Talk:Broiler

Roosters slaughtered?

Does anyone know if roosters are also slaughtered or are they just thrown away? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.88.127 (talk) 01:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't have a reference for you; Roosters are grown and killed in exactly the same way as hens. Sexes are kept separate, as roosters grow more quickly and don't put on as much fat as hens do past the age of about 30 days, so hens are collected from sheds and killed first. -- very little is thrown away. XQx (talk) 06:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Broilers do not live long enough to reach sexual maturity (well obviously the breeders do, but they're a tiny minority) so the males and females are pretty much identical. Thus it doesn't make sense to talk of 'roosters' or 'hens', but only 'chickens'. The males and females aren't sorted, and they are all used for meat.

The sorting you might be thinking of does happen in the egg industry. Egg chickens are bred to produce large numbers of eggs, rather than growing very fast. They are thus unprofitable to raise for meat, and the male chicks are killed (usually by maceration) shortly after hatching. AwaweWiki (talk) 22:30, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

"Feather sexable" -- a feature bred into the birds was the ability to be able to sort the day-old chicks by sex by examining the wing feathers. Some were also bred to be colored differently depending on sex. Feldercarb (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge Cornish-Rock to this article

I would like to propose this move. If no one has and issue with it, I will do the merge in about 30 days. Thoughts? Earthdirt (talk) 17:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

NO - I would say the modern broiler is quite the distinct beast from the original "pure" breeds. As I understand it, it was actually a bit of a breakthrough when people realized the advantages of hybirds over pure-breds. Feldercarb (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I actually already made this merge sometime ago. As discussed in this article Cornish-Rocks (a cross between Cornish and Plymouth Rock pure breeds) were the original "broiler" bird, but today the Broiler, while still a hybrid does not originate from crossing pure bred Cornish or Plymouth Rocks. Thus this cross is essentially obsolete, and is just an industry/hatchery nickname for modern broilers. Earthdirt (talk) 17:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Questionable Statement / Or needs clarification: Who produces broilers

"approximately 42 billion broilers were produced, 80% of which were produced by four companies: Aviagen, Cobb-Vantress, Hubbard Farms, and Hybro.[2]" -- I believe Hubbard (for example) produces "Broiler-Breeders" - which are sold to hatcheries, who in turn produce chicks, which sold to farmers as "day old chicks" who raise them as broilers. Thus I would imagine the 42 billion broilers mentioned aren't directly produced by the four companies, although they are certainly provided the "broiler breeder" stock.

So I am not sure - do we really mean 42 billion broilers or 42 billion broiler-breeders? (I am guessing 42 billion broilers)

Maybe we are missing something here? -the four companies (example) sell chicks to a "broiler-breeder" farm.

-broiler-breeder farms use the stock purchased from Hubbard (example) to produce fertilized hatching eggs. When I was involved in this (20 years ago, in Canada) there was usually a two-step system - at the first barn, the chicks would be raised until they were about 12 weeks old. THis first barn would specialize in growing chicks. The chicks would then be moved to a second "laying" barn, where they would stay until about a year old. Since broilers are bred for meat production, they were reputed to be picky layers, so we still used nests with staw or shavings, and hand-collected the eggs. Our biggest laying barn had about 12000 birds. Today I have heard that either the breeding is better, or labour costs are more crtical, so automatic egg gathering is employed. Also, obviously, the breeding barn has both males and females togther. THe breeders receive a variety of vacinations, and pass some of the immunity to the progeny.

-hatcheries buy the fertilized eggs, incubate the eggs and hatch them. At our (rather small) hatchery, we might produced 30000 chicks, 4 times a week. The incubators are very large room sized machines that maintain temperature, humidity and rotate the eggs. I have heard that in Brazil for example, large hatcheries can produce perhaps 1 million chicks a week. On hatch day, day old broiler chicks are inspected, optionally sorted by sex, and optionally vacinated. They are shipped, usually by truck, to a broiler farm.

-at the broiler farm, the chicks are raised in large barns or sheds. There are heaters provided to keep the chicks warm. Plenty of food and water is provided to the chicks. (Since chickens are "precocious" they don't need their mothers.) Broilers are NOT raised in cages, they are free to move around, but space is tight (anybody know the number?, I thought about a square foot per bird). As the chicks grow, the heat is no longer needed. Automatic feeders deliver feed from storage bins to the pen using a variety of augers and chain-conveyers. Similarly water is automatically provided. Feldercarb (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The sentence in question is from a reliable source which is cited. If you have sources about this with more clear information please add that information and source. Let me know if I can help you in any way. Earthdirt (talk) 17:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I took a whack at correcting it. Hybro has been absorbed by Cobb fairly recently. One of the links is dead. I am fairly sure the situation is that the three companies provide pedigree, GGP, GP and Parent Stock from which 80% of broilers are derived. The big three don't directly produce the birds. Feldercarb (talk) 03:45, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Use of the term 'Broiler'

I feel that the following paragraph in this article is confusing and should be deleted - Furthermore, it is inaccurate as Scotland, Wales, New Zealand (and I suspect other countries) speak English but the term 'broiler' IS widely used. But does adding more countries to the list really inform the reader in a meaningful way? DrChrissy (talk) 18:41, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

PARAGRAPH "The term "broiler" is widely known in North America, Australia, Guyana and England but not elsewhere in the English speaking world. The term "broiler chicken" is very widely used in Pakistan and India, as it was in the former German Democratic Republic and still nowadays in some eastern parts of Germany. The term is also used in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sweden, Nigeria, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Balkans and Japan."

