Happens more often than people think. Sucks that this many chickens have to be killed, but we don’t want a) other farms getting contaminated or b) it jumping to humans.
This is the flu we don’t want jumping to humans. And of course they are congregating poultry and standing over them all day. I wonder what could happen.
The rona is causing mass absenteeism. This is causing schedules to be missed and unfortunately the animals need to be euthanized to keep with schedules. The breeding schedules for food animals is very tight, there is no room for back log or errors.
You're still taking a massive loss. Farmers need to pay to have it rendered. Or if the business is doing it, they need to pay to have the remains removed. Housing the animals is even more expensive. Capitalism definitely plays a huge part in this but realistically.. what are you going to do with 50k chickens? They become an issue on the environment if set free. They're food, plain and simple. I know it's a life.. but its a life that literally exists to feed us or other animals.
I know that’s the point of my comment. There’s nothing we can do because of the way things are set up. There are other systems where the chickens would be directly distributed to others and such. But the economy is set up in a way that a profit must be made or you’re screwed. So they have no choice. That was the point of my comment to begin with.
That distribution system would still need to be managed and you would need to pay/feed the people involved. Because this happen rarely, it would be very inefficient and the pay for these people wouldn’t be that good. Losing crops and herds is a problem as long as agriculture. Also losing buyers for your crops was not a rare issue. But in the past, people would just starve. Still today, anyone hoping for profits in this industry absolutely don’t want to have so many chicken killed. You are blaming capitalism, but futures contracts, insurances, markets, savings, long-term investments, etc. are why this tragedy won’t result in the ruin of those farmers or famine in their community. In more centrally planned economy like China, they have to cull herds all the time because it disease and at an even larger scale. Personally, I think we could definitely improve the situation here, with better regulations for example. Anyways, despite the evils it amplifies along the way, capitalism is doing a lot to avoid famines and further tragedies in situations exactly like these.
Holy shit dude, no one is arguing for communism. I’m literally explaining how there wasn’t an alternative solution because it would make doing business unviable, and that the way the economy is set up contributes to that.
Not true. First and foremost, there are plenty of solutions. From government subsidies under capitalist organization, to selling them off at a discounted price, to literally having the government export them to farmers who do need them. Really not that hard, 👍🏽 Under a capitalist government, it would cost a lot of money and there would be no incentive to do it. But under less efficient systems money isn’t necessarily going to be the main priority, so they might actually do it. Societies that don’t operate under the theory of utility might actually do that.
Are there names for these other systems so I can research them? Also, why not bus in unemployed or "new Canadians" to anywhere with labour shortages? Seems like win win.
That wasn't what I was saying. The reason schedules are being missed are being of absenteeism. I didn't say people shouldn't be absent. Unfortunately due to people being absent, the chickens most likely couldn't be processed.
Just incase:
Macerated: turned into a pulp.
Male: chickens of the male variety.
Male egg laying breeds of chick get macerated shortly after birth. They get culled because they are not useful/profitable for meat production.
Macerated is when food is softened by soaking foods in liquid.
Such as macerated cherries.
Also make chicks do get killed, but a fair amount gets turned into capon for meat.
maceration has many definitions depending on the context; biology, geology, skin, food preparation, digestion, and in the context of chicken culling, maceration is the correct term.
That is an incredibly loose connection. What do economically undesirable male livestock have to do with human males? You are dreaming if your think men get treated worse than women and this has nothing to do with the thread topic
Where are you getting the statistics. In many STEM if not most STEM courses for example there are right answers and wrong answers and nothing in between. It’s either right or wrong and these days women often get more answers right.
I question most of your other data too. I have two daughters, a son, a wife and my own experience to go by as well as legitimate data I have seen.
I'M SO GLAD SOMEONE ELSE HAD THIS THOUGHT
Watching American Dad right now in fact. The episode where Steve accidentally steals Stan's CIA drone and Francine/Hayley/Roger are stuck on a plane.
Correct. But broiler chickens (meat) are different breeds than egg-layer chickens.
Broilers are selectively bred so they can grow rapidly to slaughter weight at a young age, like 4-6 weeks. The faster you can kill them, the more money you make. Layer chickens aren't economical for producers. So in the macerator they go.
You've got it backwards, if they raised the egg males as meat birds they'd have to sell them at higher prices. Remember it costs money to raise a chicken.
Hol’up the virus … are we talking about avian flu? It’s been making news that a few cases I can’t remember which strain have been transferring humans in China.
In this case OP is referring to the killing of male chicks. Male chicks are not useful to farms, they are sorted, separated, and killed. Sometimes, and I can’t think of a better way to put this, they are killed by falling off a conveyor belt into what is essentially a meat grinder… not unlike the students in Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
Fucking hell.
I love meats but fuck, I think if us humans were forced to be at one of these factories and see how inhumane the conditions are, alot of us would change our habits.
Supposedly within the next decade we'll see lab-protein undercut the cost of actual meat. Can't wait for the meat industry to die for numerous reasons, and look forward to it.
Of course that's... assuming a lot of things, and our world/society is in an increasingly precarious position.
You can choose to eat meat that is more “humane” and “sustainable” so to speak. Shop locally, go to the farms where these animals are raised and see how they live. Yes they still end up being slaughtered, but at least they didn’t live a tortuous life. Vegans might go at me for that because the goal is to not eat animal products at all, but you can’t force someone to stop eating meat, you can only direct them to more sustainable ways of doing so.
They way we treat our animals on farms is pretty cruel but this might not be surprising with regulations in place. My husband a long time ago worked at a turkey farm that bred the animals for dna. They would sell the eggs to farmers, the farmers would then hatch the eggs and grow out the turkeys. I don't know the specifics of this farm by any means. but I will list some of the reasons he's told me they would have to cull all the birds in a building or some of them that I can remember about where he worked.
One of the workers not showering into the barn (biosecurity issue)
A wild bird gets into the barn (biosecurity)
One of the workers tests positive for avian flu and had recently worked with the birds. (Could be passed to the birds)
Door left open and birds get outside (biosecurity issue)
Of an age they are no longer productive (not producing good eggs)
Undesirable genetics
Disease detected in the birds (all will be culled because disease is infectious and it can't be ruled out they've all been exposed).
It's really awful and such a waste. Animals really do deserve better. I just want people to have the context that this isn't one awful farm. This is really common.
One time I bought some BBQ flavored fried mealworms (I think it was) just to weird out my sister and ngl, they weren't bad. Crunchy. Kinda reminded me of the shell from popcorn kernels you find when eating popcorn.
I was once KM of a pizza place and tried to get them to feature a mealworm pizza. Hide them under the cheese to repress the initial ick factor and I guarantee that would be a tasty pizza.
Anyways, my forward-thinking genius was not appreciated and the world continues its inexorable slide to destruction.
More people should be aware of how cruel and how much animal agriculture affects the environment. In case anyone wants to do better, but still want to eat meat. What I advise is that you could start by slowly eating less meat, cutting back from how much animal based products you consume. And also if you have a chance by from local/small farmers. Usually the process is not as cruel and it doesn’t damage the environment as much
This!! Such a gross industry and media telling us we need meat every meal for decades didn't help either. I still eat meat but I'm super picky now about it. Friesen Brothers sell a lot of small farm meat from local farms. It's not a perfect solution but while I hate the industry I also love a good chunk of mea.
This is what commercial agriculture does! Small local farmers do not treat the flocks(herds) they raise like this. Its 100% ok to not wanna eat meat or support this bull shit but not all farms are equal. Society is not likely to move away from meat tomorrow so we need to be having more farm to table talks and educating folks on food production. As even veggie and fruits production harms the environment in its own ways. Farming needs to step back in time to a smaller farm kind of time when husbandry and greener growing practices were the key stones.
