6 ms·

Perdue Says Its Hatching Chicks Are Off Antibiotics

160 points by sizzle 12y ago

rayiner 12y ago
I always thought it was illegal (in the US) to use antibiotics in chicken. At least that's what the packaging says.
- nicksergeant 12y ago
  Maybe your packaging. Definitely not our packaging (http://wegmans.com/ http://wegmans.com/).
  - theg2 12y ago
    Oh Wegmans...they're a great family company and all and treat their employees well (from experience) but there is this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99T_xb9NTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99T_xb9NTs It's a bit heavy handed but they weren't always leading fight against humane and responsible farming / livestock.
    - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
      And run like every other industrial egg farm in the US.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/chickopedia/#six http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/chi... > All chicken is “antibiotic-free” in the sense that no antibiotic residues are present in the meat due to the withdrawal periods and other precautions required by the government and observed by the chicken companies.
  - PythonicAlpha 12y ago
    Yes, no antibiotics residues are present in the chicken, because of the long periods ... but nobody can guarantee, that the same is true for resistant bacteria ...
- pmorici 12y ago
  You might be confusing growth hormone with antibiotics.
Alex3917 12y ago
If you've never seen them, the infamous chicken farm footage from Baraka and Samsara is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOLfVMyql1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOLfVMyql1M
- Shivetya 12y ago
  farming at an industrial scale would upset many people, even for practices that are wholly legal. There are every day occurrences in this industry the public would not want to know and might even tune it out when presented because of the adverse reaction it would cause. the best example is breeding chickens for egg laying, males are not wanted.
  - Joeboy 12y ago
    > the best example is breeding chickens for egg laying, males are not wanted. That applies to farming most animals, at all scales. It seems kind of odd that feminists have http://www.caroljadams.com/spom.html http://www.caroljadams.com/spom.html, while the MRAs have missed the boat on this one as far as I know.
epynonymous 12y ago
can i just say duh? how else do you get so many chicken mcnuggets and fried chicken? it's like reverse survival of the fittest, the ones that should die are saved. yay viruses!
yannibuk 12y ago
What's interesting is that a big driver for this is social media. I was at a conference once & the CEO of Perdue listed this as a top driver behind this movement. He justified it this way: imagine that it costs an extra $0.01 per pound to create chicken meat that is antibiotic free. If the profit margin was $0.05 per pound that would cut profits by 20%. Today, negative PR on Facebook or Twitter can quickly spread to erode the value of a brand far more than $0.01 per pound of cost savings. He said that the reason for the switch is driven by consumers, who are now empowered by social media. From a nutrition tech standpoint there are a number of products including probiotics, beta glucans & others that help to protect the birds by boosting immune system activity rather than by killing bacteria. When used in combination with vaccines they can be very effective, albeit slightly more expensive. However, these ingredients add cost & come at a metabolic cost to the animal (i.e. it takes more food to produce 1 pound of meat if more of that energy is directed towards a functioning immune system & away from weight gain). Animal nutrition science is in many ways more advanced than human nutrition due to the ability to conduct controlled studies and access to large amounts of data. However, the goals are very different. Animals account for ~80% of antibiotic usage in the U.S. and MRSA now kills more people in the U.S. than HIV. It's an interesting topic.
- dpatrick86 12y ago
  Great point. Positive changes like these resulting from social backlash are what make so-called "ag gag" laws particularly disturbing.
- micro_cam 12y ago
  So antibiotics in animal feed aren't usually for protection from infection. They promote growth and bulk via mechanisms that aren't really well understood and were discovered somewhat by accident when someone started feeding waste from antibiotic production to chickens. Really: http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in-animals/non-therapuetic-use-of-antimicrobials-in-animals/use-of-antibiotics-in-animals-for-growth-promotion http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in... http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book2004/thakur/thakur.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book...
_red 12y ago
How is this different than the nearly universal use of vaccines? Before you compulsively knee-jerk and claim that I think vaccines are evil and cause autism, take a breath. The most damming argument against vaccines is that the continual use of vaccines (i.e. forced antibody production) produces same set of evolutionary selectors that help create 'superbugs' that injected antibiotics are often derided for. However this basic biological fact escapes most people that haven't taken Biology 102 and beyond (which is 99% of the population).
- gph 12y ago
  But isn't the main difference that a new vaccine can easily be created for any new strain of a bacteria or virus, whereas once something becomes resistant to an antibiotic then that antibiotic is now worthless to fight that infection, and antibiotics are extremely rare and difficult to create.
  - sehugg 12y ago
    Indeed, flu viruses do react to selection pressures, but we deal with it by making a new vaccine each year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_drift Which is not to say that we could not benefit from further research into the process.
  - NickStefan 12y ago
    I wouldn't say either are "easy". A new vaccine for the flu every year is more like finding a new lock combo solution for the same lock (recombinant DNA). Having to find a new antibiotic more like an entirely different door. Vaccines merely find a way to train our immune systems to tag the villain. Anti biotics have to actually find weaknesses and exploit a biochemical pathway that can be disrupted etc.
- ejr 12y ago
  Community density and population migration is a large factor in vaccine effectiveness. What most vaccines provide is really herd immunity. That is a disease, if it spreads, will be limited to a select few who aren't able to vaccinate or have compromised immune systems, preventing an outbreak of wide proportions among an otherwise healthy population. It's a bit more complex than the widespread and largely unnecessary antibiotic abuse happening in livestock farms. Unnecessary because more sanitary and efficient methods exist for raising them that obviate their need. Disease can be contained by quarantine and preventative measures which isn't possible among a migratory population like humans.
giarc 12y ago
I can't find this from a reputable source, but a FB friend shared a Buzzfeed story about the advancement in egg selection. Apparently Unilever has developed a technique to sex the eggs before they hatch and therefore can prevent the males from being born. As you may know, males are killed on day 1 since they serve no financial benefit to chicken farmers. Therefore, they can stop the practice of sending the male chickens to the macerator.
- poultron 12y ago
  Hey there, I'm intimately familiar with the poultry industry in all aspects. What you're referencing is for egg-utilizing companies, like unilever, who need eggs in their products (ice creams, etc.). Unilever is requiring their egg producers to adopt new technologies to detect male chicks in the eggs and prevent them from hatching, leading to only the female chicks growing into hens, which lay the desired eggs. The chicken-producing industry (very different from the egg producing industry) does use males. They're differentiated for some products (Perdue's Oven Stuffer Roasters, for example), but 95% of all producers in the country now run "Straight-run" operations, meaning they dont differentiate between male and female birds (no sexing the chicks and separating them). Originally this was a problem, conforming your machines to process two different sized birds (a double-bell-curve, so to speak), but streamlining the selective breeding over the years has brought the females and males together as far as feed conversions and weight gains go. Always happy to shed light on the poultry industry and it's many quirks :)
  - gadders 12y ago
    Interesting to hear about the industry side. We have 20 chickens we keep as a hobby - a mix of hybrids and pedigrees. We can't tell the sex of some of these until they're weeks old, let alone at the egg stage.
    - poultron 12y ago
      Typical commercial sexing methodology is by holding the wings of the chicks out and looking a the feathers on the wing-tips. There are two sets of feathers there; if the feathers are of equal length, the chick is male. If one set of feathers extends further, the chick is female. https://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/sex-linked-crossings-Figure7.jpg https://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/p...

