Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.
Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.
And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.
California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.
That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.
“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.
California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.
Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”
That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.
The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.
Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.
But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.
I let the few I have run out in the day,but in one year I have gone from 14 to 5 from predators consuming my chickens alive.
Apparently you have never heard of predators and bio security.
Chickens do not produce eggs everyday if they are not treated humanely. Chickens don’t think and feel like people. You are anthropomorphizing.
Farmers that raise chickens are soon out of business when they abuse their livestock and poultry. . Abused animals are not productive and lose money. It is not that complicated.
Sir, I agree.
I wasn't trying to make it complicated and I apologize if I did.
I really believe liberals are insane. They never try to understand the historical issues before mandating laws to change processes and outcomes developed through thousands or years of experience. We in the REAL WORLD call them facts. Liberals tend to ignore them.
You would think man has learned how to produce an egg at a reasonable cost and price to the egg consumer. Since he has accomplished this feat to a certain degree over the ages, the liberal must seek the real reason for this outcome.
To the liberal, the lowest cost egg has been produced only because the lowly chicken has been abused in some way. Therefore in their minds, the lower the cost, the greater the abuse of the chicken must be the reason eggs are plentiful and affordable to the egg consumers.
Now, in order to screw up the egg market and stop this abuse, California legislators must mandate laws to protect the working conditions of the lowly chicken like over confinement or lack of an adequate retirement plan, or who knows what. The hoped for outcome is happier chickens, even if it is at an increased cost to the egg consumer.
Let me remind them of the REAL WORD facts, chickens don’t vote and egg consumers do. And the little children don’t give a crap about the lowly chicken. And the egg consumer is not racist or sexist toward chickens. The other fact is liberal outcomes always come back to bite everyone in the a**, usually after they are out of office.
Now if illegal immigrants could lay eggs at a cheaper cost, how would that affect the outcome? I wonder...
Sure you've read this thread and the belittling of those with different opinions than that held by the free rangers? I don't you have.
My God tells me to eat and not to listen to those egotistical demons who play with our minds by the foolishness of their own minds.
White chickens lay white eggs. Red chickens lay brown eggs. Shell color is the only difference between the two.
Argh, sometimes I hate FR’s ancient web program. I had a whole bunch of stuff started for you and I got back here and it is all gone. Let me try again, saving it each time. Bah, FR! For all the $ we send, upgrade the site!
I have never raised chickens so you have that expertise over me.
This is from where I get my eggs:
All the different terms on egg cartons - ‘free-range’, ‘cage-free’, ‘added this’, ‘added that’ - can be confusing and misleading, and Big Egg-riculture is more than happy to keep it that way. But what we mean by pasture-raising is different. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Start with healthy, green, organic pastures. Sunlight and fresh air. This is where our hens live every day and spend all their time, foraging, dust-bathing, just doing regular chicken things. Every night we round them up (and you can imagine how much fun that is) and tuck them up for the night in little barns or mobile units, but come sunrise, we open the doors and get out of the way, so they are free to come and go as they please. Farming like this requires a whole lot of space! We require that every birds under our farmers’ care live on at least 108 sq.ft. of pasture during daylight hours. This number is also the gold standard for pasture-raising as defined by Certified Humane® , the most respected third-party Animal Welfare Certification Agency in the country. Our girls are voracious omnivores - it’s in their nature - which means they’ll eat just about anything they find out in the fields - grasses, weeds, bugs and worms - and it’s this varied diet that makes their eggs so amazing. Every few days we move them onto a new patch of grass, which keeps them on the freshest, most delicious greens, and ensures that the pastures have plenty of time to recover. Of course, our girls help this along by leaving behind the best organic fertilizer on the planet so that we don’t need to! When our girls are happy, our pastures are fresh, and vice versa! We never use any pesticides or herbicides, ever, so we know we’re not polluting the waters that we all share. Though the girls are always out foraging for food on the pastures, we provide them with a supplemental feed as well to keep them well fed and laying those beautiful eggs. Our feed is 100% vegetarian, antibiotic and hormone free - but, depending on the flock, it may also be Certified Organic or non-GMO. And that’s just about it. Nothing new or fancy. Sure there’s a little bit of heavy lifting now and then, but it’s the girls that do all the work! We just collect the eggs twice a day and get them out for y’all to enjoy!