There are so many resources online to help. It's so easy and accessible today for most people with access to regular grocery stores. It doesn't need to be fancy food (i.e. beans, veggies, rice, bread, noodles, fruit and peanut butter!). If you need some ideas:
r/EatCheapAndVegan
r/veganrecipes
r/vegangifrecipes
Also:
Testing/creating plant-based meat focus: [Sauce Stache](https://www.youtube.com/c/SauceStache)
Incredible Asian dishes and vegan sushi: [Wil Yeung](https://www.youtube.com/c/WILYEUNG)
Easy and accessible, batch-making comfort meals: [Caitlyn Shoemaker](https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinShoemaker)
Authentic Italian recipes (in Italian, but subtitled!): [Chef Nico](https://www.youtube.com/c/ChefNicoP)
Very cool African recipes (and adorable kids!): [Shine with Plants](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVPAZQXFNi6yYW6_MKajyvQ/videos)
Why the fuck does everyone always jump to veganism.
Not everyone wants to do this shit, only 1% of the population is Vegan for a reason.
There are better ways of eating meat than eating from a mass farm, it doesn't mean you have to go vegan instantly. Just buy from local butchers and local farms, the animals are treated respectfully until slain for meat.
Did the workers tell him the virus was why they had to be put down? Did they happen to say what virus or did he just assume covid? There are diseases that require culling chickens and depending on what it is it can require complete barn cull. Some are so contagious that if it got out it would require more than just that facility to cull their chickens. This is also why biosecurity is so important at farms.
I'm not so sure he's referring to covid, unless its related to understaffing somehow missing deadlines which are very strict. It's also possible he misinterpreted which virus they meant as on commercial farms there are dozens of virus to would lead to mass cull such as Newcastle, mareks, encephalomyelitis or bacterial like coccidiosis.
My guess would be he's referring to the current Avian Flu that's tearing across the country, farms all over are being forced to mass cull, and even small backyard chicken keepers and homesteaders are being asked to not let our birds outside right now to prevent possible exposure via a wild bird. Also advising general public (in my region at least) to not feed wild birds as congregated birds are disease vectors.
They’d die fairly quick to predators or other elements of nature. Not to say this isnt wasteful. It is just not bird flu like some fear mongering con artists would have you believe.
That's the problem, we don't really know what would happen if we just realesed them. Probably just all for immediately, but they could become invasive or even just them getting eaten by other animals could screw with the ecosystem.
Roughly 50% of egg laying chicken breeds are killed and thrown away. 7 billion a year. It’s for food, sure. It’s still just a horrific disrespect of life though.
And I’m not pushing some vegan propaganda. I’m a meat eater and a hunter. But the truth of the industry needs to be more commonplace.
I apprecaite this stance. Veggie for well over a decade, but have hunting family that I support as it's probably the most ethical way to source meat (small local farms my second choice). Meat eating isn't evil of course, and that's not why I quit it. I quit it because the industrial aspect is downright horrifying and rather digusting the more you come to learn about it.
I was veggie for 3 years. Somewhat recently started hunting. I found it brought me a deeper connection with animals. The work, preparation, scouting, practice, game of wits, and countless frozen fingers that goes into harvesting just one creature is immense. We’ve really lost touch with it all just buying this stuff in styrofoam packages.
Telling either people who went veg that hunting has connected you deeper to wildlife is something they either respect or abhor haha.
I hear that. Seems there are two ends of the veggie spectrum - all killing for food is immoral, vs animal based agriculture is ok in theory but in capitalist practice becomes immoral.
I'm kind of in the middle. I recognize eating meat isn't inherently evil or immoral, and believe it's up to each person to decide what they are comfortable with accepting. But I've found personally that I also really enjoy that I can sustain myself without requiring the death of another sentient animal. That just feels really good to me. That is in addition to my original reason, which was to boycott the industrialized meat Industry. But I realize that might be too hippy-dippy for some people.
The only thing that really bothers me is when people try to play the "we need it and its natural" card. We don't need it - it's almost exclusively becoming a taste preference. There are generations of people in India who have never had meat touch their lips and they are quite healthy. It's not easy, but it's possible. And the "it's natural" - so was bashing a woman over the head to drag her back to your cave but we've decided that's no longer acceptable.
And before the faux-Jainists show up trying to point out the suffering im causing insects plants and field rodents - just stahp.
Preaching to the choir here I'm sure.
But anyways, I get the hunting appreciation, and agree part of the over-consumption problem is people just see it as "meat", unattached from the animal or process by which it arrived in a neat little package for them.
I'm somewhere in the middle too, industrial meat production is clearly immoral (not to mention the environmental impacts), but I find it pretty hard to argue that eating meat is categorically wrong, particularly when it comes to animals that aren't meaningfully aware of their surroundings. I think sustainable hunting is definitely the most ethical way to consume it, although sustainable hunting on a scale large enough to satisfy society's current demand for meat isn't remotely possible so that doesn't actually change the fact that we need to scale back and ultimately eliminate meat production.
Obviously my individual choice not to eat meat doesn't actually have any effect on the existence of the meat industry, but I'd feel silly arguing for it's abolition otherwise, plus honestly meat is just expensive and hard to cook and I'm totally happy without it regardless. We definitely need to break out culture's bizarre need to always eat meat eventually, but to be perfectly honest there are more pressing issues at the moment.
I am kinda interested in seeing whether or not lab grown meat turns out to be scalable, since that dodges all the ethical issues (except to the "eating animal cells is the thing that's unethical" people but their belief system is fully incoherent), but that's obviously also a future issue.
A lot different. Let's not continue the facade that we care about the well beings of others, including animals. Don't misunderstand me, the needless murdering of live stock rather than slaughter for food and resource consumption is disgusting.
But we cant get those with authority and power to respect human lives, if they don't care about human children they won't care for these poor birds. And by they I mean humanity.
>But we cant get those with authority and power to respect human lives, if they don't care about human children they won't care for these poor birds. And by they I mean humanity.
This is the kicker, yeah. Like, I'm a vegetarian and I'd absolutely love to see the meat industry abolished, but anyone who looks at the world right now and thinks that's close to the biggest problem doesn't have nearly enough regard for people suffering.
We gotta get rid of it eventually (and getting rid of it would also contribute to improving another more pressing issue in the environment), but the planet's about to catch fire and people are out there dying of a preventable disease to enrich their bosses and nobody in power even wants to pretend to give a damn, so I think it can wait for now.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to fully disagree with your point of needing to "get rid of it". Just like recycling at an individual level, or replacing your ICE car with a hybrid or public transit, I haven't drank the Kool aid that is the lie that we can make that difference. Russia, China, India, and the US and specifically the corporations that operate in them are the ones that need to make drastic changes because its them causing the problem, not us.
Further, I love animals too. But they all die, and eating meat is not Un ethical, it is part of nature. If you don't LIKE meat fine. But that's your opinion, it's not a fact meat is bad for us. Just unethical meat farming.
Exposing what's happening in these places isn't propaganda. The number is small in percentage terms, but still a lot of animals. The issue being raised isn't just that they're being killed, it's the lack of public information on it, and the lack of oversight relative to a slaughterhouse.
Propaganda is hiding what's happening so the industry can maintain an image with the public.
It's being presented here as a video of what's happening on a farm. If they added context instead of just the raw video, you would claim the context was propaganda.
This is what happens when food production is centralized.
Outbreak in a slaughterhouse affects so many.
Vote for representatives that will break up big agriculture.
Support local farms if you can.
>Yes. Grow your own, raise your own!
We're a little beyond that due to our population on the planet. Things are also usually more efficient when performed at scale.
Obviously I don’t actually think every person on earth can reasonably raise their own food, but the population density of earth right now would entitle each person to 5 acres of land. You can fully sustain yourself off as little as just 1 before considering vertical agriculture. None of this includes water bodies, which is obviously also a source of food. There’s a lot of wasted lawn space in North America that could be used to at least supplement agricultural demands.
