The Problem with Intensive Chicken Farming

Guest Bloggers: Andrew Marston with Demytrius Smith (8th grade Boy Scouts)

The problem with intensive chicken farming:

You are what you eat.

 

New Hampshire Red Cockerels

          First to dispel a myth you may have heard. Chickens aren’t injected with hormones, nor are they fed them. However, there is estrogen (a hormone generally found to be unhealthy in high amounts) found in chicken meat. How can this be?

          The answer is simple: they are fed feed with a large amount of soy in it—and while contains phyto-estrogen. This results in estrogen in the chicken meat, which you then eat.

          But that isn’t what we are primarily focusing on. Instead, we are focusing on something else: antibiotics.

          Antibiotics are absolutely necessary in the modern intensive chicken farm, because of how they are raised. The modern intensive chicken farm (popularly given the derogatory name “factory farms”) is composed of a big shed, which is more like a very large warehouse. Broiler (a type of meat bird) chickens are covering the floor. Underneath them is their own waste. Thousands of chickens are just sitting, standing, or even lying there.

          These chickens are the breed Cornish Cross. Cornish Cross seems to be bred for two things only: size and growth rates. They grow huge so quickly that their organs and bones can’t keep up. They have a very hard time standing, and even then, they can’t hold the proud-looking, upright stance of a healthy chicken. Their own body weight keeps them from standing, so they lie on the floor (covered in their waste). They are also prone to open sores. Now the bacteria, viruses, and other parasites can now enter their bodies, infecting them. Plus, the close confinement of a lot of the same breed (monoculture) spreads the infection very quickly among the stock.

 

Dominique 6 week old chicks

          This brings us back to why there are antibiotics in their feed. Now, antibiotics aren’t in all intensive farm chicken feed, but in quite a bit of it. "Around 70% of all antibiotics administered are used for livestock. Most of the drugs that are given to livestock are misused and incorporated into their diets daily for the purpose of weight gain or to treat illnesses." (Wikipedia.org) Now you may be thinking: “Well, when they are not sick, then they don’t need the antibiotics.” Of course they don’t need them then. But they still are given low doses of antibiotics that may or may not be important to human use, say, in saving lives from disease outbreaks.

          Why is this important? It is because of how bacteria survive. When bacteria are exposed to antibiotics of certain types, the weaker ones die and the stronger ones can then multiply. Then when exposed to more antibiotics, the weaker bacteria of the more resistant strain are killed, and even stronger strains are made. This unintentional artificial selection brings about antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

          These new bacteria are called “superbugs”. These superbugs may or may not then be transferred to humans through the chicken meat, and now not only are the antibiotics transferred to you, possibly a few superbugs are transferred too. And if these superbugs start infecting people, outbreaks can occur. Now antibiotics once helpful in saving lives don’t work all the time.

Buff Rock cockerel "Romeo"

          What can you do? The answer is not complex at all. It is a little saying called “Vote with your dollar”. And unlike political voting, you don’t have to wait until voting day to vote with your dollar. As the consumers, we can demand better chicken. How? You can vote by literally demanding it, and also by buying local chicken. Grow your own if you can. Encourage elimination of legislation restricting owning chickens in your community.

Dominique pullets and cockerel

          Plus, you don’t need to grow all of the chicken in the U.S. with backyard hobby farms, either. For example, Joel Salatin grows thousands of chickens with his pastured poultry system. And with their natural, organic food, it is healthier for them and they have normal growth rates. Make a difference by knowing where your chicken is from.

          In the end antibiotics aren’t the only issue with today’s intensive chicken farming system. There are many. But all I am discussing here are those problems involving antibiotics. And remember the my very first point: You are what you eat.

 

Buff Rock pullets

Choices

Finding this blog is like stumbling over an old shoebox of pictures in the back of a closet.

Years have gone by and reality has taught me that the theoretical drivel of an over-eager graduate student doesn't always work out as hoped.

After homeschooling for almost three years, how do I respond to my previous self?

With love. We have made it this far only by trial and error.

And now, I am at another fork in the schooling journey. Yet, it feels like a precipice. Full of fear, I tremble at making a poor decision about my kids' schooling. Private school or more homeschool.

A private school offers them friends and challenges in friendship that don't exist at home. The quality of their education may be better, or worse, than I have provided. The point is, I won't have control over it.

Perhaps my control is what the kids need less of. Sure, I can provide the best education money can buy, but they will learn it all in my bubble, unquestioning and apathetic.

Looks like it is time to go to my "control booth" alone, and make a decision.

Future of middle level teaching at PCS

All this talk and reading has been so cerebral. I took a few moments to remember some of my students from this last year, and it makes more sense. They are the students we talk about. I have met them, taught them, argued with them, and loved them.

