How to Kill Chicken Cruelty & Increase Profits…

I care about animal welfare, and therefore freely share the following, with anybody…

Introduction: Today’s chicken farming is obviously cruel; partly because it involves confining naturally sociable, birds, in appalling physical conditions; and with almost no mental stimulation (apart from say the constant bullying-peaking of other stressed birds!!!).
My Vision: In “the battery farm of the future” chicken will be transformed into an egg laying, “meat melon”. They will have no consciousness (shortly after hatching), no pain receptive ability, and no movement (other than that which is stimulated through small, electric shocks, applied in order to stimulate exercise & improve meat muscle, taste).
Consequently: Battery farming would not only be less cruel, it would also require (as an educated guess) about 20-40% less food. This means even those countries with no prospect of ever (legally) introducing animal welfare, are still likely (in time) to adopt my methods.

A Quick Guide to Improve Battery Farming…

1. Remove Chicken Consciousness: Battery chickens spend a lot of time suffering in “sadistically” small spaces. Unlike wild animals that have countless daily considerations, they have no need for consciousness other than to direct food into their beaks.
In humans our brains consume 20% of our bodies total energy.
www.scientificamerican.com...
I have no idea what the percentage is in chickens? Or how much of this could be saved from reducing-eliminating chicken consciousness? However even a few percent reduction, in the chickens (overall) energy needs, would translate into vast savings of food. Because food is one of the biggest costs in farming caged birds, it is quite possible that a several percent reduction in food requirements, represents a money saving greater than the farmers total profits.

How: Controlled Suffocation: Nitrogen Asphyxiation is painless: en.wikipedia.org...
And cheap (already consisting about 80% of the air). At the moment of hatching, chicks would be gassed using Nitrogen in varying concentrations, until such time, as irreversible brain damage had occurred (without physical health-survival being commercially jeopardised).

New Breeding Aims…
2. Pain Removal: (Ideally) Chickens breed with a low –non-existent (physical) pain receptive ability. Whilst normally this would be problematic (in the extreme) to the functioning-health of chickens, in Advanced Battery Farming the chicken will exist to have no mental awareness-conscious, no pain system, and no movement (apart from movement which is electronically stimulated-administered through low electric shocks) (in the interests of meat taste & health quality). The massive advantage of this is: Energy will not be wasted on movement unless strictly practical. Consequently chicken food is saved (probably far more than from just reducing consciousness.
3. Chickens Selectively breed for low stress levels: Why: Stressed animals tend to produce less tasty meat. So: Chickens placed in (various) environments, and observed for signs of lack of stress. This may be measured both by heart rate, respiration rate, and blood analysis.
4. Chickens selectively breed for naturally low cognitive abilities. Why: They may be gassed, but it’s a bonus if their brains naturally consume less energy. How: A large flock of birds are given a “free-range lifestyle” where they will be trained to pass certain “animal intelligence tests” (probably using food as an incentive). Those chickens which “fail” the cognitive tests most, will be bred for the next generation of chickens to be selective breed for their stupidity.
5. (Existing goal) The more (female) hens eggs, the better, as roosters don’t produce eggs, and their only needed to sustain the breed.


[size=150A More Detailed Production Method…
6. Pre Hatch: Eggs (ideally) fed in an atmosphere of enriched oxygen (all developing chicks absorb oxygen through the shell). This should accelerate development time, and (may) be practical as the eggs develop in a small, isolated, space. Since a supply of concentrated nitrogen gas is needed anyway (for reasons later explained) and this usually requires freeing air (which obviously contains oxygen) supplying enriched oxygen (may) be practical.

7. Egg Isolation & Sex Estimating…
(If possible-practical) eggs are moved into a “gender monitoring area”
When chick is forming in the egg, are there any sighs to which sex it is? Consider: Chemical “Signatures” in egg respiration gas composition. The thermal image-temperature of the entire egg when it’s forming, or even “pre-hatch” noise levels

www.ca.uky.edu... When the embryo is young it is hard for the hen to tell if it is alive or not, but once it gets older the embryos make noise that the hen can hear. In fact, embryos in the eggs next to them have also been shown to hear their 'siblings.'