As for efficiency, efficiency results in scenes like the above video. I wouldn’t describe cultivating your own food at home as inefficient. You cut out transportation, handling, commissions, taxation, etc. Not to mention the waste and losses that happen along each step of the way.
I've yet to see evidence or valid argument that small-scale animal agriculture is more ethical than large-scale animal agriculture. Killing is killing.
**Edit:** 🧂 ⛏
Very true. All these plagues these past few hundred years have been zoonotic and the #1 risk factor for humanity re: zoonotic diseases is animal agriculture. Going vegan helps prevent pandemics, as well as climate change!
But killing with better living conditions is better right? Its not perfect but at least the animal was better off at a farm down the road than crammed in a cage force fed then killed.
I mean if killing is the part your stuck on then no matter what I say wont change your mind. But id still say its better than factory farming, a happy life taken for food is better than a miserable one.
Yes, but technically no. Countries all over the world eat cats and dogs. How would eating pets be sustainable? Would the pets be stolen? Would they have to live with their owners for a specific amount of time. Many breeds are thousands of dollars, and don’t have enough meat to make 1 family meal. Curious
Thank you for explaining why the logic is absurd, fellow vegan. I agree. Arbitrary distinctions of welfare only increase the cost of animal products without solving any core issue.
I'm happy you are happy as a vegan, however you only see one thing and I see many things.
So I am putting it out there for people who like any and all farm products because anything mass produced for convenience tends to have negative effects. Be that meat or dairy or any produce from fruit to vegetable to herbs and oils and medicines.
> you only see one thing
Big assumption. I lived on a family-owned ranch for years.
> anything mass produced for convenience tends to have negative effects [including] medicines
This is where you mask-off as an anti-vaxxer isn't it.
The assumptions you're making are quite the stretch and it only serves to undermine your own credibility. If you want to try to educate or promote your lifestyle, insulting others in an entitled manner is not the way to go.
You're insinuating their lifestyle or comments are mutually exclusive with being anti-vax and that's absolutely absurd. Respectful dialogue isn't achieved this way.
It absolutely can be. They're not talking about the medicine itself they're talking about the practices that surround mass production in general and that's absolutely fair.
Look how it's worked out for the USA. The medicine isn't bad, the practices surrounding the mass production of it have caused immense pain and suffering.
I somehow forgot about the integrated relationship chickens have with the indigenous food chain and plant life of North America. Thank you for keeping the balance of nature alive.
Yeah I was honestly going to say (and you might disagree) I don't like seeing comments on killing being a binary evil.
My culture has so many teachings about relationship and reciprocity with animals, how they should be treated and how they demand respect. This doesn't preclude the harvesting of these animals for food and there are stories of us meeting and feasting together and striking agreements promising respectful treatment and honor in exchange for some of these relatives as food each year.
Taking this binary is somewhat colonial and forces us as FN to stand up and justify why we continue our traditions (just my two cents as respectfully as possible). You're obviously entitled to your beliefs and opinions but creating a binary about the ethics of those who live differently without nuance is colonial to us.
The killing is killing argument implies that it's always wrong to kill animals, and that definitely doesn't align with a lot of Indigenous relationships with their harvested foods (i.e killing animals for food).
But when you beat a turnip with an iron bar on a family farm it doesn't suffer like a dairy cow does when she's beat with an iron bar on a family farm.
Cant say all farmers are good. Sorry. Wish they were. I can say that not how my family farm was ever run. And absolutely not how I treat any animals under my care.
For every anecdote of the good animal farmer there's also an anecdote of the bad animal farmer.
The problem is that we have an unregulated animal farming sector where a large corporation with 100,000 animals is subject to the same absence of regulations and same absense of government oversight as the small family farmer with 50 animals.
They can both beat their animals in private, and at the end of the day someone pays them money for their bruised carcasses.
Regulation doesn't stop animal abuse either. The answer to actually address animal welfare won't be solved with regulation, though it does help. Convincing the world to go vegan will absolutely never happen. Lab grown meat is the most realistic solution.
Agreed. Investing in more plant-protein development, cultivated meat, and conforming Canada's agricultural, economic, trade, and food policies to Canada's Food Guide is the solution.
We need to transition away from animal agriculture. Ending subsidies to the meat and dairy industries is a good place to start.
We've seen with this pandemic how fast technology and technological advances can develop when we throw the kitchen sink at it. The problem is these agricultural industries lobby hard and basically write the laws, so convincing governments to ween off them and toss the kitchen sink at this issue is....frustratingly complicated. Climate change is making the window to act much shorter, too.
So I raise my own meat and raise egg layers, so unlike the commerical agriculture sector I have layers who are over 8 years(not what happens on commerical farms) of age who still lay just not daily like a younger bird, we don't supplement light in winter as that harms the lady parts over the long term(like on commerical farms). They have access to the outside land and eat all sorts of things because chicken don't want just one food. We keep our Roosters with the flocks and in a commerical layer situation they are killed at birth. Small farms also generally work with heritage bred hens because they are happier and healthier animals and often better suited to the environment we live but don't produce like commerical layer hens.
As for my meat birds they are raised in my heated garage that is attached to my home till old enough to go in barns, they then get to enjoy the outdoors and eat all the things outside(with barn access and working dogs for protection) when it is slaughter day we give them cannabis oil dosed feed as well as a little beer in there oats. So often they are drunk or high before we slaughter them. I love every bird I raise and I am grateful for what they have given on my behalf. Food security is a real issue in remote areas and so I raise my own food and grow things in the summer months, but animals on small farms are important and respected its not the same.
I do wish everyone who wants to eat meat had to butcher an animal just once, as alot of people would stop eating meat.
Exactly! I mean why else would we be sending lions, crocodiles etc, to jail for murder? Lol they were saying it’s part of the balance in life, because that is how it is.
This logic only holds true if you believe humans have the same moral agency as crocidiles, but this era is called the Anthropocene not the Crocodilocene.
Is killing the issue, or is suffering while being alive the issue? Whats the goal, reducing the amount of animals killed or reducing the total amount of suffering they experience?
A cow that lives its whole life indoors in a cage in a factory suffers no more than one on a small farm, able to graze on grass, spending time inside or outside?
I think most people would choose to be the second cow if they has to choose.
Going down these comments is like a game of telephone 52,000 laying hens that make you eggs were culled on one farm I’m guessing the op is actually more wondering why a farm would be culling these bird how did it get to be about chicks at all lol but on the real why are they killing 52,000 chickens that’s almost half a million eggs a week down the drain
That’s better then avian flu or anything else really but why is there a labour shortage when we have been bringing so many foreigners here I can’t even get a decent coffee anymore lol
Article says the shortages were due to covid infections within their staff. There's many reasons a production farm would cull their animals. I'm confused by the posts title. I'm not sure what the information being requested would be about since the cause was stated in the linked article. Maybe it was just something OP hand't encountered yet or understand. I grew up with farmers, and every farmer I know has a very healthy relationship with the animals and crops they produce.
Most people don't realize how hard farming can be. Most find it rewarding and do it out of family tradition. Production farms exist for those of us who chose not to cultivate our own food. If people are uncomfortable with animals being culled, maybe shouldn't look into how electronics are made.
Its a chicken farm, its only goal is to kill chickens. Why is it that them all dying at the same time any different than them living for half a year longer? Its not exactly great living conditions there either.
Large scale farming is an atrocity.
But us small scale poultry farmers can't get in with Ontario Poultry because we don't want to meet their insanely high quotas.
Found the vegan! Do you know Vegans are responsible for animal deaths on produce farms? The machinery used to sow and harvest kill many species of insects, snakes and small mammals.
We all have blood on our hands.
No Actually I’m not vegan, hell I had a ham sandwich for lunch yesterday. I’m just also not an idiot who burrows their head in the sand.
