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Author Topic: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock  (Read 12937 times)

artscott

  • Joined Nov 2011
  • Methlick, Aberdeenshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2014, 12:58:10 pm »
I would have liked to purchase breeding stock with you but I am unfortunately rather over worked at the moment and don’t have time to collect.  However if you do have spare eggs from your breeding flock when it's up and running I would be very interested in purchasing some next year for growing on.

Good luck with your project

Stereo

  • Joined Aug 2012
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #16 on: November 24, 2014, 05:14:58 pm »
We all have our own views on this and there is no point falling out about it. There are always lines you can draw. I'm now thinking of penning all my hens in smaller, higher pens to stop another fox attack. They have been in large electric nets. Some might even think that is too limiting but I'm considering taking some space away so I can protect them better. It's all relative and you have to make your own mind up. It's a tough thing. I pretty much know that if I let mine free range in the fields they are in, they would be all gone within a week.

I do though have a few comments about Clansmans post. Saying that these birds enjoy 23 hours of light instead of 16 hours of darkness is not always a good thing. I suspect the level of lighting is nothing to do with the bird's welfare and more to keep it awake and eating. Humans who have lived in Iceland all their life struggle to cope with all day sunshine and then all day dark. I feel my hens cope very well with the changing light levels and just go into shutdown in the winter. They still seem happy and enjoy a sunny day when it comes. I would rather they had this rest time. In terms of a broiler of course, there is no time to rest.

Secondly, no diseases. I'm sure that a broiler house is full of all sorts of nasty pathogens which is why they have to pump them full of so many drugs (which must stay in the meat).

I don't know what the answer it. We are probably never going back from the broiler houses unless there is some hideous disease which wipes out half the human population. Chicken is now just a product. I've been mucking around with Ixworth etc. to see if there is some kind of market for a chicken who gets a decent life and who's parents also get a decent life. It's always going to be niche and elitist but that's the way the world has gone.

So far, the Ixworths I have hatched are too slow growing and not big enough at the end to be any better than a copper Marans. Back to the drawing board.

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #17 on: November 25, 2014, 02:36:40 pm »
Clansman, you don't mention the right of all livestock to be able to express their natural behaviour.  Hens are forest creatures and need to peck and scratch around.  I think that constitutes a large part of their welfare, not just getting a carefully measured ration of food and being kept out of the wet.

The freedom to express natural behaviour is actually one of the five freedom requirements in the welfare code, all commercial poultry MUST adhere to this.

Jungle Fowl are forest creatures, the hens we have are domesticated and have been significantly altered by us, to be pedantic, thats a bit like saying we should let our pet dogs hunt in packs like wolves.

Your concern only with the finances of production down to the nearest penny makes me very uncomfortable.

Don't think I ever said that, can you show me where I did?

I keep poultry for eggs and meat, they are not pets.  its not a money orientated hobby although if I can save money without compromising the quality of life of the bird I will.

I would be perfectly happy to go back to the one chicken a week we used to have, as a Sunday roast. People use chicken breasts or wings or legs as the basis for a curry or stew, without even seeming to be aware they are eating an animal which has had a life and a death - to them they might as well be eating soya protein...which might be better.  When chicken is so cheap, it's not valued  :chook: :chook: :chook:

Yes we could go back to that, back to the pre 1950's when chicken was expensive and many people died of malnutrition, we cannot feed all the people cheaply from free ranged, slow growing chicken, the maths don't add up.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2015, 10:57:01 am by Clansman »

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #18 on: November 25, 2014, 02:39:43 pm »
Lightbulbs in substitute for the lovely sunshine, I don't really like intensive farming full stop to consider it small scale seems even crueler :-\ 
Chickens love the rain, dust baths, insects to peck and fresh air to breath, acres to forage, puddles to drink from & places to roost!...I'd much rather pay the price for 1 smaller 'free range' chicken than a poor love that's been sat in a warm barn for 8 weeks & had a poor quality of life piling on weight to save me some penny's!

Can I ask why you consider small scale intensive farming even crueler? why large scale is cruel? or why you think they have a poor quality of life?

I have this debate regularly with a neighbour who says it cruel for me to keep birds in runs.

She free ranges hers and has just lost her whole flock (20+ birds) to a fox, for the third time in two years!

Is it me thats being cruel or is it her? maybe a bit of both but I know where my birds would rather be!

Unfortunately not everyone can afford to buy free range chicken, as I mentioned in the previous post, it can't be done at the scale we need at the cost we need without intensive farming.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2014, 03:07:22 pm by Clansman »

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #19 on: November 25, 2014, 03:00:14 pm »
We all have our own views on this and there is no point falling out about it.

Agreed, I don't want to fall out with anyone.

I'm not some mad preacher of commercial poultry practices, I just see a lot of  views from the general public which are based on hearsay, misinformation or gleaned from someones cousin that used to know someone who worked on a chicken farm once for a week!

Publicly, commercial poultry get a bad press, I'm just trying to give a fair and unbiased opinion on what its really like.

I'll tell it like it is, good or bad.

