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Adam Clark Writ 1133-Professor Leake 5-9-12 Industrialized Chicken Poultry has always been a large part of Americans diets. In the early 1900’s it was common for farms, which were often less specialized, to have a flock of chickens for eggs and meat in addition to many other animals and crops. As society grew, though, these farms that produced a little bit of everything were not efficient enough to meet societies needs. Farms began to specialize in a single or closely related product to maximize efficiency. This cut down the numerous farms that once had a couple hundred chickens, to fewer super farms that can house hundreds of thousands of birds. With this now vastly available resource, society is changings its dependence on chicken away from mostly eggs, to more meat. Not only have these super farms becoming very efficient, chickens have been bred to grow ideally in certain conditions allowing for rapid growth of larger chickens. Chicken farming which was once common in local farms and houses has evolved into a very efficient industrialized process, maximized in every way possible, reflecting societies needs for efficiency. Early farming was not specialized farming; it was common for farms to grow a multitude of products. Having many products limited the farms to small flocks of chickens. Data collected by the UDSA Agricultural Resource Management Study shows that in 1910 roughly 88 percent of farms in the US raised chickens. The study showed though that by 1992 that number had fallen to 5.6 percent (Poultry Production 3). It is clear that farms needed to become specialized to a certain product, chicken, to stay competitive with societies demands for the product. The specialization also focused on chickens raised for laying eggs versus chicken for meat. The demand for chicken meat and eggs has increased as society has grown, but growth of chicken farms for meat has increased significantly more than chicken farms for eggs as the per capita consumption of meat has increased while the opposite is true for eggs. In an USDA study, during the 1940’s the per capita consumption of chicken meat was 24 pounds and 320 eggs per year, while by the 1990’’s meat consumption had risen to almost 50 pounds while eggs dropped to 236 per year (Poultry and Eggs 1-2). This jump in consumption of chicken meat is a result from it becoming much more affordable through specialized farming and genetically superior chickens. This new availability of chickens turned the public away from eggs because raising chickens had become as easy as collecting eggs. It was not only the farming process that got revamped to handle mass quantities of chickens. The chickens had been altered to grow faster, with bigger breasts, all while eating less food. In the 1940’s it took 12 weeks and 16 pounds of feed to grow a chicken 4-pound. By 2000 it took only 6 weeks to grown a bigger chicken that only took 6.4 pounds of feed to grow a 4-pound chicken (THIRUVENKADAN 310). This has allowed for double the production in the same time period with the same amount of food. These genetically superior chickens that grow faster with less food also have higher percentages of societies preferred meat, breast, through genetic modification and breeding. The mortality rate of raising chickens also fell by over half in the same time period from 10 percent to 3.6 percent (310). These high levels of efficiency have allowed society to consume more chicken meat as it has become significantly cheaper to produce. This industrialization of raising chickens has not had all positive results though. The percentage of chicken labeled as processed has risen significantly as more chickens are produced. 85 percent of chickens produced during the 1940’s were sold as whole carcass chickens while only 2 percent were sold labeled as processed. Shockingly by 1995 only 11 percent of chickens were sold as whole carcass, and there was an 18 times increase of processed chicken to 36 percent (Poultry and Eggs 1-2). This large change reflects societies desires though. Society craves for efficiency and speed, and the increase in processed chicken achieves this. Fast food restaurants have sprouted everywhere across the US and the desire for this and quick meals has increased the need for processed chicken. This adds to the ever-growing amount of processed food Americans unknowing or caringly consume. A once very localized natural farming of chickens in early America has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry. Farms have come to house hundreds of thousands of birds at a time to be more efficient. These super farms have eliminated all the small local chicken farms America once had. These super farms have been able though to develop a genetically superior chicken to maximize its efficiency. Chickens can now be raised in half the time with half the food allowing for chicken to be much more available to the public. This industrialization comes at a cost though like the industrialization of many foods. The amount of processed chicken has risen severely as part of efficiency. Processing chicken allows for more of the chicken to be used further raising the efficiency of the farms. This development of the chicken industry comes as a reflection of societies demands and needs to maximize a products’ availability. Works Cited THIRUVENKADAN, A.K. Broiler breeding strategies over the decades: an overview. World's poultry science journal 67.2 30 Jun 2011: 309-336. World's Poultry Science Association. 08 May 2012. < http://jc3th3db7e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Broiler+breeding+strategies+over+the+decades%3A+an+overview&rft.jtitle=World%27s+Poultry+Science+Journal&rft.au=A+K+THIRUVENKADAN&rft.au=R+PRABAKARAN&rft.au=S+PANNEERSELVAM&rft.date=2011-06-30&rft.issn=0043-9339&rft.volume=67&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=309&rft_id=info:doi/10.1017%2FS0043933911000328&rft.externalDBID=WPSC&rft.externalDocID=2378963091> USA. US Department of Agriculture. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Poultry and Eggs. Web. 8 May 2012. . USA. US Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service. Poultry Production in the United States. Broiler Farms' Organization. Web. 8 May 2012. .