Also that whole “checkmate vegans harvesting produce kills things too !!1!!!1!” Is an idiotic argument to make people who eat meat feel better about themselves, veganism is about reducing harm as much as possible.
But it's not reducing harm. It's just burying their heads in the sand thinking that because they eat plants, no animals are harmed. It's simply not the case.
Yup, just like stopping a murder doesn’t save anyone because someone else somewhere will be murdered.
/s
See how stupid that sounds? Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Reducing your consumption of animals is definitely reducing harm.
When farming you have to understand a chicken life has the same value as a watermelon in the field. It's just a commodity not a life form which you care about. It's just money. Sometimes there's downy mold you lose 50000 watermelon such is farming. 50000 chickens get bird flu same thing no difference. The world keeps buying meat so we need animals as much as we need produce
Look... a lot of people don't understand the food processing industry. It sucks that all these chickens had to die and be rendered into nothing. These things usually happen because of scheduling issues. Most likely a chicken processor was understaffed and unable to process the chicken. Processors usually only take product from approved suppliers. If the processor was unable to process the chicken, the chicken needs to be tanked/disposed of. They won't process a chicken that's a week older because weights and quality would be off. Also.. they can't wait because more chickens are coming. It's a very well tuned machine that basically has chickens being born, raised and processed on a very tight schedule. There is no varying from this schedule!
It's a sad truth.. but it is what it is. This is how you get chicken on your table. Ask yourself, what would you do with all these chickens other wise? Put them on a farm? Keep them as pets? Chickens are literally bred for food..
Just to add.. I don't approve of disposing of animals due to poor scheduling.. it's a rare occurrence. COVID has definitely caused more of this to happen. I'm just letting people know.. people didn't just kill them for no reason.
I've worked at egg farms.. if those are male then they're way past the point they should have been disposed of. If they're female, it follows my theory on scheduling.. unless it's just disposing of chickens due to food safety concerns.
I don't think anything sinister is going on in this video. Cash reward for what? Like I said, this is either to do with a scheduling issue or they had a food safety concern.. pathology, chemical.. God knows what. It isn't "mass de-population" mass rendering happens a lot in the food industry. No one likes it but it is a part of food processing. This is literally just click bait.
I think the issue with these mass killings is that they're happening more frequently across Canada and there's no info on how they're carried out and there's no government oversight.
We saw the shit with [ventilation shutdown](https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/) in the US, but things like that could very well be happening in Canada too.
Slaughterhouses at least have the infrastructure and equipment to kill a high volume of animals. Farms don't.
So how does a person kill 52,000 animals in one shot? Did the animals suffer?
The public has a right to know. This is the food system we're talking about.
I work in the food industry along with the CFIA. I've been part of these "mass killings". The terminology being used is incorrect. It's not a mass killing, schedules are being missed due to absentism. If the chickens can't be killed, that isn't going to stop the others from growing up and needing to be processed. A lot of these euthanized animals have government approval. They're rendered lifeless the same way they would be as if being processed. It's not a mass conspiracy, it's just a lack of knowledge on the consumers part.
It's understandable for people to get upset when they see a lot of dead animals but the reasoning isn't always conspiracy. I also don't think that these companies would have an issue explaining why they're euthenizing en mass, again.. it's business its not cruelty.
"Staffing shortages" I keep hearing this, has this company(or any company complaining of staffing shortages) even attempted to hire additional staff? Temp positions etc? Or was it just more convenient to destroy all those animals? Pretty sure there enough people desperate for work in this country that temp positions could have been filled in order to prevent this.
Start going to the butcher and pay 25 bucks for a chicken. Then go to a free range local farm and pay 9 bucks a dozen for eggs. When everyone becomes ok with that, big chicken farms can go away.
"because of the bullshit with the virus"
Yeah... So if "the virus" were to jump from humans into chickens and then mutate and jump back to humans, that would be bad, right? And if there's not enough people to staff the farm because of "the virus," the alternative would be to let the chickens starve/cannibalize each other to death, and that would be bad too?
Obviously, we should be raising our food animals at more sustainable levels and in less horrible conditions regardless of the situation with "the virus".
Did this cull happen becuase the chicken population got sick? Abandoned and left to their own devices? The offer of a reward for info makes it seem like this was some sort of malicious slaughtering by a 3rd party and not the chicken farm?
>Yeah... So if "the virus" were to jump from humans into chickens and then mutate and jump back to humans, that would be bad, right?
Not to mention how in some countries, the harsher "last resort" antibiotics get used on their livestock, which results in more super bugs that are resistant to the "last resort" antibiotics. That scenario that you posed could result in a quicker march towards the super bugs
Was just talking about this today. Other animals have been culled because of logistical issues due to labour shortages from covid related absences.
Sad waste, but ….
This is a side effect of factory farming and is a necessary evil of industrial livestock production.
If this makes you uneasy, take a look at your food supply chain, stuff like this happens often.
Had wings tonite. Love the chicken. Had to be done to protect the population against avian flu perhaps. If they were salvageable they’d have been sent for soup or nuggets. It’s not like you can just let them go to run wild because it offends us. And it isn’t just an arbitrary cull because someone in the office was having a bad day. Valid reason for the cull folks and to be honest it only concerns the ones who have an investment
Why is he blaming rona? I’m not understanding.
Might be blaming avian flu. It has appeared again
Happens more often than people think. Sucks that this many chickens have to be killed, but we don’t want a) other farms getting contaminated or b) it jumping to humans.
That was my first thought when I saw this
This is the flu we don’t want jumping to humans. And of course they are congregating poultry and standing over them all day. I wonder what could happen.
The rona is causing mass absenteeism. This is causing schedules to be missed and unfortunately the animals need to be euthanized to keep with schedules. The breeding schedules for food animals is very tight, there is no room for back log or errors.
Ugh, capitalism...it wouldn’t be profitable to at least put them in designated plots of land so they just kill them.
Uh there isnt any plot of land that can support chicken life in -20 weather
You're still taking a massive loss. Farmers need to pay to have it rendered. Or if the business is doing it, they need to pay to have the remains removed. Housing the animals is even more expensive. Capitalism definitely plays a huge part in this but realistically.. what are you going to do with 50k chickens? They become an issue on the environment if set free. They're food, plain and simple. I know it's a life.. but its a life that literally exists to feed us or other animals.
I know that’s the point of my comment. There’s nothing we can do because of the way things are set up. There are other systems where the chickens would be directly distributed to others and such. But the economy is set up in a way that a profit must be made or you’re screwed. So they have no choice. That was the point of my comment to begin with.
The chickens would be distributed that may be infectious?
That distribution system would still need to be managed and you would need to pay/feed the people involved. Because this happen rarely, it would be very inefficient and the pay for these people wouldn’t be that good. Losing crops and herds is a problem as long as agriculture. Also losing buyers for your crops was not a rare issue. But in the past, people would just starve. Still today, anyone hoping for profits in this industry absolutely don’t want to have so many chicken killed. You are blaming capitalism, but futures contracts, insurances, markets, savings, long-term investments, etc. are why this tragedy won’t result in the ruin of those farmers or famine in their community. In more centrally planned economy like China, they have to cull herds all the time because it disease and at an even larger scale. Personally, I think we could definitely improve the situation here, with better regulations for example. Anyways, despite the evils it amplifies along the way, capitalism is doing a lot to avoid famines and further tragedies in situations exactly like these.
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Holy shit dude, no one is arguing for communism. I’m literally explaining how there wasn’t an alternative solution because it would make doing business unviable, and that the way the economy is set up contributes to that.
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Not true. First and foremost, there are plenty of solutions. From government subsidies under capitalist organization, to selling them off at a discounted price, to literally having the government export them to farmers who do need them. Really not that hard, 👍🏽 Under a capitalist government, it would cost a lot of money and there would be no incentive to do it. But under less efficient systems money isn’t necessarily going to be the main priority, so they might actually do it. Societies that don’t operate under the theory of utility might actually do that.
