Chicken Debeaking and Hormones: Notes on Agrarian Guilt

Image via Wikipedia

Agrarian Guilt, My Chicken Debeaking

You have heard of Catholic Guilt and Jewish Guilt, consider Agrarian Guilt: Hormones, Chicken Catching & Debeaking in the late 50's. I told you in my bio that I caught chickens as a kid – now some dirty, smelly details.

Here in the US, some memorable connections in '07 with summers past – July 4, our Independence Day…

This agrarian guilt thing is a late onset problem with me, just freshly discovered. -Not a result of too many controls in childhood, rather a reaction to finally recognizing a big problem: You might be interested in these details of a long standing agrarian practice regarding raising chickens: Debeaking and, back then – Hormones, and Antibiotics. May be too much information!

Debeaking: See this chicken's top beak: – check how long it is out there in front? Back in the 50's, and even today, farmers debeak chickens so they don't cannibalize each other in big farms [see the next picture below]. Yep they cut off that top beak. Hate to admit it now, but back then, we cut them off with a pair of manual nail clippers [now electric], the kind used on a pet dog's toenails. You can still get a job as a professional chicken debeaker.

Too Much Info

Check out this diagram from the Practical Poultry Raising Peace Corps Manual M-11 [fyi: We took off 1/3 of the top beak]

Picture this: Angola Indiana, 1957: Angola is rural, in Midwest farm country, – a small town – the county seat in idyllic northern Indiana, Steuben County, with >110 freshwater lakes in the surrounding area. Beautiful place to grow up, got me into fishing.

Picture this: I arrive with my friends at the chicken farm in my leather chicken catching jacket, chicken catching hat with the pheasant feather, and leather gloves. Important footnote: You can handle chickens better in darkness. The birds get less spooky and don't pile up to smother each other, so the time for chicken catching is late at night. Bandanna over my face and nose, the strong, acrid smell of chicken manure, and a cloud of serious dust in the dim, low lighting. Like a manure fog. [Ever been to a meeting like that?] In we go…

Just picture this…

The chickens are scattered, as in this picture, and our first mission: herd the chickens to one end of the long building so we can debeak them… and, here comes the agrarian guilt, inject them with antibiotics and hormones!

Late into the night we catch them, carry them by their legs [~4-6 in each hand] to the movable fence that crosses the building, debeak and inject them, and throw them on the “done” side of the fence.

It was fun then, and work on the farm gave us a good summer job.

-Some reports say it is apparently illegal now to inject growth hormones, but briefly reading the chicken literature, it appears that chickens consume/are fed a number of troubling toxic elements.  Some apparently are xenoestrogens, relevant to our growing “hormone/psych interests” and long term health. Much conflicting info on the current state of chicken-feeding-and-injection affairs, but this note is interesting.

“There are 27 chemicals licensed for use in chicken feed which include hormones and antibiotics. All of these chemicals along with PCB's and those chemicals that are not allowed may accumulate in the flesh of these animals. The chicken you eat can contain the residue of many toxic chemicals.” From HealthLink in Canada.

Please comment back here if you have any more current info on injecting antibiotics and hormones for “chicken culture.” Did I say culture…?

The important question on this table: Any difference in raising chickens from 1950 to 2007? Now… what do we do about the barbecue?

cp

Related articles

• What is “Organic”? (sooobig.com)