And this is the kind of thing you can read all over the web about cage free chickens:
“Cage-free” means that, while the hens are not squeezed into small wire cages, they never go outside. “Cage-free” hens are typically confined in dark, crowded buildings filled with toxic gases and disease microbes the same as their battery-caged sisters. And like their battery-caged sisters, they are painfully debeaked at the hatchery. While chickens are designed to dig in the ground for food with their beaks and claws, when deprived of outlets suited to their energies and interests, they can be driven to peck at each other, having nothing to do with their time once they’ve laid their egg for the day in a barren building. Chickens love sunlight - they sunbathe daily outdoors - but “cage-free” hens are denied even this simple pleasure.
For animal rights advocates it is all about sex. Castration is appropriate treatment for any male, man or beast. They never express concern for roosters, only hens.
***“Cage-free” hens are typically confined in dark, crowded buildings filled with toxic gases and disease microbes the same as their battery-caged sisters.***
Chickens will die in a hot house with toxic gases, so most houses have ways to provide lots of fresh air. Many of the newer houses have what we call “Modu-cell” air systems.
Exhaust fans are started at one end of the house, usually holding 20-30 thousand chickens, It pulls fresh air in from outside from the far end of the house, the air goes through a water cooling system much like a very huge swamp cooler. This constantly provides cool and fresh air to the chickens. Then chickens get in no more waste than in a common hen house for about 20 chickens. Chickens are rather nasty birds, You don’t know HOW nasty until you work with them. Any bird that eats the undigested grain of cows and pigs is not finicky about what it eats.
You want to kill lots of birds? Let a power failure happen in hot weather! I’ve seen 20,000 birds die at one time because of this. The farmers walk through the birds to keep them moving and from bunching up and dieing. Most chicken farms now have backup generators for such emergencies.
*** they are painfully debeaked at the hatchery.****
IS this a joke? debeaking is necessary because chickens will peck at other chickens. If they EVER bring blood that chicken is doomed because all chickens will peck at them. It is a natural thing they do, pecking at a dark or bloody spot.
I’ve debeaked many chicks and here is how it is done.
You grab the baby chick. push slightly on the back of the head with the thumb, while pulling in with the index finger under the beak. This causes the mouth to open.
You then push the upper beak against a red hot plate and burn off 1/8 of the upper beak. Put the chick in the box and watch what happens. The chick will use it’s feet to scratch at the burned part for about two seconds, then it will stop and go on about it’s business as if nothing had happened. The entire beak is NOT burned off. I’ve never seen a chick die from being debeaked but I have seen them die from the sexers separating cockerels from pullets.
***they can be driven to peck at each other,****
You don’t drive a chicken to do anything. They are natural scavengers. If you put food on a cardboard floor they will peck at it, then scratch at the floor even though they don’t need to do it. It is in their nature. Take a sharpened pencil and hold it with the sharpened end in the box of chicks. The lead is dark and they will naturally peck at it because it is their nature to do so. If a dark piece of trash or manure gets on their skin the other chickens will peck at it till they draw blood. Then all the other chicks will peck at it till they kill the chick. It is their nature. That is why they are debeaked as a debeaked chicken does not break the skin of other birds.
***Chickens love sunlight ***
No, only a certain amount of sunlight. My chickens often rested during the heat of the day under the chicken house which sets off the ground, or under the weeds. Some sunlight is great, but not too much.
If you had raised as many as I’ve done (remember I also worked for a hatchery) you would see the falsehood in many of these tall tales brought to you by the animal rights groups.
If I remember correctly, about 25 years ago some animal rights group got upset because castrating a bull denied him his “bullness”.
I think most of these groups are just playing on the ignorance of people who have never raised animals for food.
Well, it is good to hear what you say, from the trenches. I can learn a lot from you. Still, I do believe the natural pastured hens lay healthier eggs and I eat eggs every day, so I am sticking with them.
If we spent as much time worrying about the babies we are killing, as we do worrying about chickens, maybe we wouldn't have time to worry about where the chicken drops her eggs.
Does anyone worry about the overcrowding of worms in the worm farms?
Some of us hillbillies is way smarter than we let on... ;)
Just what the heck gives the land of fruits and nuts power over other states?
“Men are supposed to treat animals with a modicum of respect before they kill them and eat them. I don’t think this is as much a liberal versus conservative issue as it is a humanitarian issue.”
I must confess I never had veal until someone told me about the controversial manner in which the animals were raised; it was delicious, but not something I’d normally order (I like other things better). I just had to know...
Not if it's the minimum 15%.......
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