That PDF is focusing on cow farming, not chickens, and more != worse, the hormones used simply allow more to be produced, less does not mean better quality, with more animals your chances of having problems is going to go up, not because of their conditions, but because you simply have a larger pool to draw errors from, this "better quality meat" is probably the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC file, you can't honestly tell the difference, but it's just a huge mind game of "it's better". The bad effects of the added hormones and such far from outweigh the positives of using them, food has to be produced for a massive population, and this is one of the best ways of going about that efficiently.

This topic is about factory farming I am within the context of the subject when posting that PDF. It is the conditions. It is basic ecology when you have animals outside of their natural habitat you will see decline in health and population. It is not subjective. It is scientifically better to raise animals in better environment because you can see that the animal is healthy thus be more nutritious to you. You seem to be disregarding science over the quality and economic benefit.

Factory chickens are just as healthy as regular ones. They've also got a much larger population thanks to hormones.
So eat your free range crap. I'll stick with the cheap stuff. It doesn't make me sick. That PDF throws up smoke screens by talking about what could happen rather than what does happen.
This makes no sense for a variety of reasons. First, you make up terms, like "opportunity cost". Regardless, you can never be sure what "too high" is. Most chicken comes from factory farm because factory farming is the most efficient. Even if that supply void is filled by another source, they don't do it as cheaply. The price goes up. There's more to determining price than supply and demand. Just because non-factory farm stuff exists doesn't mean it is equal to or superior in efficiency compared to factory farmed stuff.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:45 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Keep names in quotes please.

You gonna need to prove that statement against basic ecology because they are not in equal health.
I do not eat free range most of the time. I eat the foster farms stuff.
non-factory farm existing means the consumer is willing to buy non-factory farm meat. Opportunity cost is a real term. The opportunity cost for a non factory farm meat is x amount of factory farm meat. Having all factory farms is not the most efficient in the economic sense. If you have all factory farms, there are people who demand free range and the all factory farm will not give that to them.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:46 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Names in quote (this time not your fault)

This would have happened to begin with, however as the animals evolved and adapted they would have eventually assumed (or will assume) better overall health than before, because they evolve.


Assuming better=free range/foster farm. I don't see any BIG problems other then larger amount of errors (mutations, diseases, etc.) which simply seems to come from a larger pool to find them in, so unless someone has percentages...


Also, the human population is constantly growing at an exponential rate, however, land is not.

We all have to eat. Foster farming/Free range does not produce as high a ratio of chickens to land as Factory farming does. (I may be wrong here, however i do not believe so.)

Eventually we would need to find more land, or move back to factory farming (or a more 'humane' alternative that provides a near or greater ratio of chickens to land, which hasn't been talked about.)

The PDF you posted proves nothing, and it is obviously subjective, judging by the "Consumers Can Say No to Factory Farms - Vote with Your Dollars!" Which shows the real purpose of the article, to advertise non-factory farming. And you can't honestly call that science, since the only data given in that PDF was the less helpful fats in factory farm meats, which wasn't substantiated by numerical evidence, like all the rest of the reasons given not to use factory meat. Show me some real data proving that hormones added hurt humans, or that the antibiotics used are harmful at all. Almost every bit of "science" in that article is an unproven statement, backed up by some big-sounding company that if you actually do any research into at all, you discover it's really some hippie company. If the effects of using factory farms were as bad as they're making them out to be, don't you think we'd have gotten rid of them a while ago?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:47 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Keep names in quotes please.

Factory animals aren't sick. Ergo, they are healthy.Cool. Don't ban the stuff I eat.Just because free range and foster farms exist doesn't mean there's no room anything else. Nobody proposed banning them. It's a scarecrow.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:49 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Keep names in quotes please.

Factory animals aren't sick. Ergo, they are healthy.[/quote=name:MasterJohnny]
Define "sick" Webster says "affected with disease or ill health" Factory farm animals are more prone to disease. The healthy norm for a chicken is the free range kind. The factory farm chicken does not come close to the quality of free range. To be healthy implies "full strength and vigor as well as freedom from signs of disease". Factory animals pretty much live in disease. I do not think you could get a biologist to tell you that those chickens are healthy. Just "good enough to eat". (you can eat plenty of things that are not healthy)
The difference between banning factory farming and candy and soda is the use of antibiotics and hormones have adverse effects on people and the environment. If you had some factory pig get loose, you could potentially have drug resistance diseased animal running around. Where as candy and soda more of a individual problem that does not spread.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:49 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Name in quote (you did nothing wrong this time either)

Low low chances mean nothing.

