Meet Your Meat: Antibiotics

Interesting article in the Feb/March 2009 issue of Mother Earth News that looks the problems of continuous use of antibiotics in confinement-style animal raising. Read the whole article here.

1. Historically, we have been close to animals, so many contagious, human diseases have close animal ancestors (pertussis from pigs, flu from birds, TB and the cold from cattle)
2. Oceans of Concentrated Manure, filled with antibiotic resistant microbes (pic)
   
3. And finally, the problem impacts nearby (and even regional) farms that don't use antibiotics:
   

'The costs associated with continuing industrial farm animal production are enormous. If it’s allowed to continue, industrial production as currently practiced could eventually eliminate a lot of other farming options (in addition to making a lot of us sick). As one Midwestern organic farmer explained to me, it’s simply not possible to raise pigs organically if you live too close to a confinement facility: the pathogen pressure is too intense. “Iowa has become a sink for pig diseases,” he said. "They’re just in the air, and you can’t avoid them.'

Know what your choices mean for your planet. And for your animals - the ones you eat and the ones you buy. Choose wisely - choose humanely - choose your farmer well.

This Week's "Top Reasons" List: Why I Love Our Meat Chickens

We had chicken tonight and as I sit downstairs, I smell... broth? Oh yeah, I am simmering the carcass plus some onion, celery, and salt upstairs. Completely forgot about it. But that smell reminded me of how grateful I am to have chickens. Egg layers are cute, maternal, year-round... but the "boys" are only here for 12 weeks. Why do I love them so?

1. Making up their nickname - .We raised Delawares last summer - all boys - nicknamed the "Del-eats". The year before that, the Black Australorps were all "Kenny" since they died at the end (Southpark joke). No word yet on this year's nicknames. Suggestions?
   
2. Chicken Tractors - Those industrious lads mowed all the lawn in the orchard and around the playground for 8 of their 12 weeks. And probably nailed a bunch of the caterpillars under the apples. Free landscape services!
   
3. They bake into such nice dinners - 3-4 lbs after slaughter and when I bake him at 350 for an hour, he doesn't drip enough fat for gravy! Lean boys that are super-moist. Yummy!
4. They taste of something alive - not some marinade or brine they were injected with. No seasoning needed here and the broth stands on its own.
5. Chicken mobs! - There is something to be said for watching one of the boys find a worm/root/leaf, get all "cluck-a-cluck-a-cluck" and half the rest coming storming over to see if there is more.
   
6. They have legs to stand on - Nice blogpost over at ScienceBlogs about a UK study of broilers and how many had trouble walking (about 25%) or standing(about 3%)! Our boys seem to walk pretty well when I brought the feed, even the "hopper" who got his leg caught under the chicken tractor one morning when I moved it.
   
7. Breaking Even Isn't Hard to Do - Raising 25 boys to 12 weeks came in around $175 (bought chicks, bought feed, no straw, paid $3 per for slaughter). And at $7 per 4 lb roaster, we are cheaper than supermarket's "Nature's Place" chicken and ours are healthier/tastier/lower carbon. And actually live on grass, unlike those poor "free-range" chickens with a pop-door onto a concrete yard at the factory farm.
   
8. Lack of Weird Feelings About Their Past - We don't get our chickens from a factory like this one - I am so scared by this image, that I am completely overlooking the pink uniforms.
   

Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005
(Photo: Edward Burtynsky)

- jamey