Livestock Auctions, I Hates Them

[rinalia]

I took our newest staff member to a livestock auction yesterday. I hate these places. They are surreal. I always encourage anyone who eats meat or consumes dairy to visit - it's where "spent" dairy cows and day-old male dairy calves end up. It's not pretty.

People bring their children. They sit in bleachers and watch as feeling, frightened non-

Comments

[normaeinstein]

My heart aches for them all.
Those Brolier chicks are so lucky for you to have taken them.

[slave2tehtink]

AH! I remember what I wanted to ask you -- Do you have advice on keeping "meat chickens" healthy for something like a normal lifespan? We're looking at building a second coop/run for spring for bantams and I'd like to save some Cornish types, but I've heard if you free-feed meat chickens like you do egg layers, then it is disastrous for them past the age they were meant to be slaughtered at. I'm wondering if there's a way/what the best way is to keep them as healthy as possible and not crippled by their own weight.

The chicken sites I frequent sadly have no advice since most people there actually kill them and eat them and thus aren't interested in giving them a normal chicken lifespan.

[zebrallama]

In addition to getting advice from rinalia, you could also ask Bede Carmody, who runs a big poultry sanctuary in Australia. He usually has a lot of "meat chickens". I'm afraid they don't live very long no matter what you do, but Bede's at least live long enough to socialise with each other and enjoy the sanctuary for a while.

Bede's email address is FreeChook@bigpond.com.

[rinalia]

That makes me happy to read

[zebrallama]

Our oldest peepers are 5

Wow! Well done!

[rozae]

So sad...

[zebrallama]

*hugs*