Millions fewer chickens to be raised & killed in Florida
January 16th, 2009 by admin
It’s been a bad month for chicken farmers in Florida.
Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s largest chicken producer, filed for bankruptcy protection in December. To cut costs, the company eliminated over 500 jobs at its enormous slaughterhouse/processing plant in Live Oak. Then the company terminated the contracts of 19 farmers in Suwannee and neighboring counties who raise chickens for the plant.
What does this mean for chickens? One of the farmers whose contract has been cancelled told a local television reporter that his farm, where chickens are confined in 16 warehouse-like buildings, “produces 2,300,000 pounds of meat every 60 days.” (Of course, what the farm really “produces” are living, feeling animals.)
Chickens raised for meat have been bred for rapid growth. It takes less than 60 days for a chicken to reach “slaughter weight,” about 5 or 6 pounds. The numbers are mind-boggling. Every two months, this one megafarm sends approx. 400,000 chickens to the slaughterhouse!
Unfortunately, Pilgrim’s Pride’s troubles are a result of bad business decisions and high feed costs rather than a drop in consumer demand for chicken flesh. But any reduction in the number of animals suffering in factory farms in Florida, however temporary, is good news.