160 points by sizzle 12y ago

rayiner 12y ago

I always thought it was illegal (in the US) to use antibiotics in chicken. At least that's what the packaging says.

nicksergeant 12y ago
Maybe your packaging. Definitely not our packaging (http://wegmans.com/ http://wegmans.com/).
- theg2 12y ago
  Oh Wegmans...they're a great family company and all and treat their employees well (from experience) but there is this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99T_xb9NTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99T_xb9NTs It's a bit heavy handed but they weren't always leading fight against humane and responsible farming / livestock.
  - kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
    And run like every other industrial egg farm in the US.
ceejayoz 12y ago
http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/chickopedia/#six http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/chi... > All chicken is “antibiotic-free” in the sense that no antibiotic residues are present in the meat due to the withdrawal periods and other precautions required by the government and observed by the chicken companies.
- PythonicAlpha 12y ago
  Yes, no antibiotics residues are present in the chicken, because of the long periods ... but nobody can guarantee, that the same is true for resistant bacteria ...
pmorici 12y ago
You might be confusing growth hormone with antibiotics.

Alex3917 12y ago

If you've never seen them, the infamous chicken farm footage from Baraka and Samsara is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOLfVMyql1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOLfVMyql1M

Shivetya 12y ago
farming at an industrial scale would upset many people, even for practices that are wholly legal. There are every day occurrences in this industry the public would not want to know and might even tune it out when presented because of the adverse reaction it would cause. the best example is breeding chickens for egg laying, males are not wanted.
- Joeboy 12y ago
  > the best example is breeding chickens for egg laying, males are not wanted. That applies to farming most animals, at all scales. It seems kind of odd that feminists have http://www.caroljadams.com/spom.html http://www.caroljadams.com/spom.html, while the MRAs have missed the boat on this one as far as I know.

epynonymous 12y ago

can i just say duh? how else do you get so many chicken mcnuggets and fried chicken? it's like reverse survival of the fittest, the ones that should die are saved. yay viruses!

