On the news, they always speak of the "farm" where the eggs came from

[Stinky The Clown]

That conjures up a picture of the farmer's wife with a straw basket, excusing herself to e=chickens with pet naes and gathering the eggs laboriously, one at a time.

It isn't a farm. Its a factory with closely caged animals, fed a minimal chemical diet, and forced to lay eggs until they lay themselves dead. The smell in the multiple egg laying buildings will be overwhelming, even if you're used to it. Sanitation will be not one iota more than what is required by law.

It is no benign family farm with Farmer Jones' wife in a quaint sun bonnet and a fluffy apron.

The "farm" ...... yeah. Sure. Got it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. When you hear "farm" you really think American Gothic?

Really?

[Vickers]

2. *scans OP for American Gothic reference*

:wtf:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. the farmer's wife with the straw basket

and the big red barn and the singing cartoon animals and the e-i-e-i-o

[Vickers]

16. Wow, American Gothic has NONE of those things!

Where did you get your art degree, WalMart?

:rofl:

[Stinky The Clown]

17. Pretty funny, huh?

Failed attempt at deflection for the sake of deflection. Par for the course for that one.

[Vickers]

21. I don't mind criticism of a post, or even outright disagreement, but when the

critique is patently full of bullshit, well...one feels COMPELLED to raise the manure flag, ya know?

:P

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Haven't got an art degree.

But I know it depicts a stereotypical, antiquated farming couple, of the sort that people who don't know anything about agriculture imagine farmers to be like.

[Vickers]

20. Good lord, have you ever LOOKED at the goddam painting?

It has nothing of the sort. Your ramblings remind me of a drunk who's discovered depressants.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I have no idea what ignored wants

but here is American Gothic, the actual painting, to help you along

[Vickers]

28. OMG, look at the animals and straw basket and red barn!!!1!!!!!!!1!!

:crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy:

Man, teh stupid is THICK around here sometimes!!!

:P

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Did you notice the large pitchfork in the foreground? What do you suppose that's for?

No, he's not a Satan Worshipper.

Also, the farmhouse in the background.

Oh, and then there's the farmer, and the farmer's daughter.

Or were you thinking of that other American Gothic? Maybe the one with Harrison Ford and Ritchie Cunnigham and all those cool hot-rods?

[Vickers]

26. So, your original dumbass reply said they were a couple

WRONG!

there was a red barn

WRONG!

there were animals

WRONG!

a straw basket

WRONG!

and some EIEIO bullshit

WRONG!

I've seen you post some stupid bullshit on here, and I've seen plenty of people give you shit for it, but at least get your facts straight, OK?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. All of the above involve stereotypical, antiquated views of early 20th century farmers.

What exactly is an e-i-e-i-o supposed to look like?

[Vickers]

32. You're the genius who claimed there was an EIEIO in the painting, not me.

Get your facts straight, man!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

36. I'm the guy who used that as a stupid stereotype of farmers.

American Gothic. Old MacDonald. Ma and Pa Kettle.

As for the red barn, it's in the painting, but just out of frame.

[Vickers]

37. Nobody puts a fucking barn 4 feet from a house.

Yeah, you really are in touch with the whole country life thing.

:rofl:

Just because a fucking building is red doesn't make it a fucking barn.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

43. Well, they did in American Gothic.

I've seen the original negatives.

[Vickers]

27. OH, and you even fucked up your own dumbass reply...that was American Graffiti!

EWE FELL!!!!11!!!!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

30. Wow.

You sure showed me.

[Vickers]

31. Don't let it happen again. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. I can't believe I let that happen.

I'm a big fan of American Graffiti, and all the other Stanley Kubrick movies.

[Vickers]

35. As luck would have it, I'm watching a Kubrick/Harrison Ford film right now:

Blade Runner.

:thumbsup:

[flvegan]

3. The smell in the buildings is nothing compared to the manure lagoons

and canals. Feces, rotting "food" and decomposing expired birds. If you God forbid step in one, it's like quicksand. I've participated in battery farm raids, and I have truly seen Hell.

Hell is no farm. Good post, Stinky.

[QC]

34. This really is a good thread. Pity it got hijacked,

as typically happens to substantive discussions here.

[Stinky The Clown]

38. Indeed. There were (intentionally) two avenues for discussion: the media and factory farms

Instead we get someone, upthread, trying to clap with one hand.

But thread need not be considered hijacked. If actual discussion gets interrupted, that's a different story. The original intent of the upthread shenanigans was precisely to stop discussion for no other purpose than simply to do it.

[pipi_k]

4. I thought I heard them refer to it as "egg zero"... the farm, I mean... n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That's part of the problem

most reporters are not even aware that this "farm" probably has houses housing tens of thousands of hens... on battery cages and belts under them, which remove the eggs.

For the record, hens in those conditions actually produce less eggs... but the number of hens is such...

But that is the problem with the whole cheap food system we have.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. This is why they call them "factory farms". nt

[sharp_stick]

8. They call them farms so that they

don't have to conform to rules and regulations of running a factory. These things lost their connection to the farm many years ago. You can no longer drive through many parts of the interior of North Carolina without being overwhelmed with the stench of the shit pools from the the chicken and turkey factories that litter the landscape.

[mtnester]

9. Garbage in

garbage out

I know exactly what chicken lay my eggs..their personalities and everything.

That this will help the backyard egg producer may be the only good thing to come out of this.

