Video: What's Wrong With Eggs? The Truth About The Egg Industry – Erin Janus
Did you know the government's Humane Slaughter Act, Animal Welfare Act, and the Twenty-Eight Hour Law all exclude chickens from their protections? And the USDA warns egg producers that they may be violating labeling laws if they tout their foods as “nutritious” or “safe.”
www.vermontjournal.com
Electric fencing offers protection against chicken predation June 23, 2018 SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – Keeping a small flock of chickens at home to provide eggs and meat has become increasingly popular, but many first-time small-scale poultry farmers are discovering that several species of wildlife like the taste of chicken as much as we do. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department urges poultry owners to use electric fencing and follow other precautions to protect their birds from predation. chicken Vermont Fish & Wildlife urges poultry owners to use electric fencing and follow other precautions to protect their birds from predation. Photo by John Hall. “We have had a dramatic increase in the number of complaints of bears, foxes, raccoons, fisher, coyotes, skunks, and bobcats preying on chickens,” said Colonel Jason Batchelder, Vermont’s chief game warden. “Many of the calls are coming from people who are new at keeping chickens and who do not provide sufficient protection for their birds.” “Electric net fencing, secure housing and a few other measures can help protect back yard chickens from most wildlife predation,” he added. Protecting free-ranging chickens is impossible, so Batchelder urges people to keep their birds contained inside electric net fencing and to make sure any wire fencing is secure. Use of one-forth-inch hardware cloth, especially along the bottom of an enclosure will block most small predators. Weasels can get through a one-inch opening. The electric netting, however, is good extra protection even outside the wire netting – especially against black bears, which are strong enough to break into most unprotected chicken coops. Several types of electric net fencing are available. The netting is portable and can easily be used with chicken tractors and other moveable pens. Here are additional tips to help keep your chickens safe: Apply bacon grease or peanut butter to a spot on the electric fencing as an added deterrent. Cover the tops of pens with wire or plastic netting to guard against attacks from avian and climbing predators. Bury galvanized hardware cloth or netting 12 inches deep around the perimeter of the pen to prevent access by digging predators. A motion-activated light to illuminate the coop after dark will discourage some predators. Motion-activated alarms also can deter them. Store poultry feed in a secure indoor location in tight containers, and only feed poultry the amount that can be consumed in one feeding. Batchelder, who has chickens at home, says having your own back yard flock is fun, but that knowing how to protect them is essential for success.
Which is better, growing poultry for food or those birds and nothing like them existing at all, either in captivity or the wild? If people want only plants to provide food (and this video is a promotion for vegan diet,) there will be little space available for any wildlife, and there will be limits on other resources' availability and use. Cultivation will replace many other options for all societies, and transitioning will be expensive. It is not practical, or if it is, nobody is explaining HOW to get, what, 8 billion people, almost all of them poor, to eat vegan. One admires people for being empathetic to animals and wanting to at least try to make things better, but this avenue doesn't seem to lead anywhere.
ReplyDeleteUsing your first argument, shouldn't every woman be striving to produce 10 or more children? So many unconceived children are being deprived of the joys of life. Just think for a moment how cruel that is.
DeleteAs for agricultural space, depending on the crop and the animal, one can get up to 20 times the number of calories per acre growing human foodstuffs than grain for animals. According to the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) 1999 Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply Report, an average of 8 pounds of grain is used to produce a pound of beef in developed countries. It takes about 2 pounds of grain to produce one pound of chicken meat, about 4 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of pork.
This does not take into account the additional fuels and other resources required to keep, transport, and slaughter the animals.
My initial question was simply a question, not an argument. The best logistical outcome (in my opinion) would be for birth rates and human population levels to go way down. I don't see that happening; indeed, most societies are geared for the opposite, i.e. "growth", essentially mindless growth and consumption.
DeleteThe point about relative calories per acre is interesting. I'll do some reading.
Mindless growth and consumption are what capitalism is all about. I'm not advocating communism or collectivism, but it seems to me that in order to insure the survival of the human race, a certain level of socialism is in order. In America, we can produce more food than we can consume. We pay farmers NOT to produce food with farm subsidies. If we stopped, market forces would make food more expensive to produce than it could be sold for, which is what caused the "Dust Bowl" as well as The Great Depression. THAT IS WHAT SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS DOES! If we, the taxpayers, must pay farmers in order keep the economy from failing, perhapse we should pay them to produce, and just give the food away! (Price controls would do the same thing, but are unconstitutional.) The only alternative would be population control measures such as forced abortions and euthenasia. Not a pretty picture!
DeleteHoo doggy.....what a moonbat......you're in your element,that being Vermont Comrade Commie!!!
DeleteYeah, I'm in the right place, 3:45. It's you who doesn't belong! Get the picture?
DeleteEnjoy the Cannabis Festival in Johnson today there Puffy. Maybe try preaching to your munchie afflicted comrades as they wolf down their hot dogs.
DeleteBuck-buck-buck-ZAP! MM-MMM, fried chicken!
ReplyDeleteA rule of thumb is ten calories of energy input will produce one calorie of energy in the food one consumes. Thus, eating getting 100 calories of energy from an apple results from eating 1,000 calories of apple from an apple tree using 10,000 calories to make it. Eating 100 calories of energy from beef results from eating 1,000 calories of meat which came from a cow eating 10,000 calories of hay, grass, corn, etc., which were produced by 100,000 calories of energy. A good argument for KISS....
ReplyDeleteI think you people have to get back to basics and answer the simple question of what came first the chicken or the egg.
ReplyDelete