There are currently 23 billion chickens in the world. Tens of times more than any other bird. This is not an old thing when it was only the food of the rich.
From proverbs like "homemade chicken lentils" to chicken eating in literature and culture was considered a symbol of empire.
The meat of this bird was more expensive than goat, sheep or cow. In recent decades, its value has fallen sharply compared to other proteins, and it is now accessible to the average consumer around the world and is no longer just food for special occasions. How did all this happen?
As human needs increase, so does the size of the chicken. This evolutionary difference between the size of the 1957 Selective Bread Chicken and the size of the 2005 Chicken is man-made.
There are about 8 billion people living in this world. The most meat that people like to eat to meet their nutritional needs is broiler chicken.
The three chickens in this picture were fed the same diet and their picture was taken at the same age when they were being studied within these different years. You can clearly see the size difference inside these three pictures. Behind this rapidly evolving evolutionary journey of this broiler hen is none other than a human being who in just 60 years has transformed it into a super-sized chicken that the poor man now seems unable to walk.
The changing technique of chicken farming is one of the major reasons for this. The hen was domesticated by man eight thousand years ago. It was the first wild bird of Southeast Asia.
The first attempt to develop a super-generation began in the 1940s. In the United States in 1948, a competition called "Chicken of the Future" was held, after which this bird changed forever.
Superbread needed a bird that could grow fast and turn its diet into protein more efficiently. That's the decent thing to do, and it should end there.
The success of this competition proved that a bird with better meat characteristics could be created.
Today's broiler chicken, which is raised only for meat, is the result. It is a very fast growing bird and can only survive due to the support of human technology.
The modern chicken farm is a completely closed system. It has artificial light, it has artificial temperature. Technology controls almost every step of their lives.
In the last fifty years, the chicken has changed so much that its average weight has quadrupled. (If you went to the chicken market in the 1970s, a bird weighing one kilogram was considered heavy).
Depending on the capacity of a farm, a few thousand chickens are admitted at a time. The day is calculated. Between the 34th and 39th day, they are ready to be sent to the altar.
The area is then cleaned for the next seven to ten days and prepared for the next shipment.
A poultry farm produces eight consignments at a time. It takes very little manpower to run a good farm. This is efficiency, which is passed on to the consumer at a lower cost.
Its steady and rapidly growing consumption is proof that we love its meat. Behind any kind of meat is the attempt to prepare animal meat for human consumption at the lowest cost.
The success of poultry farming is to get the chickens in this condition within 39 days.
In comparison, a hen could live up to ten years. It is an amazing and fast journey.
Artificial breeding has a price of its own on a global scale. If these chickens stay longer than their planned life, it becomes difficult to survive. Their bodies can't withstand the load of growing faster than a certain limit and the increasing weight puts pressure on their internal organs.
Also, relying on very small gene pools is another concern. In one farm, chickens have the same genetics and the same diet. Therefore, they do not have any immunity against diseases.
If one bird is affected, all birds will be affected. Therefore, they are kept in a completely closed and controlled system.
There are two more types of poultry farming. Free range chicken, in which the chickens have some freedom to run, and organic chicken in which they are not fed synthetic food.
Free range chickens have a minimum lifespan of 56 days, organic chickens have a lifespan of 81 days, while ordinary poultry farm intense reared hens have a lifespan of 35 to 40 days. There are 17 chickens per square meter in Intensive Rearing, 12 in Free Range and 10 in Organic.
All this has an effect on its value. And of great importance to the consumer is the price, which is why the demand for organic or free range is so low. About 95% of the chickens used in the world are now intensive rearing.
Frost goes only to those who have a market and those who sell. Selling is what is cheap and cheap is what is efficient. No other animal does this better than converting food into protein than broiler chicken on a poultry farm.
That is why there are now billions in the world. As a result, the race to make them more efficient and cheaper will continue.