What is the future of middle level education in Maine? It is too big for me to wrap my thoughts around. I don't understand the complexity of policy and administration and implementation. I haven't been working in the public schools for many years. I am committed to sharing what I am learning to the parent-directed school I taught at last year, and to implementing in my own classroom as much as possible what is best for my middle level students. After many years of teaching (once my kids are in college), I will consider becoming an administrator myself.

It has become obvious to me that, while the board of PCS cares and loves these students (their own children), they do not know how the development of young adolescents should influence their schooling. While I am not an outsider, I don't know how to approach the board without sounding like a know-it-all, or what to suggest. I don't see massive change happening at this small school without a new headmaster with the vision for the change. And quite frankly, they can't afford a well-educated headmaster. I am very discouraged.

I will share about the physical, social, etc changes in young adolescents. I will encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Once again, I will suggest they find a different curriculum than the one in place. It is awful, at best. I'll emphasize what they can do to meet the non-academic needs, because they know the students need help. I would love to teach there again next year and teach science, math and oral and written communication (they need more teachers), but I need to make a break and establish myself in the public school system.

Tech in my classroom

I am already accustomed to dragging my laptop into the classroom everyday to hook-up to the projector, but if my students had laptops (I taught at a private school) I would use them.
They liked making their own PowerPoint presentations and using YouTube and fun graphics. I had to teach them how to search the web for science information (got into a sticky spot once!). So it is an easy assumption that we would use the internet to gain information.

I have not been a facebook fan, but after this class, I see the potential now for interacting in forums and blogs. This is a medium that is natural to our students - I bet they would be teaching me new ways to use it. The program that I want to use is VoiceThread. The students can have discussions without interruptions. Everyone has an equal voice. It is not as personal because it is on the computer (even with the video rolling).

I want my students to communicate with each other and me with Skype. I tried to get them to email me, but (what I have learned from Ed) I need to make it part of the class, and not just as suggestion. I had students who lost a weekend's worth of work time just because they had an unanswered question. They are too shy to call, and don't have my email address handy. But if they had emailed me before, they could have easily accessed that address.

Got to sell it

I've been surprised that these concepts of good middle level education have been kicking around for a long time. We're so entrenched in our current model of teaching that it is hard to wrap our heads around the idea of the student having some control without school spinning out of control. Besides our jobs, at least my future job, are at stake if it doesn't "work out."

Even if, in the middle of the night, our brains can make the cognitive shift, our wills defy the paradigm shift. That sun keeps flying over my head and while I see the math is right for Earth to orbit the sun, I don't want to believe it is true. Prove it. Put me in the rocket.

And that is what the National Middle School Association needs to do. Put teachers in the rocket and send them into orbit.

Imagine a traveling experimental classroom, perhaps in a trailer. Arrive at a school with an experienced teacher in this process, grab a handful of volunteer students and one volunteer teacher and "just do it" for 8 weeks. We need to learn from McDonald's marketing strategy. Sell to the children.

Glossy papers with fantastic graphics work well for the motivated, but how do you sell to the teacher who is happy with the way things are? Just like you would to a classroom of students. Learn by doing. Make it happen with minimal risks. The research is solid, but talk is cheap. Build a few rockets and get them airborne.

What's up with parents? I'll tell you!

I know what school is like and I fully intended to homeschool both of my children through high school. I don't want school to put out the fire of learning. I've got the kids in a private school because my son's social needs required more exposure to other kids. Now this private school is no paradise, but it will do for this next year. After that? If I had the money, maybe Montessori. Of course, while I'm dreaming, I'll start my own school.

Got a kid in the tub...

Level UP

What happens when we pull the dividers out from between the classes? Are the gifted and talented students going to fall asleep? Not if we take the attitude of leveling up, instead of watering down. Think about it, which students thrive with hands-on problem solving? They all do.

The other scary thought in these times of "score well or lose your job": if I don't teach to the test, will my students still learn the material? Yes, overwhelmingly so. Check out "The Benefits of Nongraded Schools" by Barbara Paven (1992). Educational Leadership 50 (2).

Do we need to privatize schools to prove what students can do when not held back by an antiquated curriculum? Or can we make progress within the system? It was very disheartening to hear Ed say that middle schools haven't made much progress as a whole.

I don't want to teach from the textbook- never have. Give me a field guide, a pair of binoculars, a field notebook, and a bug jar and net. Look at how much Bernd Heinrich learned as a boy from spending hours in the woods. That is what science is, once you leave college behind. Problem solving and exploration.

Speaking of exploration, I'm at camp. Time to swim.