yannibuk 12y ago

What's interesting is that a big driver for this is social media. I was at a conference once & the CEO of Perdue listed this as a top driver behind this movement. He justified it this way: imagine that it costs an extra $0.01 per pound to create chicken meat that is antibiotic free. If the profit margin was $0.05 per pound that would cut profits by 20%. Today, negative PR on Facebook or Twitter can quickly spread to erode the value of a brand far more than $0.01 per pound of cost savings. He said that the reason for the switch is driven by consumers, who are now empowered by social media. From a nutrition tech standpoint there are a number of products including probiotics, beta glucans & others that help to protect the birds by boosting immune system activity rather than by killing bacteria. When used in combination with vaccines they can be very effective, albeit slightly more expensive. However, these ingredients add cost & come at a metabolic cost to the animal (i.e. it takes more food to produce 1 pound of meat if more of that energy is directed towards a functioning immune system & away from weight gain). Animal nutrition science is in many ways more advanced than human nutrition due to the ability to conduct controlled studies and access to large amounts of data. However, the goals are very different. Animals account for ~80% of antibiotic usage in the U.S. and MRSA now kills more people in the U.S. than HIV. It's an interesting topic.

dpatrick86 12y ago
Great point. Positive changes like these resulting from social backlash are what make so-called "ag gag" laws particularly disturbing.
micro_cam 12y ago
So antibiotics in animal feed aren't usually for protection from infection. They promote growth and bulk via mechanisms that aren't really well understood and were discovered somewhat by accident when someone started feeding waste from antibiotic production to chickens. Really: http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in-animals/non-therapuetic-use-of-antimicrobials-in-animals/use-of-antibiotics-in-animals-for-growth-promotion http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in... http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book2004/thakur/thakur.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book...

_red 12y ago

How is this different than the nearly universal use of vaccines? Before you compulsively knee-jerk and claim that I think vaccines are evil and cause autism, take a breath. The most damming argument against vaccines is that the continual use of vaccines (i.e. forced antibody production) produces same set of evolutionary selectors that help create 'superbugs' that injected antibiotics are often derided for. However this basic biological fact escapes most people that haven't taken Biology 102 and beyond (which is 99% of the population).

gph 12y ago
But isn't the main difference that a new vaccine can easily be created for any new strain of a bacteria or virus, whereas once something becomes resistant to an antibiotic then that antibiotic is now worthless to fight that infection, and antibiotics are extremely rare and difficult to create.
- sehugg 12y ago
  Indeed, flu viruses do react to selection pressures, but we deal with it by making a new vaccine each year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_drift Which is not to say that we could not benefit from further research into the process.
- NickStefan 12y ago
  I wouldn't say either are "easy". A new vaccine for the flu every year is more like finding a new lock combo solution for the same lock (recombinant DNA). Having to find a new antibiotic more like an entirely different door. Vaccines merely find a way to train our immune systems to tag the villain. Anti biotics have to actually find weaknesses and exploit a biochemical pathway that can be disrupted etc.
ejr 12y ago
Community density and population migration is a large factor in vaccine effectiveness. What most vaccines provide is really herd immunity. That is a disease, if it spreads, will be limited to a select few who aren't able to vaccinate or have compromised immune systems, preventing an outbreak of wide proportions among an otherwise healthy population. It's a bit more complex than the widespread and largely unnecessary antibiotic abuse happening in livestock farms. Unnecessary because more sanitary and efficient methods exist for raising them that obviate their need. Disease can be contained by quarantine and preventative measures which isn't possible among a migratory population like humans.

giarc 12y ago

I can't find this from a reputable source, but a FB friend shared a Buzzfeed story about the advancement in egg selection. Apparently Unilever has developed a technique to sex the eggs before they hatch and therefore can prevent the males from being born. As you may know, males are killed on day 1 since they serve no financial benefit to chicken farmers. Therefore, they can stop the practice of sending the male chickens to the macerator.

poultron 12y ago
Hey there, I'm intimately familiar with the poultry industry in all aspects. What you're referencing is for egg-utilizing companies, like unilever, who need eggs in their products (ice creams, etc.). Unilever is requiring their egg producers to adopt new technologies to detect male chicks in the eggs and prevent them from hatching, leading to only the female chicks growing into hens, which lay the desired eggs. The chicken-producing industry (very different from the egg producing industry) does use males. They're differentiated for some products (Perdue's Oven Stuffer Roasters, for example), but 95% of all producers in the country now run "Straight-run" operations, meaning they dont differentiate between male and female birds (no sexing the chicks and separating them). Originally this was a problem, conforming your machines to process two different sized birds (a double-bell-curve, so to speak), but streamlining the selective breeding over the years has brought the females and males together as far as feed conversions and weight gains go. Always happy to shed light on the poultry industry and it's many quirks :)
- gadders 12y ago
  Interesting to hear about the industry side. We have 20 chickens we keep as a hobby - a mix of hybrids and pedigrees. We can't tell the sex of some of these until they're weeks old, let alone at the egg stage.
  - poultron 12y ago
    Typical commercial sexing methodology is by holding the wings of the chicks out and looking a the feathers on the wing-tips. There are two sets of feathers there; if the feathers are of equal length, the chick is male. If one set of feathers extends further, the chick is female. https://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/sex-linked-crossings-Figure7.jpg https://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/p...