(Consider: frequency of noise production, frequency durations, overall quantity of noise produced (e.g. minutes per half hour, hour or day) and pitch of noise produced.
Note: If at any time during the incubation period the egg shows (commercially) statistically significant signs of being a male, then the egg is to be aborted (so that it’s incubation space can hopefully be replaced with a female-embryo containing egg)

8. Hatching...
Eggs are now in chick hatching-movement detection area. This may be the same vicinity as the egg isolation –sex guessing area.
Note: It’s useful if the chicken (breed) produces eggs that generally hatch, at about the same time. That way, overall monitoring time can be greatly reduced.
If it’s important to mechanically detect the presence of a hatched chick: Noise detection-monitoring would do this. However if the air surrounding the egg was slightly electrostatically charged, and the egg was electrically isolated, inside an electrically conductive chamber, then the chick coming into contact with the chamber wall would boost the flow of electric charge coming from the air, and this could surely be automatically detected?

9. Conscious Detection & Elimination…
The moment a hatched chick is detected the air supply to the chick is changed from enriched oxygen, to air mostly consisting of nitrogen. This is painless to all mammals (using the presence of C02 in their blood, to increase respiration). The chick is gassed with nitrogen until it is completely mentally retarded, and in addition hopefully paralysed.

10. Final Chick Sex Detection: Chick drops-out of “Isolation Chamber” and are sent along conveyor belts to camera system that may be able to automatically visually read-detect chick genders (rather like car licence plate, recognition cameras). Alternatively workers could do this job (as is currently done) (if that’s still cost effective).
11. Workers provides chick with a liquefied food tube, it may also be desirable to insert another up its rectum; however hopefully not. Far easier if chicken waste-feces can fall through a hole in wire, and removed by conveyor belt.
12. Worker also attaches-glues electrodes that will encourage muscle movement for chicken health, and meat tastes.
13. As chick develops into a chicken, workers add suitably larger food tubes. (Expandable) rubber tubes is likely to reduce the costs-need for worker-chicken interactions.

So: Good ideas? To see how cruel the beginnings of battery farming currently is, watch: www.youtube.com... (Not for the faint of heart!!)

I have pondered the future of 'meat' farming before.

I would rather think that meat production in the future will consist of growing tissue 'in vitro' , with the muscle mass grown in a liquid culture, and more important, one that is sterile. This would clear up a lot of problems with food borne illnesses.

The muscle tissue that would be grown could be selected for its good qualities, such as taste and tenderness.

No animal, just some tissue from an animal. No pain, no suffering.

i hate battery farming.. but god.. your theory sounds even worse.

I can see where this makes sense.

I still can't get over the "ew" factor. Sorry, call me a squeamish luddite, I just can't get behind tank meat. Sustainable animal rearing practices (and I just spent a summer caring for free-range chickens) give the animal a good quality of life, and are probably more cost-effective than the tank meat model.

Though it's moot for me, as I'm a vegetarian.

The chick is gassed with nitrogen until it is completely mentally retarded, and in addition hopefully paralysed.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9087bea1fa87.jpg[/atsimg]


Wouldn't it be hard to feed a bunch of paralyzed retard chickens? I kind of like your idea but I don't see how it could ever work. Perhaps we could all just pony up the extra dough and buy free range chicken.

I have taught of you guys ideas before but I also taught to myself :

What is right and what is wrong?

And I just don't know...

I would go for meat grown on a tube since it probably doesn't have a soul.
That's if chicken have souls, which i think they do.

Making them "robots" with electronic chips? It sounds like soul torture no?

Even then, "playing god" is still too advanced for us to evade eventual problems link to it.

reply to post by Liberal1984


"Those chickens which “fail” the cognitive tests most, will be bred for the next generation of chickens to be selective breed for their stupidity. "

I lol'd, I'm not sure it's a great idea after all : /

reply to post by User8911

I would go for meat grown on a tube

As long as they don't call it 'tube meat'.