Change of title needed?

The vast majority of information in this article is on broiler production, rather than on the birds themselves. I suggest the title should be changed to 'Broiler production'.DrChrissy (talk) 18:38, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

hmmm...also have added general info about chickens non-specific to broilers

• or split the article into "broilers" and "broiler industry"?
• or leave it: I feel broilers to be a very industrial phenomenon, it isn't your barn yard scratcher -- hard to discuss the bird out of the context of industryFeldercarb (talk) 03:38, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
• I've been trying to illustrate the sheer scale of the industry - bigger than egg layers, bigger than beef
• there are existing "poultry husbandry" and "hatchery" articles, where some stuff could possible be moved toFeldercarb (talk) 05:52, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I also thought about splitting the article into "broilers" and "broiler industry" but then also like you, I believe it is difficult to discuss the animal out of context of the industry. As a compromise, I have been working on the article emphasising the animal itself at the beginning with the industry discussed in later sections.DrChrissy (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Delete 'Terminology' section

The Terminology section has become simply an increasing list of countries which use the term 'Broiler'. This list shows how widely the term is used, and therefore that the list is unnecessary. I propose to delete the entire section 'Terminology' for brevity and lack of usefulness__DrChrissy (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

American or British billions?

The article talks about 19 billion. American or British billions? 19.000.000.000 or 19.000.000.000.000 ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.64.202.141 (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposed move (with secondary discussion of welfare soapboxing)

I propose to move the second part of this article to another article called Broiler industry or Broiler farming (this latter option would be consistent with Pig and Pig farming). This would give two stand-alone articles, one about the animal itself, and one about the method/s of farming. I have recently been making edits to make such a move easier - I propose that information after the "Animal welfare issues" is moved to its own article.__DrChrissy (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The article is currently dominated by animal welfare issues. It reads like a campaigning piece from an animal welfare charity. While welfare issues should certainly be covered, there is too much WP:SOAPBOXING at present resulting in an unbalanced article.--Ef80 (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with DrChrissy's proposal to split the current article as they deal with different topics, the Broiler and the Broiler Industry.

I also have to agree with Ef80; though I personally find some of of the industry's methods problematic, there is definitely too much pamphleteering being done in the current article. Philip72 (talk) 06:27, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I just came to the talk page because I, too, find the balance between the main article and the welfare section unreasonable. But the balance problem is not entirely due to welfare soapboxing. Part of the problem is that the main article is light on important information. For example, there really should be a statistical breakdown of slaughter-weight categories. Wherever all those 500 g birds are going, it sure isn't any of my local stores; almost all the birds on retail in my area are in the 1–1.5 kg range (2–3 lbs). — MaxEnt 14:33, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

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Hybrid?

The introduction says that broilers are a hybrid of the egg-laying chicken, both being a subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). A hybrid with what? 208.95.51.38 (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

This is nonsense, indeed. As the statement is unclear and does not contribute to the content of the article, it can be erased. Opzwartbeek (talk) 19:31, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Origins of broilers much too general

In my opinion, the paragraph about the origins of broilers can be erased, as the content describes the origin of the domestic chicken. This text belongs to the article "Chicken", not to this specific article, I reckon. Opzwartbeek (talk) 19:28, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Capons and Castration

How can an article on chickens for eating omit the two words "capon" and "castration"? All chickens sold in the US as young chickens are "capons" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capon). It is highly disagreeable to eat un-castrated male chickens. In fact - the term chicken is meaningless. In the barn yard - there are three variations of "chickens": "hens", "roosters" and "capons". Hens lay eggs; roosters impregnate the hens; and capons get their nuts cut off and then they get eaten. 100.12.181.22 (talk) 17:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Etymology

I understand from broiler that they are animals destined to broil, roast, but it wasn't clear before I read Wiktionary. Should it be made explicit in the article? Is there a reason why they are not called roasters or friers? --Error (talk) 16:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Attribution

FunnyMath (talk) 02:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Franken-chickens merger proposal

I propose merging Franken-chickens into Broiler. Franken-chicken is an activist term for modern broiler chickens that is best described in the broiler article. Thriley (talk) 11:42, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality and Coatrack of "Welfare issues"

About half this article, and over half the table of contents, are taken up with "Welfare issues". This plainly falls foul of the rules of WP:COATRACK, WP:UNDUE, and presumably also WP:NPOV as an animal welfare campaign is wrongly waged on Wikipedia's pages. There is more than enough material for a subsidiary article so I'll boldly split the section off now, with a "main" link and a brief and proportionate summary here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)