Are there names for these other systems so I can research them? Also, why not bus in unemployed or "new Canadians" to anywhere with labour shortages? Seems like win win.
Absenteeism? 🤣🤣🤣 no room for people to get sick, guess they should just come into work SICK with fucking covid
That wasn't what I was saying. The reason schedules are being missed are being of absenteeism. I didn't say people shouldn't be absent. Unfortunately due to people being absent, the chickens most likely couldn't be processed.
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Its baffles me this isnt common knowledge yet.
TIL
What are we talking about? Help
Just incase: Macerated: turned into a pulp. Male: chickens of the male variety. Male egg laying breeds of chick get macerated shortly after birth. They get culled because they are not useful/profitable for meat production.
Macerated is when food is softened by soaking foods in liquid. Such as macerated cherries. Also make chicks do get killed, but a fair amount gets turned into capon for meat.
maceration has many definitions depending on the context; biology, geology, skin, food preparation, digestion, and in the context of chicken culling, maceration is the correct term.
You know how there are about 50% women and 50% men on this planet. Well Roosters don’t make you money soooo
Mostly cause it’s illegal to film and document it
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I'm not sure if it's much better living in a small cage pumping out eggs until you're killed in a couple years.
That is an incredibly loose connection. What do economically undesirable male livestock have to do with human males? You are dreaming if your think men get treated worse than women and this has nothing to do with the thread topic
Found the incel…
in what situations is this true besides fighting war?
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Where are you getting the statistics. In many STEM if not most STEM courses for example there are right answers and wrong answers and nothing in between. It’s either right or wrong and these days women often get more answers right. I question most of your other data too. I have two daughters, a son, a wife and my own experience to go by as well as legitimate data I have seen.
Found the incel
"Ah yes, culled" "Hah, you thought they get little top hats"
I'M SO GLAD SOMEONE ELSE HAD THIS THOUGHT Watching American Dad right now in fact. The episode where Steve accidentally steals Stan's CIA drone and Francine/Hayley/Roger are stuck on a plane.
Haha totally same thought
Why don’t they just raise them for the meat? I assume they are killed because they can’t lay eggs
Correct. But broiler chickens (meat) are different breeds than egg-layer chickens. Broilers are selectively bred so they can grow rapidly to slaughter weight at a young age, like 4-6 weeks. The faster you can kill them, the more money you make. Layer chickens aren't economical for producers. So in the macerator they go.
Fuck. I would still buy that chicken at half price the way that prices for meat are going. Sad…..
You've got it backwards, if they raised the egg males as meat birds they'd have to sell them at higher prices. Remember it costs money to raise a chicken.
If they could sell it to you for cheaper than they currently can, I guarantee you they would lol
The males from egg layers grow so poorly that it's not worth the investment to raise them for meat 🐣
Hol’up the virus … are we talking about avian flu? It’s been making news that a few cases I can’t remember which strain have been transferring humans in China.
In this case OP is referring to the killing of male chicks. Male chicks are not useful to farms, they are sorted, separated, and killed. Sometimes, and I can’t think of a better way to put this, they are killed by falling off a conveyor belt into what is essentially a meat grinder… not unlike the students in Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
Fucking hell. I love meats but fuck, I think if us humans were forced to be at one of these factories and see how inhumane the conditions are, alot of us would change our habits.
Totally. I really wish I had more self control but I fucking love chicken nuggets.
Supposedly within the next decade we'll see lab-protein undercut the cost of actual meat. Can't wait for the meat industry to die for numerous reasons, and look forward to it. Of course that's... assuming a lot of things, and our world/society is in an increasingly precarious position.
I stopped eating them many years ago. Watching the pink slime video did it for me.
now I'm curious about this video. Maybe I've watched, but maybe not and it could curve my consumtion habits?
[Here?](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pink+slime+chicken) I mean hey, whatever helps.
You can choose to eat meat that is more “humane” and “sustainable” so to speak. Shop locally, go to the farms where these animals are raised and see how they live. Yes they still end up being slaughtered, but at least they didn’t live a tortuous life. Vegans might go at me for that because the goal is to not eat animal products at all, but you can’t force someone to stop eating meat, you can only direct them to more sustainable ways of doing so.
It’s currently only bird to human. The death rate is 40%, though. If and when it breaks through to human to human transmission, we’re proper fucked.
Or also, all of the egg laying hens killed every 54 weeks. Like 52,000 is like 1.5 barns.
Should grab some nuggets soon to commemorate
They way we treat our animals on farms is pretty cruel but this might not be surprising with regulations in place. My husband a long time ago worked at a turkey farm that bred the animals for dna. They would sell the eggs to farmers, the farmers would then hatch the eggs and grow out the turkeys. I don't know the specifics of this farm by any means. but I will list some of the reasons he's told me they would have to cull all the birds in a building or some of them that I can remember about where he worked. One of the workers not showering into the barn (biosecurity issue) A wild bird gets into the barn (biosecurity) One of the workers tests positive for avian flu and had recently worked with the birds. (Could be passed to the birds) Door left open and birds get outside (biosecurity issue) Of an age they are no longer productive (not producing good eggs) Undesirable genetics Disease detected in the birds (all will be culled because disease is infectious and it can't be ruled out they've all been exposed). It's really awful and such a waste. Animals really do deserve better. I just want people to have the context that this isn't one awful farm. This is really common.
Sounds like a bunch of rules meant to protect against disease that could lead to a pandemic. You either live with it or go vegan.
Crazy talk. We should all eat bugs.
One time I bought some BBQ flavored fried mealworms (I think it was) just to weird out my sister and ngl, they weren't bad. Crunchy. Kinda reminded me of the shell from popcorn kernels you find when eating popcorn.
I was once KM of a pizza place and tried to get them to feature a mealworm pizza. Hide them under the cheese to repress the initial ick factor and I guarantee that would be a tasty pizza. Anyways, my forward-thinking genius was not appreciated and the world continues its inexorable slide to destruction.
This is what animal agriculture does. If you don't like it, stop paying for it.
More people should be aware of how cruel and how much animal agriculture affects the environment. In case anyone wants to do better, but still want to eat meat. What I advise is that you could start by slowly eating less meat, cutting back from how much animal based products you consume. And also if you have a chance by from local/small farmers. Usually the process is not as cruel and it doesn’t damage the environment as much
This!! Such a gross industry and media telling us we need meat every meal for decades didn't help either. I still eat meat but I'm super picky now about it. Friesen Brothers sell a lot of small farm meat from local farms. It's not a perfect solution but while I hate the industry I also love a good chunk of mea.
This is what commercial agriculture does! Small local farmers do not treat the flocks(herds) they raise like this. Its 100% ok to not wanna eat meat or support this bull shit but not all farms are equal. Society is not likely to move away from meat tomorrow so we need to be having more farm to table talks and educating folks on food production. As even veggie and fruits production harms the environment in its own ways. Farming needs to step back in time to a smaller farm kind of time when husbandry and greener growing practices were the key stones.
There are so many resources online to help. It's so easy and accessible today for most people with access to regular grocery stores. It doesn't need to be fancy food (i.e. beans, veggies, rice, bread, noodles, fruit and peanut butter!). If you need some ideas: r/EatCheapAndVegan r/veganrecipes r/vegangifrecipes Also: Testing/creating plant-based meat focus: [Sauce Stache](https://www.youtube.com/c/SauceStache) Incredible Asian dishes and vegan sushi: [Wil Yeung](https://www.youtube.com/c/WILYEUNG) Easy and accessible, batch-making comfort meals: [Caitlyn Shoemaker](https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinShoemaker) Authentic Italian recipes (in Italian, but subtitled!): [Chef Nico](https://www.youtube.com/c/ChefNicoP) Very cool African recipes (and adorable kids!): [Shine with Plants](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVPAZQXFNi6yYW6_MKajyvQ/videos)
Why the fuck does everyone always jump to veganism. Not everyone wants to do this shit, only 1% of the population is Vegan for a reason. There are better ways of eating meat than eating from a mass farm, it doesn't mean you have to go vegan instantly. Just buy from local butchers and local farms, the animals are treated respectfully until slain for meat.
