fine lubricants

Neatsfoot oil leather preparations

Glands Pharmaceuticals medicines

Enzyme preparations industrial uses

Lungs pet foods

[Gerr]

I don't smell it inside the house. But some days, when I go outside, it can be bad. I'm just hoping and praying that our house in CA would sell soon so we could build a house here in NC but away from chicken farms.

Gerry

[Gerr]

If animals lived their natural life span, they would still die, and could be useful for all those products you mention.

Gerry

[bonnie]

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Gerry Cabalo said:

If animals lived their natural life span, they would still die, and could be useful for all those products you mention.

Gerry

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

No, that is not entirely true. Animals die under all sort of circumstances, their death is not always under circumstances that would allow for use of the by-products. Leather for one on a decomposing animal is worthless. Getting a dead animal one by one to a market would be economic disaster.

Besides there is no farmer that can allow all animals to die a natural death abd stay in business. A dairy farmer must breed his cows on a regular basis to produce milk. Roughly half of the offspring born are males. What are you going to do with all those bull calfs. They must be casterated. If you have never seen a herd of bulls maybe you don't understand why. These bull calfs left to live a natural lifespan have to be maintained somewhere. Who will feed and care for all these bull calfs as pets.

We raised sheep. Half of the lambs born every year were ram lambs. I needed at most two rams for the 60 to 80 ewes I maintained. Where would you suggest these ram lambs be maintained for 10-12 years? Many of the ewes had triplets so it was not unusual to be looking at close to a 100 rams be year. To be in the business of raising replacement ewes for breeding stock, I had to breed them. Otherwise no business.

Even in the unlikely event of closing down the farmer or livestock producer, what would take place with all of the animals. Living a long bambi like existence is only a illusion.

They need to be cared for, fed, sheltered, let loose to forage for themselves, or killed.

[Gerr]

Excellent points, Bonnie. But I still feel for the animals. As Paul says, the whole creation groans.

Gerry

[bonnie]

You are right, it does and we are left without a practical solution. There are many that raise animals that should not have a pet rock in their care. Just as there are many that raise children that should be sterilized when they reach the age of childbearing. We are stuck with what we have.

[Parade Orange]

I remember moving out to the country when I was 12.

My next door neibhors were SDA and introduced to its ways.

My family didnt go to church so I wanted to go to church with my christian neibhors.

Thats how I came across religion.

They had a bunch ofchickens and ate its eggs.

My family's german sheperd got out and killed a few chickens.

Of course the mother/lady/neiebhor got upset and threatened to kill our dog.

My mom went off and hysterically cried out'They are christians? How can they say that? they want to kill our dog!'

My mom didnt see the err of our dog KILLING their animals.