Fair enough everyone has their own opinion but make sure that opinion is based on fact to begin with.

I do though have a few comments about Clansmans post. Saying that these birds enjoy 23 hours of light instead of 16 hours of darkness is not always a good thing. I suspect the level of lighting is nothing to do with the bird's welfare and more to keep it awake and eating.

It is everything to do with their welfare which also interlinks with their ability to keep eating and drinking, they still rest and sleep with the light on, it doesn't keep them awake.

these type of birds by design eat a lot and if the light is off for any length of time there will be a panic for food and water when it comes back on, it keeps the stress levels down.

Humans who have lived in Iceland all their life struggle to cope with all day sunshine and then all day dark.


Good example! humans can put a light on to drink and eat, chickens can't..

For everyone that keeps their birds overwinter on natural daylight, as a little experiment, try going 16 hours without food and water yourself and see how that goes for you.

I feel my hens cope very well with the changing light levels and just go into shutdown in the winter. They still seem happy and enjoy a sunny day when it comes. I would rather they had this rest time. In terms of a broiler of course, there is no time to rest.

Thats it exactly, they COPE with it, they have no choice in the matter, try putting a light on at midnight and see how quickly they start looking for food and water.

Wild birds cope with it because they have to, we have a responsibility to domestic birds to make sure they are free from thirst and hunger (another part of the welfare code)

Secondly, no diseases. I'm sure that a broiler house is full of all sorts of nasty pathogens which is why they have to pump them full of so many drugs (which must stay in the meat).

And back to my point about ill informed views… can you possibly tell us more about all of these drugs that are pumped into chickens?? or indeed all the nasty pathogens they are exposed to??

Hormone use is another one that regularly gets banded about but hormones have been banned in poultry for many, many years now.

I'm not saying disease never happens but I've seen a lot more sick and ill birds in backyard flocks than i've ever seen on poultry farms
« Last Edit: January 12, 2015, 11:14:47 am by Clansman »

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #20 on: November 25, 2014, 03:35:32 pm »
Clansman,

Thanks for the discussion - very interesting, and I certainly don't think you should be getting hassle for what you're saying. It's just that context is everything, and one backyard flock is not the same as another, just as one commercial broiler house may be very different from another.
 
We took a small batch of hubbards to a commercial slaughterhouse for the first time last year. I filled in the forms and gave them to the vet. He gave them straight back to me and said "no, where it says % mortality, you have to put the number that died.  You've written n/a."
 
I explained that we only started with 30 of them, and all had survived. He then said "you've also written n/a under drugs administered. We need full details of everything you've given them".  Again, I explained we hadn't had to give them anything.
 
Finally he said 'ok, let's go out and see these birds of yours', and when he did, exclaimed "Wow! OK, I've got it now!  Your chickens have got feathers!"
 
OK, commercially we made a loss, and I won't try to pretend otherwise. The whole experience did give me pause for thought though.
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

Marches Farmer

  • Joined Dec 2012
  • Herefordshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #21 on: November 25, 2014, 04:57:42 pm »
Yes we could go back to that, back to the pre 1950's when chicken was expensive and many thousands of people died of malnutrition, we cannot feed all the people cheaply from free ranged, slow growing chicken, the maths don't add up.

Chicken was expensive but I don't think many people in the UK were dying of malnutrition, irrespective of the price. 

Stereo

  • Joined Aug 2012
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #22 on: November 25, 2014, 05:06:17 pm »
I can only speak from personal experience. When I put a light on in the house, they start having a go at each other. They are locked in, trying to roost and the pecking and bullying starts. Broilers I guess are a whole different ball game. I can see what you mean about panic eating when the lights come on. Should I put lights in the layers house? I still think  I won't but it's personal choice.

As for drugs, the largest use of anti-biotics in food production is pig and poultry meat. Many chicks are now given a dose through the egg before they even hatch. Meat birds are routinely given vaccines and anti-biotics. The latter is given even if no health hazard is detected. I live next to a big poultry rearer and know what he gives the birds and these are just layers which go to dealers for sale as POL.

The fact is, if you can't keep poultry in clean conditions, you have to use drugs. I'm no better. I deeply believe in all the fresh grazing ideas and land rest etc. but when it comes to it, it's very hard to do. I myself have fallen foul (sic) of trying to treat my birds as if they were organic but not backing it up with moving them enough.

I don't have any real answers as yet. So I'm not condemning anyone and I appreciate Clansman's insight and expertise in the real poultry meat industry.

Stereo

  • Joined Aug 2012
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #23 on: November 25, 2014, 05:09:01 pm »
Yes we could go back to that, back to the pre 1950's when chicken was expensive and many thousands of people died of malnutrition, we cannot feed all the people cheaply from free ranged, slow growing chicken, the maths don't add up.

Chicken was expensive but I don't think many people in the UK were dying of malnutrition, irrespective of the price.