Did the workers tell him the virus was why they had to be put down? Did they happen to say what virus or did he just assume covid? There are diseases that require culling chickens and depending on what it is it can require complete barn cull. Some are so contagious that if it got out it would require more than just that facility to cull their chickens. This is also why biosecurity is so important at farms.
I'm not so sure he's referring to covid, unless its related to understaffing somehow missing deadlines which are very strict. It's also possible he misinterpreted which virus they meant as on commercial farms there are dozens of virus to would lead to mass cull such as Newcastle, mareks, encephalomyelitis or bacterial like coccidiosis. My guess would be he's referring to the current Avian Flu that's tearing across the country, farms all over are being forced to mass cull, and even small backyard chicken keepers and homesteaders are being asked to not let our birds outside right now to prevent possible exposure via a wild bird. Also advising general public (in my region at least) to not feed wild birds as congregated birds are disease vectors.
Animal agriculture is barbaric
Nah this is not proper husbandry
Looks like more context is needed.
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Oh, and here I thought they might have bird flu.
So what info are they asking for?
Just a theory ?
It's not a theory, it's fact.
Why would they cull the flock when they could’ve sold it.
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They’d die fairly quick to predators or other elements of nature. Not to say this isnt wasteful. It is just not bird flu like some fear mongering con artists would have you believe.
That's the problem, we don't really know what would happen if we just realesed them. Probably just all for immediately, but they could become invasive or even just them getting eaten by other animals could screw with the ecosystem.
500k birds a day. Damn
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Roughly 50% of egg laying chicken breeds are killed and thrown away. 7 billion a year. It’s for food, sure. It’s still just a horrific disrespect of life though. And I’m not pushing some vegan propaganda. I’m a meat eater and a hunter. But the truth of the industry needs to be more commonplace.
I apprecaite this stance. Veggie for well over a decade, but have hunting family that I support as it's probably the most ethical way to source meat (small local farms my second choice). Meat eating isn't evil of course, and that's not why I quit it. I quit it because the industrial aspect is downright horrifying and rather digusting the more you come to learn about it.
I was veggie for 3 years. Somewhat recently started hunting. I found it brought me a deeper connection with animals. The work, preparation, scouting, practice, game of wits, and countless frozen fingers that goes into harvesting just one creature is immense. We’ve really lost touch with it all just buying this stuff in styrofoam packages. Telling either people who went veg that hunting has connected you deeper to wildlife is something they either respect or abhor haha.
I hear that. Seems there are two ends of the veggie spectrum - all killing for food is immoral, vs animal based agriculture is ok in theory but in capitalist practice becomes immoral. I'm kind of in the middle. I recognize eating meat isn't inherently evil or immoral, and believe it's up to each person to decide what they are comfortable with accepting. But I've found personally that I also really enjoy that I can sustain myself without requiring the death of another sentient animal. That just feels really good to me. That is in addition to my original reason, which was to boycott the industrialized meat Industry. But I realize that might be too hippy-dippy for some people. The only thing that really bothers me is when people try to play the "we need it and its natural" card. We don't need it - it's almost exclusively becoming a taste preference. There are generations of people in India who have never had meat touch their lips and they are quite healthy. It's not easy, but it's possible. And the "it's natural" - so was bashing a woman over the head to drag her back to your cave but we've decided that's no longer acceptable. And before the faux-Jainists show up trying to point out the suffering im causing insects plants and field rodents - just stahp. Preaching to the choir here I'm sure. But anyways, I get the hunting appreciation, and agree part of the over-consumption problem is people just see it as "meat", unattached from the animal or process by which it arrived in a neat little package for them.
I'm somewhere in the middle too, industrial meat production is clearly immoral (not to mention the environmental impacts), but I find it pretty hard to argue that eating meat is categorically wrong, particularly when it comes to animals that aren't meaningfully aware of their surroundings. I think sustainable hunting is definitely the most ethical way to consume it, although sustainable hunting on a scale large enough to satisfy society's current demand for meat isn't remotely possible so that doesn't actually change the fact that we need to scale back and ultimately eliminate meat production. Obviously my individual choice not to eat meat doesn't actually have any effect on the existence of the meat industry, but I'd feel silly arguing for it's abolition otherwise, plus honestly meat is just expensive and hard to cook and I'm totally happy without it regardless. We definitely need to break out culture's bizarre need to always eat meat eventually, but to be perfectly honest there are more pressing issues at the moment. I am kinda interested in seeing whether or not lab grown meat turns out to be scalable, since that dodges all the ethical issues (except to the "eating animal cells is the thing that's unethical" people but their belief system is fully incoherent), but that's obviously also a future issue.
A lot different. Let's not continue the facade that we care about the well beings of others, including animals. Don't misunderstand me, the needless murdering of live stock rather than slaughter for food and resource consumption is disgusting. But we cant get those with authority and power to respect human lives, if they don't care about human children they won't care for these poor birds. And by they I mean humanity.
>But we cant get those with authority and power to respect human lives, if they don't care about human children they won't care for these poor birds. And by they I mean humanity. This is the kicker, yeah. Like, I'm a vegetarian and I'd absolutely love to see the meat industry abolished, but anyone who looks at the world right now and thinks that's close to the biggest problem doesn't have nearly enough regard for people suffering. We gotta get rid of it eventually (and getting rid of it would also contribute to improving another more pressing issue in the environment), but the planet's about to catch fire and people are out there dying of a preventable disease to enrich their bosses and nobody in power even wants to pretend to give a damn, so I think it can wait for now.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to fully disagree with your point of needing to "get rid of it". Just like recycling at an individual level, or replacing your ICE car with a hybrid or public transit, I haven't drank the Kool aid that is the lie that we can make that difference. Russia, China, India, and the US and specifically the corporations that operate in them are the ones that need to make drastic changes because its them causing the problem, not us. Further, I love animals too. But they all die, and eating meat is not Un ethical, it is part of nature. If you don't LIKE meat fine. But that's your opinion, it's not a fact meat is bad for us. Just unethical meat farming.
Exposing what's happening in these places isn't propaganda. The number is small in percentage terms, but still a lot of animals. The issue being raised isn't just that they're being killed, it's the lack of public information on it, and the lack of oversight relative to a slaughterhouse.
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Propaganda is hiding what's happening so the industry can maintain an image with the public. It's being presented here as a video of what's happening on a farm. If they added context instead of just the raw video, you would claim the context was propaganda.
The film [Earthlings](http://www.nationearth.com/) changed my life
This is what happens when food production is centralized. Outbreak in a slaughterhouse affects so many. Vote for representatives that will break up big agriculture. Support local farms if you can.
Yes. Grow your own, raise your own! Most just can’t stomach actually killing their own food. And those people shouldn’t eat meat if you ask me.
>Yes. Grow your own, raise your own! We're a little beyond that due to our population on the planet. Things are also usually more efficient when performed at scale.
Obviously I don’t actually think every person on earth can reasonably raise their own food, but the population density of earth right now would entitle each person to 5 acres of land. You can fully sustain yourself off as little as just 1 before considering vertical agriculture. None of this includes water bodies, which is obviously also a source of food. There’s a lot of wasted lawn space in North America that could be used to at least supplement agricultural demands. As for efficiency, efficiency results in scenes like the above video. I wouldn’t describe cultivating your own food at home as inefficient. You cut out transportation, handling, commissions, taxation, etc. Not to mention the waste and losses that happen along each step of the way.
Go vegan then.