That may not help sales.

reply to post by Liberal1984


I am a firm believer in Chicken Karma. We kill millions daily. One day, the chickens will overthrow their evil overlords and rule the world.

CJ

Domo1

Wouldn't it be hard to feed a bunch of paralyzed retard chickens?

Not at all. See they’d be feed liquefied food (i.e. powdered grain-soya, with water, and maybe algae food supplements). Every few hours it would travel down rubber feeding tubes (under pressure) which would be connected to beaks.
In Fact: Forced feeding (of full conscious birds) is already being used in both Geese production, and Pheasant Rearing
en.wikipedia.org...

User8911

I would go for meat grown on a tube since it probably doesn't have a soul. That's if chicken have souls, which i think they do.

Definitely they do! I don’t follow any particular religion, but evidence of the paranormal has convinced me ghosts-souls exist.
I think souls come into being through consciousness, which is a non-physical entity (just like a computer filled with information weighs exactly the same as when it’s empty).
Think of it this way: If you have the only computer with a complete cure to cancer stored on it, and you then chuck this computer into a pool of e.g. molten lava do you destroy the cure to cancer? Or only our ability to access it?
I go with the latter option, as the cure(s) to cancer remains just the same. Likewise: If you have a Geologist exploring an active volcano, and he accidently falls into a pool of molten lava; do you destroy his conscious? Or just our ability to access it? I go with the last option, as his memories are just as real as before, only impossible (for us, but not him) to access. It’s a bit like you have the only copy of a book (fictional or scientific). Anyway you can destroy this copy, but the book could still be rewritten anytime in the future, i.e. “it’s still out there” (even if it’s so “out there” it’s effectively lost) (to us, but not to itself). Of course a science book is more likely to be rewritten, but that’s only because of clues in the universe-reality available to us. It’s still just as real as a fictional book; and when you think of it, a person’s being-consciousness is rather like a book-story.
Anyway: Whilst the chicken would have a soul, it’d only be a soul with a memory & life experience as long as it’s conscious experience i.e. something which ended a few seconds-minutes after it hatched, and was painlessly gassed-retarded. Rest of the time, the chicken really would be more like a melon than an animal.

Misterlondon

i hate battery farming.. but god.. your theory sounds even worse.

Then think with your brain, rather than your emotions-hormones (if you’re even bloody capable). I.e. Tell me exactly why you think my idea is worse?
All I know (personally) is I’d much rather be born a chicken with no consciousness (and therefore no psychological stress) plus no physical pain, receptive ability, than one with both these things, plus the conditions which max the suffering abilities out.

What exactly is the point of a life full of suffering? Especially when the only intention is to produce meat & eggs? Shortly it’s better to focus on these last two (and not the suffering). Besides food is saved (from not being spent on suffering) and that means we can e.g. boost self-sufficiency creating more Food Fuels (so that our twisted leaders can continue to masturbate in the knowledge that almost no carbon –good for nature is done; but food prices remain high –people in the third world continue to die (slowly) direct as a result!!!
See: “Best of both worlds” (or at least the “world’s” mankind is actually tragically interested in serving!) But still an improvement (I think).

butcherguy

As long as they don't call it 'tube meat'. That may not help sales.

We don’t call battery meat “tightly caged meat” instead we just call it “chicken” (or “buy 1 get 1 free chicken”). So same names should be marketable to “tube meat”.

reply to post by Liberal1984


Here is an idea... How about encouraging big business to be less greedy and have less profits in return for improving chickens conditions???

How about asking consumers to waste less and only buy that which they require??

How about encouraging people with gardens to keep there own chickens and reduce the huge demand for cheap factory chickens???

Unless of course you prefer this nightmarish frankenfood scenario you have created.

Sorry to sound so agitated... but what you describes doesn’t just revolt me... it scares me!!!