One of your free range chickens could get bitten by a raccoon with rabies. Then you would have a chicken with rabies infecting everything.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:50 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Name in quote (not your fault)

I thought there were already basic laws like that? We have them in the UK.

More prone to disease doesn't mean sick. Also, citation needed.If factory animals were infected with E. Coli, then the people who eat them would get it. Outbreaks of E. Coli generally lead to recalls and media attention. That doesn't happen in awhile. Even if your theory that we can eat disease and not get sick is true, then what's the problem?
Yeah, and if we had a guy with MRSA escape from a hospital he could spread it! The development of drug resistant diseases is extremely rare. And who says hormone pumped chickens cause health problems?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 5:00 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Name in quotes.

There are, actually, but they've lessened more and more as they're found to be quite unnecessary, the animals simply have to be treated fairly well in order to produce good product, so it drives farmers to do it, not some silly law.

Also:
Saw that on the Wikipedia page, so apparently the animals in there are better suited to do so, just a fun fact.

And to match your biased PDF, here's a quote from a man who runs one of these "horrible" factory farms:


Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:53 am by Falkoner. Reason: 'Cuz Cecil will get mad at me for quotes

This is extremely silly. That can never happen because chickens are birds and rabies is a disease that only effects mammals.

Drug resistance diseases are becoming more common.
"The resistant bacteria in animals due to antibiotic exposure can be transmitted to humans via three pathways, those being through the consumption of meat, from close or direct contact with animals, or through the environment."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance#In_medicine
There is a whole section on this in my biology book but the wikipedia article is ok

I want a source for that quote. It does not say was is in the feed. That man is after the money. I do not know if any of you guys have farming experience but those chickens are not content. They attack each other because they cannot move.

I wish you guys were better in biology.

1. Rabies could mutate.

2. The concept still remains, a desiese could spread.

Enjoy , I'll be straight up with you, I honestly don't care much about how "content" the chickens are, the entire intention of their life is to become food, they're not pets. In order to produce good food, they have to be treated at least semi-well. I honestly don't think they're intelligent enough to really care either way, so why waste the extra money? I think the problem here is that you're trying to put yourself in their shoes, what you should be trying to do is imagine having an IQ of 6 and being in their place, that's 4 times worse than a human nutcase, they really don't care either way.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:51 am by Falkoner. Reason: 'Cuz Cecil will get mad at me for quotes

In factory farming disease would spread faster. In free range the animals are still protected from wild animals because it is one big cage rather than many individual cage.


The quote is from a book entitled Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
I cannot fully tell you how the quote is taken out of context because google books has that page omitted. But from what I can tell from the 40ish pages I read it looks like the author probably was using it in some (satirical?) fashion to criticize it. The author Matthew Sully seems to be against factory farming but I am not quite sure of his reasoning because he seems to be using a lot of ethos and pathos. (whereas I am using logos and science in this discussion) He talks about the how the real experienced farmers have lost their jobs to big business in which they hire inexperience immigrants to do the work. (as I guessed before the quote is about a guy wanting big money)
Overall I think you should have read the source before using the quote. (you should also buy that book because I think its a good read for you because you do not seem to use science)
However on my PDF source is scientifically accurate because it was put together by foodandwaterwatch.org in which if you read the about page many of them hold degrees in many backgrounds.

I do not consider the factory farm chickens "good" food.

No I have not been using bioethics in my posts. What I have been stating is purely biology and ecology.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 10 2010, 4:52 am by MasterJohnny.

There is no scientific evidence in your PDF, no numerical data to support the claims given, and making silly and untrue ad hominem arguments isn't going to get you anywhere, your PDF simply says possible outcomes of doing so, none of which are proven to actually be true, just that "it's likely" or "it's possible" or "this suggests that", nothing concrete. Statistically there is nothing proving factory produced meat to be any worse, other than perhaps slightly worse fat content, but it's not that huge of a problem to say that they're not worth what you gain in production.

