Why Have Poultry Multiplied In Size Since 1950?

Why have poultry multiplied in size since 1950? It is said to be to meet the needs of more people in the world, but that is not true. Poultry farmers often use antibiotics as growth hormones and painkillers for feed, resulting in bigger chickens. Bigger poultry size means more health problems. More health issues mean a decrease in the number of hens in the flock, resulting in a loss of money. One of those problems is the inability to stand up, and if a chicken cannot stand on its own, it will lose feathers on its chest. When a bird loses feathers and are not molting, it can lead to hypothermia, frostbite, or even death if not treated. That treatment is the antibiotic growth hormones. In a way, chickens are being bred to be sick, miserable,
Vencomatic has found a way to make chickens grow faster without the use of antibiotic growth serums. The company had done it to sustain animal welfare and not breed antibiotic resistant bacteria that can harm a person if they happen to ingest it. Breeding chickens to grow faster can be unhealthy for the chicken, which may or may not require medicine to treat, is a more humane way of achieving more product than growth hormones in antibiotics. Per year, over thirty million pounds of antibiotics are used, but few are used to treat diseases. Instead, they are used to help weight gain on the animals, which can damage their legs due to the extra weight presented to the chicken’s body. Using antibiotics as growth promoters, while cruel to the chicken, has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration since the 1950’s when the growth of chickens has started to shorten with time, and expand in production. However, the feeding of antibiotic residue to chickens started in the 1940’s(slate.com). A pharmaceutical firm tried to boost nutrition in feed. The exact opposite happened to change the chicken farming business to produce unhealthier chickens faster. There is two accomplishments of the pharmacies, cheaper feed, and higher costs of chicken per pound sold. Even though chicken costs more than it should, chicken processing companies are using it to breed more chickens in these conditions instead of keeping a steady production rate and upgrading their factories. Factories throughout the United States can total up to nine billion broiler chicks being produced and slaughtered. The reason this number is so high, the chicks do not live to be very old. They typically are sent to be processed at 5-7 weeks of age or around 47 days as opposed to 112 days almost 70 years ago. Today’s chickens weigh up to seven pounds, three times as much as chickens bred in the 1950’s. With the