[HillbillyBob]

14. I had a similar thought.

I spent most of my growing up years on my grandparents family farm.
It has been in her family since 1880s or 90s. She is still living and so is Grampa, they are 88 and 92 now and are not actively farming it anymore.
We had chickens, ducks, geese, dogs(border collies), cats, cattle(beef and dairy), pigs, and a horse boarded there from time to time and a huge veggie garden.
I did my share of helping to butcher, can, pick, pull weeds, throw hay.
It was a nicer having that stability than the excitement of being in a city..
I spent most of my adult life until 3 yrs ago in cities. We are trying to build a fossil free or low use organic farm from scratch.

It was not organic per se, but very close. None of the animals were butchered if they were sick, but they were mostly healthy to begin with.

I m afraid to see the FDA/USDA slap us organic farmers with onerous restrictions, and not hard or rather effective enough on the corporate farms.

[truedelphi]

41. I live in an area where the kind of farm you describe still exists.

And I agree about the onerous, Corporate controlled FDA that is continuing its harsh tactics against the very people that we need the most: the remaining small scale, organic farmers.

[spanone]

10. ma and pa kettle it ain't.....Food, Inc.

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

[mike_c]

11. one of the absolute worst jobs I ever did was helping a friend's family...

...turn over the barns in their egg producing operation. I STILL have nightmares about the couple of weeks we spent on that job, years later. For those unfamiliar with factory farm egg production, the chickens are raised for one year on risers about four feet off the floor, where they spend their lives eating boosted nutrient "feed" from dispensers, living in horribly crowded nest boxes or just jammed together on the staging platforms, and eliminating waste through the slats of the riser base beneath them, where it accumulates for exactly one year before reaching the bottom of the risers, four feet deep. Throughout that year eggs are delivered by conveyor belt from the nest boxes to a packing room at the front of each 100 meter long barn. After one year, production begins to decline with age and disease, so the chickens are herded into trucks for delivery to rendering plants, humans like myself disassemble the risers and clean out the muck-- replete with struggling, dying chickens-- and prepare the barns for the next year's pullets.

The odor is beyond foul (and I say this as a biologist-- I'm not at all squeamish about such things). When we first entered the barns, the ammonia reek and shit stench literally stole our breath as our throats seized up on that overwhelming first whiff of ripe, nasty, bubbling feces and urine, a liquid mass four feet deep along each side of the central aisle, which was just wide enough to accommodate a Bobcat loader. Our eyes watered. Our clothes had to be thrown away at the end of each day.

[BrklynLiberal]

12. you are right.....absolutely right.

[Mendocino]

13. When I still ate eggs,

(I'm vegan now)I was able to obtain eggs in a manner very much like the idyllic way described above. Chicken coops, laying-hens scratching around in the soil, sky above them, fresh air and water, good feed, someone collecting the eggs in cartons reused like a hundred times. But it was the farm husband in bibs and a t-shirt.

[SPedigrees]

15. We buy only organic cage-free eggs.

The facilities these layers are raised in aint no paradise, but it sure beats factory cage enterprises. Now if we just had a source for poultry raised the same way. We keep toying with the idea of raising chickens, but it's a lot of work.

[shireen]

40. me too ...

Here's a site about organic poultry.
http://www.attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/organicpoultry.html

[DainBramaged]

18. 500 million eggs being recalled, where are they going?

Does anyone think they are being shipped BACK to these guys, or that they wound up in the garbage? And if by chance 100 million will be actually returned (by what means boggles the mind) does anyone actually believe the people responsible will actually destroy the eggs?

PS I had 2 hard boiled eggs tonight. Jersey Fresh local farm produced. We're lucky this part of the state. Corn, cantaloupe, pumpkin, egg and tomato farms everywhere.

[Strelnikov_]

23. ..

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=42.669626,-93.644285&spn=0.045628,0.076132&t=h&z=14

[madinmaryland]

25. So Stinky, when was the last time you and Mrs. Stinky bought eggs at the store?

I'm sure you will not answer here, but I'm curious. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, and many other foods we take for granted made with eggs or variation of egg dishes.

[donheld]

39. Why are eggs from one farm going to so many states

Why can't these stores get eggs from the states they are in. I'm sure there are chickens in all 50 states. Wouldn't it be safer, cheaper, fresher if eggs were more local not shipped hundreds of miles around the country?


don't mind me just the Thoughts of a lunatic.

[Prophet 451]

42. Which is why you should buy free-range

Here (Britain), it's actually normal for eggs and chicken to be free-range (sometimes called "cage-free"), you pretty much have to go out of your way to buy factory-farmed eggs or chicken and pretty much the only people who do are the very poor who need to save the few pence difference. Personally, I buy all our meat (chicken, pork or whatever) at the local butcher since he can actually tell me what's free-range and I refuse to support factory-farming. I'm not going to give up eating meat or dairy but I see no reason to endorse cruelty.

[Lorien]

44. Yep. Factory farming is a vile, inhumane business, so it's no wonder that the

"products" that come from them are unhealthy. I get my eggs (and produce) from a small local year round nearby produce stand. The eggs come in recycled boxes. They're brown, green, white, cream, some even have a blueish hue-and they taste considerably better than the grocery store variety. They cost $4.50 a dozen, but the improved flavor makes them well worth it. There are photos of the hens who laid them above the fridge; a variety of breeds who wander fields and forest in the sunshine, eating bugs and weeds. It's worth seeking these eggs out. You'll be less worried about their health effects (for both you and the hens) and you'll enjoy your meals even more.