The quote still stands, I told you it was said by a factory runner, so obviously he is fine with factory farming, and is simply giving his opinion of it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2010, 4:51 am by Falkoner. Reason: 'Cuz Cecil will get mad at me for quotes

2 things to say, from a moderatory standpoint:

Falkoner:
The PDF does contain a variety of interesting scientific evidence supporting the claim that factory animals are less healthy than pasture-raised animals. This is indisputable. However, you are correct when you say some things are not substantiated with numerical evidence, because the material does not provide the exact percentages of data, methods used, ect. From this point forward please be more specific concerning your attacks on the validity of the PDF source. If you keep berating it without reading through it and accurately reflecting what it actually says, I'm going to have to take some form of action.

Masterjohnny:
You may have been right, but don't continue implying that falkoner "doesn't use science" and that you wish "we were better in biology." Right now it's not a big deal, but if you continue on that path it will become ad hominem like falkoner has suggested, which is also grounds for me to take action.

From a non-moderatory standpoint:
That quote was nice, falkoner, but it doesn't say anything about the actual condition of factory farming because the man who said it has a great chance of being biased. I've seen investigative reports on factory farming, and they're not clean and shiny and state-of-the-art as the man implies. Maybe his is, but many are not. In general I agree with you falk, that factory farming is necessary and the animals are being raised for food and shouldn't necessarily all get their own suite, but I wouldn't deny that factory animal meat is of a lesser quality than normal grazing animals, nor would I deny that the likelihood of disease to propogate in a factory farm is much greater. There seems to be both reasonable evidence and intuitive reasoning that supports it in the PDF. It still would be beneficial to have a second source which shows the percentage increases and numerical evidence and such though.

And so the Animals rights guy enters...

Firstly, I'd like to say that 'facts' are something I'd rather not use in an debate/argument such as this. One thing I learned is that Statistics are incredibly inaccurate and there will be different statistics coming from different sources. Example, an animal rights groups like PETA might say 'More then 50 thousand animals will die a day from a single factory farm!'

Meanwhile the other side will perhaps say something more around the lines - '10 Thousand animals are 'quickly' and painlessly killed a day to feed our country.' Basically, what I'm saying is that Statistics and facts are a source I'd prefer not to follow, simply because we must question just how accurate and honest they really are.

But that aside, here's my thoughts -

Factory Farming is indeed efficient, and lets not even pretend that if we stopped it there would be enough meat to go around for everyone. In Canada, we probably could drop it, the entire population of Canada is less then the City Of New York alone after all. In America however, you're all in a bit of trouble. Personally, I my self consider this entire issue one of Morality Versus Sustainability.

Either way, we go from one extreme to the other. We either stop it all together, and have no fucking clue what to do with the five thousand cows which were about to be slaughtered (but luckily enough for them weren't.)
Or, we continue to feed humans, a species that's overpopulating.

Why is the word 'moderation' hardly used in these issues?

Perhaps what we should do is narrow down on who is distributing the food, and narrow down who it's being distributed to. Lets keep in mind, the purpose of factory farming is to feed everyone's mouths and to keep them healthy. What we don't need is the food being in fast food restaurants.

Clearly, an animal should die to at least ensure the survival of another, not to make them obese and die of a heart attack because they eat at Mcdonalds every day. So there, that's one solution that's healthier. Sure, it's a slight inconvenience for some, but if that 'really' matters then we're not being serious rational beings. We're just being spoiled brats who can't Simply go to a store and buy the damn things instead.

We should also inspect the suppliers and at least have some expectations for the quality of our food. If the people lose their jobs because their work place is shit then who cares, they should of been more thoughtful to both the consumers and their product. Oh, and meat should be banned from prisons, I wouldn't think that a cow should feed a murderer.

So there, I suppose all I'm saying is that we simply need moderation.

Firstly, I'd like to say that basing an entire argument off pathos is stupid. Statistics are only inaccurate when taken incorrectly. PETA lies. Some other sources do too. This is why you check independent sources.

Again, pathos doesn't make for a good argument.


Hippies have been claiming we are an overpopulated species. However, the population is still growing and so is the food supply, which has long been large enough to support the world.

Because not picking a side is lame

I'm no fascist, so I disagree.

Oh, if it's for utopia, then sure.

We already do inspect our food sources. I don't think I need to respond to your ramblings.

Your argument had nothing to do with moderation. You mentioned it once and then rambled on. And what's moderation? Just a vague term. I think the current system is in moderation. Alright, we're good, discussion over.