April 14, 2004
Chick Talk
A few years ago, Lorenz said, out of the blue: "I'm going to Fergus to pick up chicks". I remember doing a double-take there. Mostly, I was astounded by, well, Fergus as the target for said chick picking up. That, and hearing Lorenz proclaim he was going to pick up chicks.
Yeah, well, you probably figured it out long before I did. If a farmer tells you he's going to pick up chicks, chances are he's talking about some fuzzy things that fit into the palm of your hand. Me, I actually had to ask for clarification. But I'd never really thought of where chicks - as in, the things that make chickens, otherwise known as pullets and cockerels - come from. I know they hatch from eggs. But I'd never thought of how I get from an egg with a dark spot in it (ie. a fertilized egg) to a fluffy little thing that says cheep. Somehow, in my mind, a momma hen would sit on it for a long time, and... I don't know. I'd just never considered hatcheries.
Well, I know better now! Because today, Lorenz sent HP to St. Jacobs to pick up lots of chicks. And then I went to the barn to look at the chicks, and I indulged in some chick photography. And then I asked Lorenz a million questions about chickens and learned a whole lot. And now you, because you're reading this, will get my secondhand knowledge of poultry raising. You can call it "chicken lit" if you like.
So here's what I know. I know that girl chicks are "pullets" and boy chicks (shaddup) are called "cockerels". I know that you buy chickens "sexed" (but I knew that already, because I read The Electrical Field a few years ago). I know that depending on breed, pullets may be more or less expensive than cockerels (breeds that are primarily layers, the pullets are more expensive, breeds that are meat birds, the cockerels will get a better price because they gain weight better). I know that there aren't just layers and meat birds, there are "dual-purpose" chickens, which are suitable for both but don't meet industrial standards for either.
Today's chicks are not a uniform bunch. 70 of them are "layer variety" - meaning pullets (girl chicks!) that are bred primarily to, obviously, lay eggs. They start to do so at 5 months or so. The older they get, the bigger their eggs get - the really old laying hens will often have double-yolkers (I don't know why that is), but they won't lay as frequently. They're "variety" because the hatchery jumbled up a bunch of laying breeds - there are black ones and yellow ones and brown ones, which may or may not correspond to breeds such as Rhode Island Red, Columbian Rock, Buff, Harco, New Hampshire or Barred Plymouth Rock (or crosses of these) . I'll have to wait and see what they look like when they're a bit bigger before I can figure out something more specific.
But there are also 60 cockerels (boy chicks! heh. I love that.) They are called Frey's Special Dual Purpose, though I am just as likely to call them dinner (what? that's not callous. Malcolm called his pig last year "Bacon". And we ate him. How can eyeing the chicks and thinking of dinner be callous compared to that?). The dual purpose chickens lay eggs (not the cockerels, of course), but not as prolifically as laying hens. Lorenz got them as meat birds, and he got males because they gain weight faster and reach a higher weight - these chickens will grow to about 8 lbs by 15 weeks (compared to only 6 lbs for the females).
The cockerels are all buttery yellow now. When they grow up, because they're males, they'll be white (the females would be brown). They don't, however, look much like that other white meat bird, the White Rock meat chicken. These suckers will reach maturity and more than 7 lbs at 8 to 10 weeks. However, because they gain weight so quickly, their poor little cardiovascular systems can't keep up, which means that they are much more likely to die of flip-over disease and acities (respectively, heart attacks and fluid in the body cavity). The hatchery points out that these sorts of birds are "much more susceptible to environmental stresses than other breeds" and, while they guarantee delivery of live, healthy chicks, they don't take any responsibility as to what happens to them after that. Want to guess which birds are more common in conventional meat production, White Rocks or Dual Purpose? Yeah, not much of a challenge, is it. They fit the general trend of post-World War II food production to a tee - in 1957, at seven weeks, a White Rock tipped the scales at 2 lbs. By 1986, the same breed at the same age averaged 4.5 lbs, and by 1999, 6.3 lbs. No wonder their little bird organs are stressed!
And all those cute little birds? They're only 24 hours old! No wonder they're so tiny. Lorenz says that chicks have a window of about 48 hours after birth when they can handle not being fed, and that it is common to ship just-hatched chicks by air mail all over the place! After that, though, you have to be very nice to them. They have to be within three feet of food and water for the first 72 hours, the water hast to be lukewarm and fresh every day, and they're fussy about light - too much light and their immune systems don't develop properly and they'll reach sexual maturity too early (and this means poor egg quality and health problems because they'll grow too fast). Fussiest of all is of course temperature, they like 32-33 degrees, which the hatchery recommends they get from a 250W heat lamp per 50-100 chicks. They're all jumbled up now, the pullets and cockerels, but when they get older they'll need to be separated since the dual purpose males will get bigger faster and thus be more aggressive.
That's a whole lot of chicken information I absorbed today. The cat, however, would much rather have absorbed some chickens. She snuck into the chicken coop twice while I was in there taking pictures of the little balls of fluff, and looked fairly outraged when I ejected her both times. She tried a third time, but I cut her off at the door. She gave me a rather dirty look when I walked past her and her mountain of dry cat food - much like I would react if there were piles of chocolate and you forced me to be content with boiled cauliflower.
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In Ontario, certain commodities are under the control of the so-called "single-desk sellers", also known as "supply management". Now, in theory, I like supply management (despite its euphemistic name). It means that farmers know exactly how much they can produce with a guaranteed market, and what price they'll get. This allows more effective planning at the farm level, and takes some of the risk out of the operation.
In practice, though, supply management also means that you need tremendous capital outlay to buy quota. Since we don't tie our quota to land, it can become your retirement fund - you can realize enough to live on the rest of your life if you sell it. Sometimes, it's your biggest asset. Now, the farmer just starting out isn't going to have the capital to buy quota in addition to land, buildings and equipment. The ones who can afford to buy quota are usually the ones who are already set up for it - because they already have quota. So supply management can directly contribute to intensification and concentration in the sector.
Poultry is no different - in order to raise chickens on a commercial scale in Ontario, you need to be part of the club, in this case the Chicken Farmers of Ontario (formerly the Ontario Broiler Products Marketing Board). Guess what breed the CFO/OPBMB was originally created to "manage". Oh, right, you already did, up there in that discussion on meat birds. So, the club produces over 200 million chickens per year (the quota, by the way, has a cash value of $2 billion). If you don't want to play or they don't let you play, you can't have more than 100 hens. It used to be 500, but the OEPBMB (Ontario Egg Producers Marketing Board) lobbied to have it reduced to the lower number in 1983 (the 1% of Ontario poultry production that falls outside the quota guidelines was a threat, apparently).
So, single-desk selling means, in effect, that stability and profitability is guaranteed for the big boys, which can get bigger if the demand for poultry goes up. It also means that the small farms are forced to stay at sizes so small that you can't actually make real money from the chickens. 100 organic hens aren't going to lay more than 100 eggs a day, either (considerably less, actually), they need more space, and their feed is that much more expensive. Interestingly enough, though, in Ontario you can still buy a day-old chick from a conventional hatchery and, as long as it's not started on feed at the hatchery, raise it as certified organic. I'd think, though, that you'd get much healthier genetic stock if the chicken parents were raised organically as well. According to Lorenz, Europe has already moved that way.