Peace

reply to post by Muckster


Nice one! You make me laugh though. Stop trying to think of the world in common sense terms, you will be labeled a socialist, for some reason. Even suggesting a corporation actually give a hoot means you are a commie. Hard world we live in when the people defend the real crooks with an adamant stance of "free market".

CJ

Muckster

Sorry to sound so agitated... but what you describes doesn’t just revolt me... it scares me!!

Fair enough. But do you have any logical reasons why my method is more “revolting”-cruel than the current method? Btw the beginning of which is this…
www.youtube.com...
(As you can gather) I see lots of reasons why what I propose is less cruel, but non why it is more so.

How about encouraging big business to be less greedy and have less profits in return for improving chickens conditions???

Some are already involved with “free range” chicken farming, but of course they can only produce as much as the consumer is willing to purchase (and can only past their additional costs onto this consumer).
As for the other battery farmers: You may as well tell them to find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow!!!

How about asking consumers to waste less and only buy that which they require??
How about encouraging people with gardens to keep there own chickens and reduce the huge demand for cheap factory chickens???

Again already being done. But we still have battery, anyway!!!
AND we still have cultures like China’s where (generally) they haven’t ever cared (much) about animal welfare (unless of course, it somehow improves the wellbeing of themselves). This doesn’t look set to change, but they do have a population of about 1.3 billion and this population (4 times the size of the United States) will one day (soon) be consuming as much-more chicken (per head) as the U.S.
Consequently the only way to terminate the evil of battery farming is to reveal it to be what it always has been: “An completely unnecessary & urgently regrettable waste of both food & profit”. Speak in this language, and the whole world will understand you!!! (Moral & a-moral, alike)

Personally: I’ll continue to avoid chicken completely, whilst encouraging eaters to buy the free range options. However none of us are global dictators. Consequently: If people insist on doing the wrong thing; then the only way to improve the situation is to find a way for them to be wrong, in a way, that’s less bad.

reply to post by Liberal1984


The thing i find revolting is this blatant manipulation and deliberate mutation of a living creature. I really can’t put my finger on it, but it just scares me... I get this image of a totally narcissistic future where everything natural is just brushed aside for unnatural convenience. People sitting in front of glowing screens sucking there dinner though a straw while chatting to their virtual friends about the latest gadgets.

I used to work for an organisation that helped young adults (some of whom had life issues) find work and get trained. I was so shocked by how many of them thought it was totally disgusting that that I, not only kept chickens, but also ate their eggs... Seriously... I got comments like "that’s nasty, aint it all covered in pooh and stuff"

And this kind of ignorance is a growing trend. Kids thinking that Chicken is a white paste covered in breadcrumbs... people buy their food from supermarkets already washed, cooked and prepared. Never really knowing the process that goes into making it.

And that’s the problem... I believe that the further we get from the supply, coupled with cheapness, means that we have less respect for our food. Kids will eat half a chicken burger and then toss it the bin thinking "i don’t fancy that"

Pandering to this ignorance by inventing more ways to put mass-produced cheap food on the table really bothers me... We are slowly becoming a society that thinks of natural as un-natural and vice-versa.

Sorry if a haven’t explained myself very well and waffled a bit... to be honest i am probably speaking more from the heart than from the brain but, none the less, thought you deserved to know where I was coming from.

Peace.

Muckster I agree with all the problems you’ve identified. But they're all requiring political solutions, i.e. I can’t remember between 50 and 75% of the crap they taught me at school, because it had no relevance-interest to me then, and is just the same now.
It’s only by pure chance we ended up visiting a chicken farm (we couldn’t visit a pig farm because of the Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak). But this was one of the most educational days of my life (I haven’t eaten battery chicken since).
So (In an ideal world) all school children would (when close to adulthood) be required to visit both an intensive animal farm, and an Abattoir. It would make educated consumers out them -maybe even their parents! However (in our real world) I’m sure the food industry would make plenty of political “donations” to prevent any such “disturbances” to their processes, largely projected by consumer ignorance.

