Sunday, May 1, 2011

Why DID the chicken cross the road?!

Your chicken probably did not intend to find itself here, but it most likely lives in a warehouse like this. I'm not sure if these buildings even count as a coops. What I saw were big, enclosed, pre-fabricated longhouses which smelled like a thousand chickens all defecating in the same place. I don't know why the pesticides were being stored with the chickens, nor why pesticides are needed to raise chickens.
I assume that the super-condensed living conditions attract many pests, but no one was around to give us a tour. There was no real farm to speak of, just 3 huge, stinky shacks in a lot near a semi-rural suburban area. Should these eggs, then, be advertised as "farm fresh"?

I traced some of the eggs I bought back to this place about an hour and a half north of Seattle. The egg company advertises cage free eggs on some of its cartons, but not on others.

Conclusion: There may be a nicer chicken facility elsewhere which I didn't see, but this one stunk. Labels like "cage free" or "all vegetarian diet" doesn't mean the chickens aren't living in a poo-ridden shack eating genetically modified corn. (If you want to learn more about the yellow stuff, watch King Corn.)

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