Are chickens, etc killed JUST for their feathers?

[Taboo]

Like for feather pillows and such? My mom said that they wouldn't kill them just for their feathers just as they wouldn't kill a pig just for its ears for a 'pig ear bone' for dogs. Is this true? I just can't imagine it is because I've heard that chickens for meat and even eggs have very little feathers (I forget why but I've read people on other forums saying that from the ex-battery hens they adopted).

[AnimalHouse36]

The reason most meat farms chickens have little feathers is because they usualy peck it all off from the stress. I don't beleive that they would kill a chicken just for its feathers when the companies could get more money for meat.

[Jennicat]

Several people in my family raised meat chickens for large scale producers (it's a popular "crop" here), and I've never seen one with "very little feathers", they were all fully feathered. It probably would have been beneficial for them to have less feathers, because in the summertime it would get extremely hot and they would start to overheat.

[Taboo]

The reason most meat farms chickens have little feathers is because they usualy peck it all off from the stress. I don't beleive that they would kill a chicken just for its feathers when the companies could get more money for meat.

That makes sense.

Several people in my family raised meat chickens for large scale producers (it's a popular "crop" here), and I've never seen one with "very little feathers", they were all fully feathered. It probably would have been beneficial for them to have less feathers, because in the summertime it would get extremely hot and they would start to overheat.

But that was't with slaughterhouses where they mass produce chickens and keep hundreds cramped in a small space.

[Jennicat]

What do you mean by "mass produce"? Most of these were raised in bulk for companies like Purdue, etc, generally there were 500-800 chickens per chicken house, and most of them had 3-4 houses. Our state is 4th in the country for producing meat chickens, it's very common here for local farmers to have "chicken houses" (which are actually enormous -- generally about 30 feet across and about 100 feet long) and produce chickens for large meat companies.

I think there are probably larger producers, but I've not seen any while out and about not using the fairly standard sized chicken houses.

Chickens are not raised in slaughterhouses, they are sent to slaughterhouses.

[Taboo]

I just mean they're not well kept, so it wouldn't be unusal if they were missing feathers. Ever seen the PETA video on the KFC chickens?

http://www.animalloversweb.com/cgi-b...6/s-new/#num12

Here's a thread where someone talks about the chickens they rescued and they have all kindsof problems. blindness, very little feathers, broken legs, bruises on the wings, etc.

[Jennicat]

I've seen the video, yes. I'm not arguing that they're well kept, I just think there are plenty of problems associated with the way they're kept without exaggerating certain aspects.

Battery chickens are a whole other kettle, so to speak, the way they're kept is much different.

[Taboo]

I wasn't trying to exagerrate, that's just what I've heard.

And I don't care if they're treated like kings and queens, they still shouldn't have to die for us for any reason. It's awful enough that our pets (cats, dogs, ferrets, etc) have to eat other animals, much less that humans STILL do when there is no reason why they should. I mean, 'cmon humans got the common sense to grow their own food about 4,000 years ago instead of having to 'gather' it. At that point people should've started eating less and less meat untill eventually humans didn't eat meat anymore. No, instead we started eating MORE meat. Wealthy countries should not do that. I can almost understand 3rd world countries having to do that to survive, but not countries like America where Americans eat so much meat and get about 5 times too much protein due to that. And then wonder why they get kidney problems