Are these the same breed of chicken? For example, Cornish Cross or American Breast or something? If not, it does feel kinda weird comparing them. If they are all the same base breed, that’s some totally crazy selection going on there.
They have been artificially selected to grow faster. The breeds of chickens are not natural in the slightest. They are even patented so only one company can for instance sell the Ross 308. The changes in breeds that are most common are due to intensive selection. The breeds themselves will get classified differently as those selections happen, so comparing the same one wouldn’t make as much sense
That’s crazy. I don’t raise chickens right now, but I do follow a lot of farm/homestead content with people who do raise poultry for meat. I had considered raising my own egg-layers (just a couple) since I have plenty of space for them to run around and delicious bugs to eat. I have no idea what breeds we have here in Japan, though, for any use case.
The places one get chickens from are likely going to be the same or similar to the common commercial breeds.
It’s also worth noting that domesticated breeds of egg-laying chickens haven’t been spared either :( They have been selected to lay so many eggs that it harms their bone health. It takes a lot of calcium to make eggs, so naturally they don’t lay them as much. In the wild, they would also often eat their own unfertilized eggs to recover the calcium too. I’ve read that a fair number of animal sanctuaries actually give them medications to lower their rate of egg laying and let them eat their own eggs to recover that calcium
Hens will often lay around 300 eggs per year. That’s very different from the wild ancestor of modern chickens – the red junglefowl – which lays around a dozen per year. And much higher than in 1900, when commercial hens would lay around 80 eggs yearly
Are these the same breed of chicken? For example, Cornish Cross or American Breast or something? If not, it does feel kinda weird comparing them. If they are all the same base breed, that’s some totally crazy selection going on there.
They have been artificially selected to grow faster. The breeds of chickens are not natural in the slightest. They are even patented so only one company can for instance sell the Ross 308. The changes in breeds that are most common are due to intensive selection. The breeds themselves will get classified differently as those selections happen, so comparing the same one wouldn’t make as much sense
That’s crazy. I don’t raise chickens right now, but I do follow a lot of farm/homestead content with people who do raise poultry for meat. I had considered raising my own egg-layers (just a couple) since I have plenty of space for them to run around and delicious bugs to eat. I have no idea what breeds we have here in Japan, though, for any use case.
The places one get chickens from are likely going to be the same or similar to the common commercial breeds.
It’s also worth noting that domesticated breeds of egg-laying chickens haven’t been spared either :( They have been selected to lay so many eggs that it harms their bone health. It takes a lot of calcium to make eggs, so naturally they don’t lay them as much. In the wild, they would also often eat their own unfertilized eggs to recover the calcium too. I’ve read that a fair number of animal sanctuaries actually give them medications to lower their rate of egg laying and let them eat their own eggs to recover that calcium
https://ourworldindata.org/do-better-cages-or-cage-free-environments-really-improve-the-lives-of-hens