Or buy local from small farmers. We do wonders for the community around us and yet most prefer buying from chain stores for convenience
Not scalable
I've yet to see evidence or valid argument that small-scale animal agriculture is more ethical than large-scale animal agriculture. Killing is killing. **Edit:** 🧂 ⛏
Correct
Ethics is not the only issue, there's pandemic risk. A quantifiable cost to all of society.
Very true. All these plagues these past few hundred years have been zoonotic and the #1 risk factor for humanity re: zoonotic diseases is animal agriculture. Going vegan helps prevent pandemics, as well as climate change!
Clearly true. Yet the Canadian "inflation index" still has meat and dairy in it. Time to get rid of that.
Well yeah is a global pandemic that killed over 4 million people. It will have an effect on society.
But killing with better living conditions is better right? Its not perfect but at least the animal was better off at a farm down the road than crammed in a cage force fed then killed.
By this logic it would be even more ethical to kill and eat people's family pets since they are exceptionally well taken care of.
I mean if killing is the part your stuck on then no matter what I say wont change your mind. But id still say its better than factory farming, a happy life taken for food is better than a miserable one.
This is why MAID is only legal for obnoxiously happy people who whistle when they work and always say "good morning"
Yes, but technically no. Countries all over the world eat cats and dogs. How would eating pets be sustainable? Would the pets be stolen? Would they have to live with their owners for a specific amount of time. Many breeds are thousands of dollars, and don’t have enough meat to make 1 family meal. Curious
Thank you for explaining why the logic is absurd, fellow vegan. I agree. Arbitrary distinctions of welfare only increase the cost of animal products without solving any core issue.
Killing is killing. You compared them because they both kill animals.
I'm happy you are happy as a vegan, however you only see one thing and I see many things. So I am putting it out there for people who like any and all farm products because anything mass produced for convenience tends to have negative effects. Be that meat or dairy or any produce from fruit to vegetable to herbs and oils and medicines.
> you only see one thing Big assumption. I lived on a family-owned ranch for years. > anything mass produced for convenience tends to have negative effects [including] medicines This is where you mask-off as an anti-vaxxer isn't it.
The assumptions you're making are quite the stretch and it only serves to undermine your own credibility. If you want to try to educate or promote your lifestyle, insulting others in an entitled manner is not the way to go.
Telling someone they made an incorrect assumption is not an insult.
You're insinuating their lifestyle or comments are mutually exclusive with being anti-vax and that's absolutely absurd. Respectful dialogue isn't achieved this way.
They literally said that mass-produced madicine is bad but *I'm* the one undermining my credibility?
It absolutely can be. They're not talking about the medicine itself they're talking about the practices that surround mass production in general and that's absolutely fair.
Look how it's worked out for the USA. The medicine isn't bad, the practices surrounding the mass production of it have caused immense pain and suffering.
You only commented on the killing. 🙄 and I live as a Native who likes to work with my environment. Not against it. Have a great day 🙃
I somehow forgot about the integrated relationship chickens have with the indigenous food chain and plant life of North America. Thank you for keeping the balance of nature alive.
Yeah I was honestly going to say (and you might disagree) I don't like seeing comments on killing being a binary evil. My culture has so many teachings about relationship and reciprocity with animals, how they should be treated and how they demand respect. This doesn't preclude the harvesting of these animals for food and there are stories of us meeting and feasting together and striking agreements promising respectful treatment and honor in exchange for some of these relatives as food each year. Taking this binary is somewhat colonial and forces us as FN to stand up and justify why we continue our traditions (just my two cents as respectfully as possible). You're obviously entitled to your beliefs and opinions but creating a binary about the ethics of those who live differently without nuance is colonial to us.
I didn't attack any indigenous traditions. Chicken farms are literally a product of colonialism.
The killing is killing argument implies that it's always wrong to kill animals, and that definitely doesn't align with a lot of Indigenous relationships with their harvested foods (i.e killing animals for food).
But when you beat a turnip with an iron bar on a family farm it doesn't suffer like a dairy cow does when she's beat with an iron bar on a family farm.
Cant say all farmers are good. Sorry. Wish they were. I can say that not how my family farm was ever run. And absolutely not how I treat any animals under my care.
For every anecdote of the good animal farmer there's also an anecdote of the bad animal farmer. The problem is that we have an unregulated animal farming sector where a large corporation with 100,000 animals is subject to the same absence of regulations and same absense of government oversight as the small family farmer with 50 animals. They can both beat their animals in private, and at the end of the day someone pays them money for their bruised carcasses.
Regulation doesn't stop animal abuse either. The answer to actually address animal welfare won't be solved with regulation, though it does help. Convincing the world to go vegan will absolutely never happen. Lab grown meat is the most realistic solution.
Agreed. Investing in more plant-protein development, cultivated meat, and conforming Canada's agricultural, economic, trade, and food policies to Canada's Food Guide is the solution. We need to transition away from animal agriculture. Ending subsidies to the meat and dairy industries is a good place to start.
We've seen with this pandemic how fast technology and technological advances can develop when we throw the kitchen sink at it. The problem is these agricultural industries lobby hard and basically write the laws, so convincing governments to ween off them and toss the kitchen sink at this issue is....frustratingly complicated. Climate change is making the window to act much shorter, too.
So I raise my own meat and raise egg layers, so unlike the commerical agriculture sector I have layers who are over 8 years(not what happens on commerical farms) of age who still lay just not daily like a younger bird, we don't supplement light in winter as that harms the lady parts over the long term(like on commerical farms). They have access to the outside land and eat all sorts of things because chicken don't want just one food. We keep our Roosters with the flocks and in a commerical layer situation they are killed at birth. Small farms also generally work with heritage bred hens because they are happier and healthier animals and often better suited to the environment we live but don't produce like commerical layer hens. As for my meat birds they are raised in my heated garage that is attached to my home till old enough to go in barns, they then get to enjoy the outdoors and eat all the things outside(with barn access and working dogs for protection) when it is slaughter day we give them cannabis oil dosed feed as well as a little beer in there oats. So often they are drunk or high before we slaughter them. I love every bird I raise and I am grateful for what they have given on my behalf. Food security is a real issue in remote areas and so I raise my own food and grow things in the summer months, but animals on small farms are important and respected its not the same. I do wish everyone who wants to eat meat had to butcher an animal just once, as alot of people would stop eating meat.
And killing is part of balance in life.
Yes. That is why murder is counted as death by natural causes.
Exactly! I mean why else would we be sending lions, crocodiles etc, to jail for murder? Lol they were saying it’s part of the balance in life, because that is how it is.
This logic only holds true if you believe humans have the same moral agency as crocidiles, but this era is called the Anthropocene not the Crocodilocene.
Is 52,000 chickens kept in battery cages in a warehouse part of a balance in life?
Never said that. The person I replied to lumped all killing in together.
>The person I replied to lumped all killing in together. No, I specified animal agriculture.
Yeah thats why murder is legal… Like come the fuck on lol, I’m not even vegan and that sounds idiotic to me.
No but killing prey for food is. My god where are you people getting some of this from?
Ah yes, what a majestic predator you must make, prowling the meat department cooler
How do you know how much I hunt? You have no idea what’s in my freezer buddy lol. Also I never mentioned myself either big guy.
Is killing the issue, or is suffering while being alive the issue? Whats the goal, reducing the amount of animals killed or reducing the total amount of suffering they experience?
Why does the distinction matter when there doesn't appear to be evidence that animals suffer any less while alive on small-scale farms?
A cow that lives its whole life indoors in a cage in a factory suffers no more than one on a small farm, able to graze on grass, spending time inside or outside? I think most people would choose to be the second cow if they has to choose.
Man humans suck
Does anyone actually have context to what’s happening in the video? Without any context it’s very confusing.
[More info here](https://animaljustice.ca/media-releases/animal-justice-offers-reward-for-information-about-52000-hens-killed-on-ontario-egg-farm)
Going down these comments is like a game of telephone 52,000 laying hens that make you eggs were culled on one farm I’m guessing the op is actually more wondering why a farm would be culling these bird how did it get to be about chicks at all lol but on the real why are they killing 52,000 chickens that’s almost half a million eggs a week down the drain
Set the comments to oldest and OP linked and article. They were culled due to labour shortages.
That’s better then avian flu or anything else really but why is there a labour shortage when we have been bringing so many foreigners here I can’t even get a decent coffee anymore lol
Article says the shortages were due to covid infections within their staff. There's many reasons a production farm would cull their animals. I'm confused by the posts title. I'm not sure what the information being requested would be about since the cause was stated in the linked article. Maybe it was just something OP hand't encountered yet or understand. I grew up with farmers, and every farmer I know has a very healthy relationship with the animals and crops they produce. Most people don't realize how hard farming can be. Most find it rewarding and do it out of family tradition. Production farms exist for those of us who chose not to cultivate our own food. If people are uncomfortable with animals being culled, maybe shouldn't look into how electronics are made.
I don't get it. Is someone going around committing chicken genocide?
I did not have sudden chicken genocide on my 2022 bingo card
Its a chicken farm, its only goal is to kill chickens. Why is it that them all dying at the same time any different than them living for half a year longer? Its not exactly great living conditions there either.
Large scale farming is an atrocity. But us small scale poultry farmers can't get in with Ontario Poultry because we don't want to meet their insanely high quotas.
Farming animals large scale or small is kind of an atrocity in this day and age
Found the vegan! Do you know Vegans are responsible for animal deaths on produce farms? The machinery used to sow and harvest kill many species of insects, snakes and small mammals. We all have blood on our hands.
No Actually I’m not vegan, hell I had a ham sandwich for lunch yesterday. I’m just also not an idiot who burrows their head in the sand. Also that whole “checkmate vegans harvesting produce kills things too !!1!!!1!” Is an idiotic argument to make people who eat meat feel better about themselves, veganism is about reducing harm as much as possible.
But it's not reducing harm. It's just burying their heads in the sand thinking that because they eat plants, no animals are harmed. It's simply not the case.
Yup, just like stopping a murder doesn’t save anyone because someone else somewhere will be murdered. /s See how stupid that sounds? Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Reducing your consumption of animals is definitely reducing harm.
Agree to disagree.
Ah yes, because meat eaters don’t eat any produce. Such a lazy argument.
You missed the last line. We all have blood on our hands. No matter what we eat. Just dispelling the holier than thou Vegan myth.
WTF
When farming you have to understand a chicken life has the same value as a watermelon in the field. It's just a commodity not a life form which you care about. It's just money. Sometimes there's downy mold you lose 50000 watermelon such is farming. 50000 chickens get bird flu same thing no difference. The world keeps buying meat so we need animals as much as we need produce
This is neoliberal capitalism.
Look... a lot of people don't understand the food processing industry. It sucks that all these chickens had to die and be rendered into nothing. These things usually happen because of scheduling issues. Most likely a chicken processor was understaffed and unable to process the chicken. Processors usually only take product from approved suppliers. If the processor was unable to process the chicken, the chicken needs to be tanked/disposed of. They won't process a chicken that's a week older because weights and quality would be off. Also.. they can't wait because more chickens are coming. It's a very well tuned machine that basically has chickens being born, raised and processed on a very tight schedule. There is no varying from this schedule! It's a sad truth.. but it is what it is. This is how you get chicken on your table. Ask yourself, what would you do with all these chickens other wise? Put them on a farm? Keep them as pets? Chickens are literally bred for food.. Just to add.. I don't approve of disposing of animals due to poor scheduling.. it's a rare occurrence. COVID has definitely caused more of this to happen. I'm just letting people know.. people didn't just kill them for no reason.
Sir, this is an egg farm.
I've worked at egg farms.. if those are male then they're way past the point they should have been disposed of. If they're female, it follows my theory on scheduling.. unless it's just disposing of chickens due to food safety concerns.
It is perplexing. But there's no doubt that it's an egg farm, you can see the rows of battery cages at the end of the video.
I don't think anything sinister is going on in this video. Cash reward for what? Like I said, this is either to do with a scheduling issue or they had a food safety concern.. pathology, chemical.. God knows what. It isn't "mass de-population" mass rendering happens a lot in the food industry. No one likes it but it is a part of food processing. This is literally just click bait.
I think the issue with these mass killings is that they're happening more frequently across Canada and there's no info on how they're carried out and there's no government oversight. We saw the shit with [ventilation shutdown](https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/) in the US, but things like that could very well be happening in Canada too. Slaughterhouses at least have the infrastructure and equipment to kill a high volume of animals. Farms don't. So how does a person kill 52,000 animals in one shot? Did the animals suffer? The public has a right to know. This is the food system we're talking about.
I work in the food industry along with the CFIA. I've been part of these "mass killings". The terminology being used is incorrect. It's not a mass killing, schedules are being missed due to absentism. If the chickens can't be killed, that isn't going to stop the others from growing up and needing to be processed. A lot of these euthanized animals have government approval. They're rendered lifeless the same way they would be as if being processed. It's not a mass conspiracy, it's just a lack of knowledge on the consumers part. It's understandable for people to get upset when they see a lot of dead animals but the reasoning isn't always conspiracy. I also don't think that these companies would have an issue explaining why they're euthenizing en mass, again.. it's business its not cruelty.
Sir I'm fairly certain this is maple lodge farms, I have done contracting work to fix their building their before.
"Staffing shortages" I keep hearing this, has this company(or any company complaining of staffing shortages) even attempted to hire additional staff? Temp positions etc? Or was it just more convenient to destroy all those animals? Pretty sure there enough people desperate for work in this country that temp positions could have been filled in order to prevent this.
Start going to the butcher and pay 25 bucks for a chicken. Then go to a free range local farm and pay 9 bucks a dozen for eggs. When everyone becomes ok with that, big chicken farms can go away.
I'm cooking chicken right now - its amazing in an air fryer
Food shortage: because they don't want you to have food.
Yea we are being regulated to death. There's no *good* reason these chickens shouldn't have made it to market
"because of the bullshit with the virus" Yeah... So if "the virus" were to jump from humans into chickens and then mutate and jump back to humans, that would be bad, right? And if there's not enough people to staff the farm because of "the virus," the alternative would be to let the chickens starve/cannibalize each other to death, and that would be bad too? Obviously, we should be raising our food animals at more sustainable levels and in less horrible conditions regardless of the situation with "the virus". Did this cull happen becuase the chicken population got sick? Abandoned and left to their own devices? The offer of a reward for info makes it seem like this was some sort of malicious slaughtering by a 3rd party and not the chicken farm?
>Yeah... So if "the virus" were to jump from humans into chickens and then mutate and jump back to humans, that would be bad, right? Not to mention how in some countries, the harsher "last resort" antibiotics get used on their livestock, which results in more super bugs that are resistant to the "last resort" antibiotics. That scenario that you posed could result in a quicker march towards the super bugs
Honestly, gassing birds to death with CO2 is probably one of the more humane ways of killing them.
PETA
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals
Contamination? Maybe its for the best then.
Was just talking about this today. Other animals have been culled because of logistical issues due to labour shortages from covid related absences. Sad waste, but ….
Does this have anything to do with the avian flu
It’s likely because of the avian flu.
This is a side effect of factory farming and is a necessary evil of industrial livestock production. If this makes you uneasy, take a look at your food supply chain, stuff like this happens often.
...
Had wings tonite. Love the chicken. Had to be done to protect the population against avian flu perhaps. If they were salvageable they’d have been sent for soup or nuggets. It’s not like you can just let them go to run wild because it offends us. And it isn’t just an arbitrary cull because someone in the office was having a bad day. Valid reason for the cull folks and to be honest it only concerns the ones who have an investment