Melensdad:
The information you quoted is interesting, because it’s different in the U.S. Conditions in poultry farm facilities are more open than you describe, though they are indoors. Outdoors, there are a zillion diseases carried by wild birds, and not just bird flu.
My understanding is that it’s tough to raise them at all in Canada on a commercial basis because of the extreme cold. In the U.S., most are produced in a climatic zone that’s moderate; principally in the Upper South/Border State zone. Keeping optimum temperatures, combined with optimum air circulation is an expensive proposition, so the least costly environment is the one that requires the least year-round modification. Corn is the most important feed ingredient, but corn is expensive to transport, relatively speaking. In other words, it’s cheaper to transport meat than it is to transport corn, considering the value of each. So, near access to corn is a big deal. Again, the Upper South/Border State strip is the most efficient area when you consider its relative nearness to corn supplies and overall transportation access to population centers for finished product. Access to fairly low-cost land and plentiful supplies of good well water favors karst-type uplands. Production facilities for final product demands a lot of energy, very good sewage treatment facilities and ready access to secondary product (pet food) markets. Finally, the two best kinds of bedding are wood shavings and rice hulls. Transportation distance really matters for both because of their low economic value. So an area where there is a strong wood-products industry is best for the first. Water transportation is most efficient for the second. If you look for the places where both are pretty good, you again end up in the Upper South/Border State strip.
That’s not to say there aren’t good areas elsewhere in the U.S.; central California for example. But they’re fairly small.
Fascinating stuff to me. Of all the industries in the U.S., poultry production is one of the least likely to move to, e.g., China. In fact, China is one of the biggest importers of American poultry products, and growing rapidly. If you don’t have the right conditions for an integrated system, it’s very tough to do well.
But getting back on topic, or at least close, because they are so common in the area where I live, I have been in integrator facilities of all sorts, and in my mind, they’re a lot more humane (not to mention far cleaner) than people seem to think they are. The overwhelming majority are owned and operated by small family farmers, who raise the chickens for the big integrators. As with all things, one can fail at it, but most make a very good living doing it, and build moderate wealth they could never build otherwise as farmers. So there is a substantial social benefit in it.
What enrironments do chickens like best, if that’s the question? To the best of my knowledge chickens are silent on the subject, so the only source of knowledge we have is the evident stress, or lack thereof, as manifested by their optimum productivity and survival rate. Indisputably, the best results for both are in the integrator farms; the very places animal rights advocates love to hate.
PETA