Frankly: I’d prefer animals weren’t reduced to “meat melons” either. Yet the desire to prevent them suffering the pain of being e.g. ground up alive, or the stress of constant noise-pecking, is far stronger whenever these are (the most realistic) alternatives. Basically: If human consumers want cheap, unhealthy & unethical, meat; then want they want, is exactly what they shall receive (especially in any dysfunctional democracy, made so, not least by our ignorance). The only remaining question being “how cruel it is?” to which I'll loudly reply: “As least possible, thank you!!!”
I actually thought hard about releasing this topic, but frankly if half our consumers don’t give a damn, then what chance is there with e.g. China? So it’s really quite imperative our current evil, succumbs to lesser evil.

reply to post by Liberal1984


You certainly provide a strong argument and, to be fair, this is the science forum so i can totally understand your frustration with my more emotive reply’s, with political solutions, to your purlely scientific suggestions regarding Chicken welfare.

It may be that one day the growing population of the world, and the demand for cheap meat, means that solutions like your will be employed. Doesn’t mean i have to like it though!

I think that i should probably just walk away from this now because i feel that it is not fair on you that i drag, what should be a scientific debate, off course with my emotionally charged opinions.

Peace

Sweet Jumping Jesus

what horrendous insane idea

I have actually raised chickens without batteries!!!! Can you believe it???
maybe the future of chickens should be we all have a few for eggs and sunday dinner now and then

you know what? chickens are very intelligent and social creatures ! I hate your plan

I hope all people who think the answer to suffering is to zombify the victims, wake up in the universe they deserve and soon.

Muckster Not all, science & politics often overlap; and I love both. At the end of the day; we’re clearly both united by a desire to leave the world a better place, and it's just the prospect of my (far less cruel) idea being rejected for being “unnatural” that got me annoyed, as avoiding cruelty is what matters to me ten times more. Consequently my scorn is saved for the person below…

MrsBlond I appreciate that you believe chickens should be fully naturally intelligent, and conscious-aware whenever they’re subjected to extreme psychological stress –the standard conditions of constant cagery. I also fully appreciate you want them to capable of feeling physical pain too when e.g. their feet grow round the metal bars they sit on, or those same feet are slowly burned by stomach acid, still contained in their muck (both of which are currently the case).

I have say you sound like a wonderful person!!! (Especially as you keep chickens, so you what their like). BUT…
Unless you can lay down rational reasons (or even arguments-excuses) why what my ideas-approach does not represent a vast reduction in the cruelty, compared with the current commercial models; then I will treat your ramblings as the work of a (possibly) intelligent brain, severely retarded, by an overridingly strong sense of emotion!

Can’t you see that one the great qualities of my idea, is that a substantial proportion of the food saved, comes directly from reducing the (biological energy consumption) required by stress & suffering?
It turns out: These (in caged birds) are not just cruel, but a pointless waste of food! I know you seem to prefer things carry on as are –rather than my approaches take of.
However surely the less of this planets food resources spent on stress-suffering, the better the world will be? And if not, then why not?

I hope all people who think the answer to suffering is to zombify the victims, wake up in the universe they deserve and soon.

Be careful what you wish for, as wishing for others sometimes applies 3 times more to yourself i.e. In your logic: I go to an incinerator-hell with: No consciousness, and no physical pain receptive ability. This basically means I’m well on my way, to heaven!
You in contrast get to keep both!!! (And perhaps rightfully so) since: It’s (not least) because of egoistic “well meaning” emotions like yours (getting in the way of reason) that so much animal suffering, has gone on for so long (not to mention the other kinds of pointless suffering).

reply to post by Liberal1984


You do realize your future chicken overlords are not happy about any of this, yes? And I mean it.

CJ

OP

there is to much wrong with your critical thinking capabilities for me to even begin to address.

so good luck with all that .Enjoy your Zombie universe