Experts warn over fattening of chicken
Broiler-chicken pictured at a farm recently. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
- The experts warn that chicken that are made to grow fast have high mortality rates, which causes economic loss to farmers.
Animal conservationists have raised the red flag over the fattening of broiler-chicken to attain the required weight for sale in a very short time.
Dr Victor Yamo, the campaign manager of World Animals, while releasing the latest animal report in Kampala last week “The pecking order 2022”, warned that when the chicken is made to grow at a faster rate, their mortality rate is high, hence causing economic loss to farmers.
Fact sheet on local chicken management
“If the animal is growing so fast, what tends to happen is that the animal has the damming of blood, the heart beats faster than what it is supposed to do and risks to have a classical heart attack with the bird flipping back onto its back, kicking in the air and then dies,” Dr Yamo said on the side-lines of the release of the report.
He added: “When you open up the animal, you find that the heart ceased at a certain point because it was labouring to pump blood due to a bigger body muscle.”
Economically, Dr Yamo explained that since the mortality rate of such fast grown chicken is high, the farmers end up losing income.
“Science and economics have shown that you are better off with your slow growing methods that have less mortality than fast growing methods that have mortality rates between five and 10 percent,” he said.
Ms Grace Namagembe, the quality assurance manager of Biyinzika Poultry International Ltd, who was part of the report launch, said the faster growth method takes between 35 and 45 days for them to be ready to be eaten.
Ms Namagembe, who welcomed the bid for a slower growth process, said the slower method can take about four months for the broilers to be ready for human consumption.
However, she was quick to say the slower growing process needs a farmer to have a bigger space of land to operate from otherwise, he or she won’t be making money, given that the process would take unnecessarily longer to realise sales.
The report also showed that 95,000 animals per minute are born globally into life of unimaginable suffering and cruelty within factory farms, and factory farming is the perfect breeding ground for the next pandemic with new or emerging infectious diseases in people coming from animals.
