Menu

Description: Before 1940, aside from 'spent' layers, most chicken meat derived from chickens reared in brooder houses such as that in this image. Typically, a farmer would take delivery of about 500 day-old chicks early in the spring, calculated to allow the chicks to forage outside when their size and the weather permitted. No doubt this contributed to their nutrient requirements, mostly unknown at that time. Each year, before it was populated, the house was sanitized (eg, creosote) and moved to a fresh location, we now understand to escape infectious agents such as coccidia that contaminated the previous site. At that time, chicken meat cost more than beef. By 2000, the overwhelming majority of chicken meat derived from broilers produced on farms with several houses, each with floor pens for 5,000 to 10,000 birds. During this 60-year period, feed per pound of gain dropped from over 7 pounds to less than 2, and age at market weight (~ 4 pounds) dropped from 12 weeks to under 6. Selection for meat production and feed efficiency, and several management improvements are responsible for this remarkable change in productivity. Consequently, broiler meat is now less costly than beef.

Resolution: 2809x1532

File Size: 1.41 MB