“What Has Massive Breasts, a Weak Heart, and a Lifespan of 42 Days?” So Tom Philpott begins his article on poultry farms. The answer, of course, is the chicken that goes into your chicken nugget. Here are a few “nuggets” from the article:
“The number of chickens produced annually in the United States has increased by more than 1,400 percent since 1950 while the number of farms producing those birds has dropped by 98 percent.”
“Concentrating so much waste, laced as it is with arsenic and antibiotic-resistant pathogens along with algae-feeding nitrogen and phosphorpus, is bound to cause problems..”
Each bird lives in constant light to trick them into over eating and lives in space the size of a standard sheet of paper.
“A broiler can now go from hatchling to raw material for chicken nuggets in as little as 42 days—representing a growth rate four times as fast as those that prevailed just 50 years ago.”
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