Posted on 12/22/2018 5:52:43 AM PST by Bon mots
Much of the animal kingdom has discovered many advantages to laying eggs.
I think at the commercial level, since factory farms maximize profits by raising as many birds per sq ft as they can, male chicks are impractical because they start play-fighting long before there is enough meat on their bone to be slaughtered, and even get to serious fighting quite early. It would require too many expensive enclosures to separate them all until slaughter.
This kicking and pecking [which would normally not result in injuries on open ground] would be a bloodbath in a confined setting where the weaker bird cannot escape or take cover, and not just for the males - they would also have to be separated from young females for their safety as well or else the girls would get tackled 500 times a day by juvie cockerels.
Males are manageable in small farm setting where runs are more spacious or there is free range in the daytime, so small timers use them for fryers, usually eating the first one to crow.
Because the egg layer breeds are just that. They do not turn into nice plump birds.
The meat birds tend not to be good egg layers.
If you raise chickens for home use most of us tend to raise what are known as "duel use" breeds. Our Plymouth Rocks will not lay as many eggs as a Leghorn and will not grow as large as a Jersey Giant. They will always fall somewhere in the middle.
For us that is fine. If we were selling eggs for a living it would not be fine.
Got it. Thank you. Sometimes I forget my days on the farm.
I raise tropical fish. It is perfectly clear that fish are intuitive creatures. In a tank full of fish the one I am trying to take out will always hide. The rest, not so much.
LOLOL
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