flyingS said:
I worked for one of the largest poultry producers in the US. I managed one of the ranches owned by the same man that owns Smart Chicken. I had the opportunity to tour one of the farms as well as a harvest facility. The harvest facility was pretty impressive and very mechanicalized, not sure if that is a word. The actually feeding facilities were impressive as well, everything was automatic and monitered from several different locations across the country. The most unimpressive thing to me was the way the chickens were raised. In the past there has been a lot of heat put on hog confinements, dairy farms, etc. I haven't ever heard anything about the chicken industry, I thought it was terrible. The birds are raised in a building where there manure accumulates until they are loaded up for harvest, then the sheds are cleaned out. I am surprised the welfare people haven't made a stink over this. Sorry WW, not trying to highjack your thread.
No offense taken flyingS. Thanks for your input.
I'd love to see a US operation. The ones here are pretty impressive (on the volume of birds they produce), I can only imagine the technology applied in the states.
Production methods here sound generally the same. The chicken barn is filled to capacity....birds barely able to move but with food and water close by. When I buy the birds, they can barely walk.
Once the barn is emptied, it's cleaned and the manure is sold....most of it being fed to cattle to fatten them! I'd like to buy the manure for my bermuda but, at least in the recent past, it's been almost as expensive as urea and much more difficult to handle and apply.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, after a week or two at my place here in the pueblo, the birds look 100% better....their feathers are clean and white, they can stand upright and move about like a normal bird, and just look healthier. I wouldn't have thought that detail would make a hill of beans difference to the average Venezuelan, but it does. I've got buyers who can find chickens elsewhere in the pueblo at a better price but buy from me because of the way the birds look and the fact that they've been on corn since they've been at my place, versus commercial feeds.
I sold one rooster this morning that weighed 3.9 kilos.....8.6 pounds. :lol: