By ilovechickens - 15/04/2012 03:46 - United States
I agree, your life sucks
29 722
You deserved it
6 524
Add a comment
You must be logged in to be able to post comments!
Top comments
Comments
As much as I agree with some people on here (OP shouldn't force their beliefs, specially expensive ones, but maybe they don't have means of buying their own eggs) I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the dad yelling that. Chickens are ugly. Also, the regular eggs have already been laid, and whether you agree with their living situation or not, the chickens don't thank you for buying cage-free eggs. It doesn't affect them.
Iknoweverything
29
I agree... if you want to be a friend to animals, buy the eggs yourself! You can't just expect that the person who supports and feeds you to just decide to pay more for a product because his kid thinks it's kinder. Besides, all grocery store chicken eggs have suffered in capacity regardless of whether or not they were caged. If you REALLY want to be a friend to animals: buy your own chickens, treat them nicely, and eat THOSE eggs. Free-range chickens tend to have more vitamin-rich eggs anyways.
MissHayleyJames
7
As far as chickens go, keeping them caged is actually in their best interest. They stay cleaner, there's much less disease spread, and they don't attack/maim/kill each other. I used to be all for free range chickens too until I learned the facts. Statistics are in favor of caged chickens healthwise. Not to mention, you won't always know how fresh an egg is if it's free range. It could be one that got overlooked the first time around and is now not so fresh. If you just have a few chickens in a coop at your house, the maiming and killing will be minimal (but will still happen) but when commercial farms have thousands of chickens you'll get a lot more disease, injury, and death from them. The term pecking order originated from chickens because they peck each other to establish dominance, and often will peck a chicken to death. So there's your daily dose of ag education. Find out the facts before listening to the media :)
MerrikBarbarian
9
198- that is only applicable in a factory setting where "free range" means they have thousands of birds in a cramped barn and caged or not still have 1x1 foot of space if they are lucky. "free run" birds just don't need to worry about getting stuck in cage bars. I've got a flock of true free range birds. They have a spacious barn at night and roam freely outdoors during the day. None of my hens attack each other, and the only sick hens I've had? Came from cage layers I bought at auction because they were in horrible shape when I got them so many didn't survive past the first year of getting them. My hens that free ranged from chicks? Still going strong and laying well at 3-4 years old.
MerrikBarbarian
9
Stupid fml edit system. Tried to edit my last comment because I realized I missed part of what you said. I still disagree caging is better since cage hens get sores from wires, go bald and can become entangled in the wire. "free range" are still cramped in factory farms but they can at least move about. I think any factory setting is bad for animals in general however, and resent factories saying "free range" when the public thinks that means happy hens running around a farm... Not stuffed by the thousands into a barn. It's corporations way of making the public pay more for something which is barely better. OP should find a small scale producer if they care so much. Farm eggs are often less then store eggs
MissHayleyJames
7
Yes what I said applies to factory farms, not the 10 or so chickens someone has in their yard. When you only have a few of them, the fighting is minimal. When you have a lot of them though, there will be lots of fights, injuries, and death. So when raising that many chickens, caging them is the best way to go, and in order to feed everyone in this country we have to raise that many.
MerrikBarbarian
9
211- correction, to feed everyone in the country cheaply and easily (ie no work for the people eating) we need factory farms. If more people kept a couple backyard hens like they do in other countries, there would be an abundance of eggs without factory farms. We'd also need to do away with government regulations designed to keep the little guy out. Small scale producers could fill the niche, but laws limiting the sale of produce unless you go through a corporation which charges you fortunes and controls your farm basically, really bar small producers from doing so. Where I live they are starting to change that and all stores carry at least one brand of eggs from local farms. The other factor you are missing in your evaluation factory farms are needed is waste. We waste thousands of pounds of food each day. If we wasted less, we'd need to produce less.
MissHayleyJames
7
So you think that CEO on Wall Street should keep a bunch of chickens in his bathroom in NYC? You are correct that factory farming is cheaper and easier. Duh. That's the point. Most people can't raise their own food. It's expensive and time consuming. If you're fortunate enough to have plenty of time and money to spend on growing your food, good for you. For the people who live in apartments or work full time or make minimum wage that's not a possibility. You also can't keep chickens inside city limits in a lot, if not most places. We have to look at society from a realistic perspective, not an idealistic one that is next to impossible. If you think factory farming is "cruel", what about all the people that would torture their own animals if they had to raise them themselves? They wouldn't get the proper care they needed because people wouldn't know how to take care of them, and sadistic people would torment them. Like I said, if you raise your own food and whatnot, good for you, but that's not a realistic option for most people.
itsame0987
18
209 by that logic you are a disgrace yourself. You seriously need to get off your high horse. If you're not a vegan then you need to shut your mouth. Do you think meat makes its way to a supermarket in a humane way? Good for you for owning 2 chickens - who cares - I will enjoy my eggs and meat and as far as buying eggs go I will not pay extra for them just because they say "cage free". That is absolutely ridiculous to expect people to pay extra for that.
MerrikBarbarian
9
Right in downtown, no, it's not feasible to have chickens in a home. However all cities have suburbs. A flock enough to provide a family with eggs and a few dozen extra to sell per week is absolutely feasible to anyone who has any sort of yard. A 100x100 foot lot is plenty of space for an urban flock. Many cities unfortunately ban this, though there is a growing movement to allow for urban chickens. It's not costly in terms of time or money to have a small backyard flock. Most of their feed in the summer is grass and bugs. I'm not rich by any means. Point in fact I'm well below the poverty line. Keeping chickens saves me a ton of money. I'm not suggesting absolutely everyone do so... But if more people did you'd massively drop the reliance on corporate monopolies. Factory farms have 1-2 people per 1000 animals approximately, so for the most part I don't think individuals would provide any worse care than factory farms. Sadistic people are everywhere.
MerrikBarbarian
9
227- actually I am vegetarian, and have been for decades. The only animal products I consume- eggs- I get from my own birds. I absolutely hate people who contradict themselves by saying they are against something then supporting it in some form, so I make a point not to contradict myself. I'm not on a high horse. I'm just pointing out the current system has flaws and there is viable alternatives if people shift their thinking a little. As it is current economic predictions are we will have to stop factory farming and shift to more local small scale food or face food becoming too expensive to eat with rising gas costs, so my point is a bit moot. People will be having backyard gardens and flocks within the next couple decades or starving according to current research (which started in the 70's and has been accurate til now) Anyways this debate was going quite civilly til you started calling names. Can we go back to a nice educated discussion now please?
Well, humans as well as every other animal will make sure they're taken care of, their close ones, their species, then other species, in that order. What that means is between a chicken and themselves, you prefer the chicken suffers, and it might just be a dollar, but it's not a one time thing and it's just not eggs switching to a PETA friendly diet is expensive
MerrikBarbarian
9
94- by PETA friendly do you mean all the expensive fake meats their site calls for or a vegan diet? Vegan diet is far cheaper then meat based if you are cooking it yourself and not buying pre packaged food. I've gone from omnivore, to vegetarian, to vegan and back to vegetarian because I decided to raise hens for eggs. Eating mostly vegan still I can live on less than $100 a month by buying bulk beans and rice and in season veggies. Meat... Holy geeze I don't know how anyone affords it now. If I ever went back to eating meat I'd hunt and small scale fish farm. So if you mean following PETA's dumb advice about stocking up on fake meats I agree. If you mean vegan/vegetarian assuming you cook, then no, that is way cheaper then meat.
simplylost643
0
#235, No it's not just a "single fuckin' dollar". Let's say there are three people in the family, who each eat 2 eggs for breakfast per day. 6 eggs per day x 7 days = 42 eggs, about 4 dozen. 1 dollar extra per dozen = 4 dollars per week, 16 dollars per month, and 192 dollars per year. So in 5 years time that "single fuckin' dollar" just became close to 1000.00 dollars.
Fuck your father and any person who thinks or feels that way all creatures are beautiful!!!!!
You guys really care about appearances of animals, don't you? I don't care if I do get thumbed down. Chickens may not be the prettiest animals on the planet, but anyone who owns them knows you can learn a thing or two from them. You can even learn a thing or two from ants, small though they are. They will stick by each other no matter what, and are ten times better at saving than the average human.
The eggs have been processed and all traces of Cage are removed. It's to prevent a repeat of the Nicholas Cage disaster and make sure movies like Ghost Rider are never made again. It seems a little extreme to me but then I liked Face Off, so I might not be the best judge of this public health policy.
Free range eggs or cage free eggs aren't actually that different from other egg farms. They are actually still in cages, but the cages are bigger and have softer flooring so their feet won't be as damaged as normal chicken farms. It's also less killings amongs the chickens themselves as they got slightly more space. Still, they don't see the sun.. Used to work for a free range farm..
TraceCase_
19
130, you make a good point. I've seen "free range" vary quite a bit. Sometimes it means the chickens are let out for a half hour a day and rarely, it actually means what OP wants it to mean. Point is, you should do some research before deciding if it's worth the extra buck. That being said, chickens are filthy creatures that live to shit everywhere, including on each other and in their water. Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between an egg and a huge pile of shit. They're also raped constantly by the roosters while they're "free roaming". Just saying, I don't think they should be caged either, but they can be kind of ugly.
Lifes_a_bust
0
Do you want to know what's really fucked up? Eggs are considered "cage free" when the chicken is "free range", yes. But, "free range" can mean a hundred+ chickens locked into 1 room with as little as 2 small windows that let in air. The FDA ain't nothin' to mess with! Also, you're technically eating the chickens menstruation. ;D
MissHayleyJames
7
Once you learn the facts, you'd agree caging them is actually more humane than letting them become disease ridden and ripping each other to shreds. I unfortunately can't repeat an entire course lecture here, but at the beginning we all though free range was best. At the end, we all agreed caging them was best. If anyone's interested message me and I can give you statistics from that lecture later.
Hurr hurr, did you think of that all by yourself? That's so original and I've never heard that stupid shitty joke in about a million different formats before! It's also even more funny when used out of context in situations where PETA haven't even been mentioned. You're hilarious, where can I sign up for your newsletter?
ok I'll feed the troll. PETA stand for people for the ethical treatment of animals. They're supposed to be an animal rights activist group but they're total hypocrites and their "protests" generally result in more animals being hurt and more people thinking animal rights activists are wacked.
Rddvl
11
Chickens that lay eggs are not killed for their meat. Modern factory farming has bred two very different kinds of chickens - broiler chickens (for meat) and layers (for eggs). Broilers have been carefully bred since the 1930s to grow twice as big in half the time (this in itself creates serious problems, regardless of the environment they are raised in) and are now typically killed at just six weeks of age. Layers have been bred to lay twice as many eggs as they did in the 30s (just before the idea of factory farming started to take hold). They are killed after their first year of laying, as they do not produce as many eggs in their second year. You cannot eat the flesh of a factory farmed layer chicken. So what happens when the hen reaches the end of it's first laying year? What about when a little male chicken hatches out of the egg of a layer? I'll let you research that gruesome business yourself. /educationalrant
Keywords
Nearly
I agree, your life sucks
98
You deserved it
29
I agree, your life sucks
88
You deserved it
11
Spicy
I agree, your life sucks
481
You deserved it
82
I agree, your life sucks
584
You deserved it
127
Well if you're so concerned about it buy them yourself...not to sound harsh but your dad obviously isn't on board
Chickens are not ugly! They are cute.