Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Raising Chickens for Meat
A lot of people are squeamish about killing animals of any
sort for food. Still others have moral or religious objections to
the practice. If you have moral or religious objections, please
skip to the next chapter as there is plenty of other information
elsewhere in this topic to help you raise a healthy diet without
meat. If you are merely squeamish, though, this chapter may
put you at ease. Be forewarned, though, that this chapter
contains graphic pictures of chicken slaughter.
Selecting Chickens
For sheer efficiency, the easiest choice is to order day-old
Cornish cross chicks from your local agricultural supply
store. These are also known as “broilers.” These are bred to
grow quickly with lower feed requirements and to pluck
easily. These are a sort of hybrid franken-chicken and are
simply voracious eating machines. In fact, they eat so much
and gain so much weight so fast that they may start dropping
dead or breaking their legs from sheer weight anytime after
12 weeks of age.
