I have been meaning to write this post for a while now. When Biden put in place the federal vaccine mandate for companies hiring more than 100 employees, we Tyson poultry growers were shortly made aware of their intention to comply. While it does not affect us; that is, growers don’t have to get vaccinated, it will affect our bottom line, which is not in any way recovered from the shut-down from Covid 2020 or from the fact that people don’t have to work to make more money than they did.
We have been told that the lay-out time (time between flocks) which had just gotten back down to a 26 day time period (normal is 14 day to 21 day) was going back up to 35 days or more.
Most of the processing plant workers are black or Mexican, and those are the groups, who have more often than not chosen not to take the vaccine. No vaccine, no job. No job due to Covid, more unemployment. More unemployment, more Socialism with Universal Income the final goal, of course.
Already, Tyson has trouble filling the spaces with people. Truck drivers are gold. Catching crews (contract only) basically call the shots, because they are platinum. Nobody wants to piss off the catching crews, which are mostly black and Mexican. Growers are absolutely on the bottom of the list and are usually grateful to even have a “contract” with a poultry company.
We have two years to age 70, two old houses upgraded, but we might or might not get two more years out of them.
Sixty-eight is the prime time to take SS, so we are signing up after each of our birthdays. Lucky for us our retirement thingies pay an incredible 0.031 percent interest.
Well…sorry, I fit so much into this post. I just got carried away.
Can you tell me why chicken is so insipid these days? In my youth - way back in the 18th century - chicken had a delicious flavor. Is it the hormones they get to make them white and tender that takes all the taste out of them?
Hormones were banned for use in poultry production in the 1950s. And, absolutely no antibiotics for many years. There is nothing in the feed except grain products, vitamins and fats. A coccidiostat is added during the first three weeks, but nothing after that. We can only use non-antibiotics for treating disease. A staple is cider vinegar, hydrogen peroxide plus copper sulfate, KemSan, which is a fungicide used in feed and hay products, yucca root extract, oregano oil, an acetic acid plus butyric acid mix (vinegar and butter) and for worse cases iodine or amprolium, which is a stronger coccidiostat. If a flock has a severe disease, it is more cost effective for the company to destroy the flock, because they cannot sell any of the birds that have been treated with antibiotics.
A fat and blood sample is taken at week 6 to detect any traces of antibiotic use and tested again at slaughter. If it is found that a grower has used antibiotics, they will never have another flock of birds from any poultry company.
I have heard the same from others about the taste of chicken. I think it is because the companies have cut back on ingredients. Chickens that run loose eat all sorts of meat from worms and crickets to mice and toads. And get lots of xanthophyll, that which makes the egg yolk darker yellow and the skin yellow and the taste more hearty. There are now only grain products in feed, when there used to be animal products there (blood meal, feather meal, bone meal, animal fats, fish meal, bakery leftovers) and lots more xanthophyll added. Remember Frank Perdue and his marigold petals?
You want a tasty chicken or egg, let the birds run loose in your yards and fields. We can’t wait until we can have our own chickens on the farm again.
Oh, it has been hard to keep chickens healthy from hatching to day 52, ever since the companies went No Antibiotics Ever.
Basically, we have chickens that suffer, no matter what we do, for the want of antibiotics in the hatchery or in the field. Makes us so angry…animal welfare, my foot.
Countries that don’t produce as much as the US does have stricter controls over all aspects of poultry production, well some do. They really keep everything very sanitary. It would be possible here with a lot of changes and far fewer chicken houses…and then far, far fewer chicken dinners and at much higher prices. Nobody here is set up for that or wants to move in that direction.
I am mistaken that the chickens are checked for antibiotics at slaughter, according to my service tech.
Yes, it is fascistic authoritarianism. What’s even more appalling than that the government is imposing it is that there are so many people who are so blindly willing to go along with it.
