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So you ask, just what did a chicken look like in 1957

9K views 42 replies 36 participants last post by  Rubberback 
#1 ·
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#3 · (Edited)
I had a great uncle that raised chickens for one of the big providers when I was young. He had 2 large houses. Football field long each. Nasty smelling.
We he started back in the late 50 ' s it took about 10 weeks to raise a chicken to harvest.
When he stopped in the late 80's they were twice as big and ready to harvest in 5 to 6 weeks.
He was required to use the food from the company. He always said they were ever changing the food formula.

Note: Commercially farming chickens is a nasty business from hatching chicks to harvest. I helped him many Summers. I have picked up many stinking dead chickens from summer heat. I am surprised I still eat chicken.
 
#4 ·
Prices have followed the size increase. I was looking at some whole chickens last week at Krogers...I have bought whole Turkeys cheaper. I had to leave it there for someone else, just can't pay $16 for a chicken
 
#7 ·
I don't know if I'm buying all of that .

Yes chickens are growing "weight wise" at a MUCH fast rate now than in the past. However, the days to sexual maturity hasn't changed as rapidly. In the picture above of the 1957 chicken and the 2005 bird, not only is the bird bigger, but the comb and wattles are also much bigger. The development of the comb and wattles have more to do with sexual maturity than size of the bird.

If the pictured birds were the same age, their combs and wattles would still be the same size. Those birds in the pictures above are Not the same age.

I'm calling BS on that part of the Huffington post report. They are just sensationalizing their report with fake age pictures.
 
#8 ·
I don't know if I'm buying all of that .

Yes chickens are growing "weight wise" at a MUCH fast rate now than in the past. However, the days to sexual maturity hasn't changed as rapidly. In the picture above of the 1957 chicken and the 2005 bird, not only is the bird bigger, but the comb and wattles are also much bigger. The development of the comb and wattles have more to do with sexual maturity than size of the bird.

If the pictured bird were the same age, their combs and wattles would still be the same size. Those birds in the pictures above are Not the same age.

I'm calling BS on that part of the Huffington post report. They are just sensationalizing their report with fake age pictures.
You are very much correct, and everything on Huffington is BS.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I did not read Huffington post article.
I just relayed first hand experience helping my great uncle with his chickens for one of the big companies and how the harvest time and weight changed over his 30yrs of growing chickens.
He attributed it to the food formulas from company. Which as part of his contract he had to raise their chicks and feed them the food they sold him .They were in fact growing chickens to harvest weight faster. When he started it took 10 weeks to harvest weight. 30 yrs later it was less than 6 weeks. Genetic engineering or hormones in the food something changed.
Agree pics are not of same age bird.
 
#38 ·
A friend of my dad's was a chicken farmer in Georgia. He said that their feed contained arsenic in it, which was added to make the chickens peck peck PECK! They just ate like crazy. Feeding them a food without added-arsenic lowered the growth rate dramatically. My dad asked him, "How can they (FDA, USDA) allow you to do that?" The farmer's response was, "They let you put mercury into people's mouths, don't they?" **

Genes probably have something to do with it, but feed was the biggest factor.

** Note: Amalgam fillings (usually called "Silver fillings") are generally 30-50% mercury, with the rest being powdered metals like tin, nickel, and least of all silver. My dad stopped putting them into people's mouths in 1983 when he learned the dangers of them, and became an advocate of their removal.
 
#15 ·
I won't buy chickens from the grocery anymore. Chickens are not supposed to be the size of small turkeys. They are tough, hard to cook and taste like ****.

I get my 1957 style chickens from a local source. No AB, no steroids. They are 3.5 to 4 pounds and tender, juicy, and tasty. $1.50 per pound.
 
#25 ·
Nope. I know the farmer that raises them. He's one of those free range organic farmers. Sells a lot to Whole Foods. Young chickens. He'll let me pick my own. I usually let him pick them. An advantage of living in a small town.

Btw. Kenny is right on the Mexican meat markets. They have good chickens. That's where I bought mine when I lived in Houston.

If you are buying your chicken at the Kroger or HEB vacuum wrapped in plastic, you aren't buying good chicken.
 
#19 ·
You are just buying a smaller roid feed chicken that they can get to the market faster, Mexican places tend to be some of the worst because they are used to smaller breed stock because of the temps they raise them in. In simple terms they raise smaller chicken in hotter temps. The larger the chicken the harder it is to keep alive in hot temps. Most of Mexico's chickens are raised in high temp areas.

People are naive thinking the size of the chicken has anything to do with what it is feed, there are chickens of all sizes. None of them are natural.

The corn the chickens are feed are even supped up to grow faster. Only way to make sure you have a farmed raised chicken that has no growth hormones is to raise it yourself, grow the corn with no fertilizer and feed it yourself. Anything less you are only bull****ting yourself.
 
#24 ·
The hormones and genetic manipulation of the chickens and their feed is absolutely astounding how much is done. Almost impossible, in today's market, to buy non genetically
Manipulated and hormone free food.

Post menopausal women and young girls are the most seriously affected by all of this. Do the research.
 
#26 ·
http://hensforhouston.com/
Is trying to get the law changed so that people in Houston can raise their own chickens for food.

My son raised chickens for his FFA projects and we live inside the loop. Although it wasn't legal, our neighbors were cool with it, since it was a school project.

We fed them cracked corn for 10 weeks and they dressed out at 12 to 15 pounds. They were the most tender chickens I've ever had.
 
#31 ·
My neighbors in Port Arthur used to raise seagulls, they were a hot item when our chickens came home to roost, so to speak, starting in 1975 after Vietnam. Even their shrimpers offshore kept a few dozen live but plucked seagulls on board. They were handy if you got tired of eating seafood. Not sure how they measured up in the kitchen, against HEB chicken.
 
#33 ·
The Brookshire store in Katy (Franz Rd.) sells "fryers" 3 1/2 to 4 pounds, with out all those globs of yellow fat on them. Usually about $4.50 to $5.50.

I much prefer them to the 5# baking hens sold as fryers.

Later
R3F
 
#37 ·
Chickens are not the same age at all. Look at their combs.
Yes. The picture is an overstatement, but the fact is that large scale commercial poultry, beef, pork, etc. operations make liberal use of GMO feed, steroids, and antibiotics to increase their yield. A 6 lb chicken, vacuum packed with a bunch of brine is not normal. It doesn't even taste good.

The best tasting chicken is a young naturally feed chicken that is less than 4 pounds. 3.5 lbs is about perfect.

The best tasting veggies are non GMO veggies. Yes they are smaller and harder to grow, but if you compare the non GMO version to the GMO version side by side there is no comparison in taste.

But we have more people to feed that the earth can naturally support. Hence food through chemistry.

But if you have the option, you can still get good product. You just have to look a little harder.

Think of the difference in taste between a redfish or flounder that was swimming that morning and the farm raised previously frozen stuff you get in a restaurant.

If you ever have fresh caught salmon off the Kenai river in Alaska, you will never eat store bought salmon again.
 
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