A lot more folk then grew a lot of their own food. You can argue that those people are probably healthier now than the current generation of kids will be in 60 years time. With all the processed junk they eat, I can't see how they are going to be better off than someone who grew up with hard work and a lean but clean diet. I don't think malnutrition was a huge problem in the 50's, but obesity is a crisis today.

vfr400boy

  • Joined Jan 2013
  • one life live it
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #24 on: November 25, 2014, 05:24:16 pm »
It's not what you know it's who you know ha ha

NicandChic

  • Joined Oct 2013
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #25 on: November 25, 2014, 07:34:43 pm »
Lightbulbs in substitute for the lovely sunshine, I don't really like intensive farming full stop to consider it small scale seems even crueler :-\ 
Chickens love the rain, dust baths, insects to peck and fresh air to breath, acres to forage, puddles to drink from & places to roost!...I'd much rather pay the price for 1 smaller 'free range' chicken than a poor love that's been sat in a warm barn for 8 weeks & had a poor quality of life piling on weight to save me some penny's!

Can I ask why you consider small scale intensive farming even crueler? why large scale is cruel? or why you think they have a poor quality of life?

I have this debate regularly with a neighbour who says it cruel for me to keep birds in runs.

She free ranges hers and has just lost her whole flock (20+ birds) to a fox, for the third time in two years!

Is it me thats being cruel or is it her? maybe a bit of both but I know where my birds would rather be!

Unfortunately not everyone can afford to buy free range chicken, as I mentioned in the previous post, it can't be done at the scale we need at the cost we need without intensive farming.

I find the idea of wanting to re create a smaller version of intensive farming just horrible, intensive farming exists to create a cheap end product giving the animal the very very basics of care required - (in my opinion not even providing the basics - no perches, nothing to forage, no natural day light = poor quality of life)

The 'freedom food label' gives buyers the option of supposedly higher welfare - more space, enrichment & even natural light!!...these things should be compulsory!

I will never agree with creating false/fake/ un natural environments to create maximum profit & cheap food what ever the scale.

I'd quite happily become vegetarian  :-J I don't think many of them have died from malnutrition!  :)

artscott

  • Joined Nov 2011
  • Methlick, Aberdeenshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #26 on: November 26, 2014, 08:44:52 am »
This is a really interesting thread and it’s nice to see a good discussion going on without anyone getting too bent out of shape.
 
Clansman, I would have liked to purchase some breeding stock with you but unfortunately don’t have the space or time to collect and look after them at the moment.  I would however really like to purchase some eggs from your flock for growing on if when you have some available. 
 
Despite the comments above I think the economics of doing this on a small scale mean that the birds naturally have better welfare.  (IE a few dead chickens to a producer with 10,000 is nothing, a few to someone with 30 is disaster!) Small scale also gives the keeper a much better chance of seeing problems as obviously there are less chickens to look at.
 
I also don’t think the “natural environment” discussion is valid at all, the natural environment for these strains of chickens is a broiler type house, wrongly or rightly humans (that includes all of us, we can’t avoid this by saying I wasn’t us personally) have selectively bred these birds to be like this.  If we were serious about natural environment surly we would have to take into account jungle fowl’s home and provide a forest habitat, with almost equal night and day lengths and a mean temperature above 17?C all year round.

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #27 on: December 18, 2014, 10:37:23 am »
I find the idea of wanting to re create a smaller version of intensive farming just horrible, intensive farming exists to create a cheap end product giving the animal the very very basics of care required - (in my opinion not even providing the basics - no perches, nothing to forage, no natural day light = poor quality of life)

Again, this comment EXACTLY makes the point I keep making about most people's idea of commercial production, have you actually seen one of todays broiler farms NicandChic?

The intensive broiler farms I worked on previously now all have perches for the birds, windows to give them natural daylight (they also have artificial lighting), toys hanging up to play with etc etc

the supermarkets rule the roost now, poultry producers have to do it exactly how they say its to be done and the supermarkets are driven by what the consumer wants..

Anyway, if anyone is interested in some, I have gone for Aviagen's Ross 308 parent stock and have 100 females and 13 males coming at the end of January.

Depending on vaccines etc they'll be around £4 per bird and should be starting to lay around the end of June so I hope to be hatching my own broilers in August  :thumbsup:

I may well have a go at crossing them with some pure breeds too, at the end of the day they are just fast growing large birds and one of these crossed with virtually anything else should give decent sized offspring

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #28 on: December 18, 2014, 10:49:27 am »

Clansman, I would have liked to purchase some breeding stock with you but unfortunately don’t have the space or time to collect and look after them at the moment.  I would however really like to purchase some eggs from your flock for growing on if when you have some available.

Hopefully I'll be able to do that next summer, I wasn't intending to keep much more than 20 of these as a breeding flock but if selling hatching eggs and chicks meant offsetting the costs a bit it may well be worth keeping a few more.

Clansman

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Ayrshire
Re: Broiler Breeder Parent Stock
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2014, 10:56:56 am »
Going to order these on Monday.

if anyone else wants some you have until Sunday midnight or forever hold your peace  :thumbsup:
« Last Edit: April 23, 2015, 11:26:03 am by Clansman »

 

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