History

 Pigeons, ducks, and geese were bred in China more than 3,000 years ago.  Chickens, developed from the Asian jungle fowl, were domesticated probably about the same time.  In ancient and medieval times in the Old World, chickens were raised primarily for cockfighting.  In the 16th century, chickens were introduced into America from Europe, and turkeys were introduced into Europe from America.  After cockfighting was outlawed in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain in the 19th century, poultry fanciers raised chickens for exhibition purposes.  The modern poultry industry began in the late 19th century in Europe and America as breeders began to stress meat and egg production.  Although eggs were artificially incubated in ancient China and Egypt, this method of hatching poultry was not used on a commercial scale until the 1870's.  The first college department of poultry husbandry was established in 1901 at the Connecticut Agricultural College (now the University of Connecticut).  Discoveries and inventions relating to the scientific housing, feeding, and breeding of poultry led to the rapid expansion of the industry after the 1930's.  Production and consumption of poultry products increased markedly during World War II when meat from other livestock was scarce.  Since 1945, improved methods of storing and distributing poultry meat and eggs have helped stimulate consumption of these foods.  Important in the expansion of the poultry industry has been specialization in raising broilers.

Raising Chickens:
Then and Now

Then

Throughout history, raising chickens has been an informal farmyard activity. Each family kept a flock of birds for eggs, meat and by-products such as feathers and manure. This is a Dutch farm scene from the early 20th century.

Extra birds were carried to market and sold or bartered. These girls are from Aosta, Italy (circa 1920's.)

There are many ways to transport birds to market. This Chinese farmer is from Fukien Province. (circa 1920's)

A chicken wagon arrives at a Havana, Cuba market. (circa 1920's) These chickens were raised by many different producers.

Live poultry trains were used in the USA (1920's). Each car could accommodate about 4,600 chickens and each was equipped with a water tank, grain crib and a room for an attendant who cared for the birds. Eggs laid on route were the property of the train crew. The birds were raised by many different producers, and sold to brokers who brought the birds to railway stops for transport.

As far as mass production of eggs and chickens for meat, the ancient Egyptians were probably the first to succeed in this. Hatching ovens have been in use in Egypt for many centuries and continued into the 20th century unchanged from the time of Moses. Each facility produced from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 chicks a season. The operators who lived on the premises had no thermometers to help regulate the temperature, but by the "feel" of the air recognized when the fires needed attention. There was a relationship between the huge labor force required to build the pyramids and the organization and mass production of food, in this case, chickens.

In the United States masses of chickens were raised as free range flocks housed in a variety of buildings. These chicken ranches were found across the country and usually near large cities. This scene is in California, circa 1930's.

A farmer at the Rancocas Poultry Farm in Brown's Mills, New Jersey near Philadelphia feeds his birds.

Joel M. Foster was the founder of The Million Egg Farm, as Rancocas was known. Foster was a pioneer promoter of humane and environmentally responsible mass production of eggs and birds. Besides writing a how-to book on the subject (1910), he developed and marketed a line of products that included industrial incubators, sanitizers and feeders.

Now

Raising chickens for eggs and meat changed from free-range farming to factory production methods gradually from the 1930's to the 1970's. It was discovered that chickens would lay more eggs and get fatter faster if you confined them indoors and kept the lights on at night. Such large numbers of birds cooped up required large doses of antibiotics and a floor of wire mesh for droppings to pass through in order to keep them healthy. Birds needed to have their beaks blunted so they did not peck each other. So a controlled diet of mush was developed as well, that the birds could feed on with their mutilated beaks.

About Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations & the Poultry Industry

By 1965 one person could operate a plant producing forty thousand birds a day. Factory farming on this scale is known as CAFO which stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. All CAFO's create massive amounts of manure which has to be removed. Poultry manure is traditionally a valuable and important fertilizer. The chicken manure has always been recycled by spreading it on the land. However, CAFO's produce so much waste that the land cannot absorb it and the excess is contaminating ground water, rivers and lakes.

The nitrogen rich waste causes excess algae buildup in nearby waterways. Lakes and streams are deprived of oxygen, killing plants, fish and other organisms. Corporate poultry processors escape blame for this environmental pollution, by claiming it's the responsibility of the farmers who supply their factories.

Processing

Then

Now

All parts of the chicken abattoirs are, of course, automated. The chickens are taken from the trucks and hung upside down by their feet on a conveyor belt. The belt then moves through an electrically charged solution, "shocks almost all of them senseless. From there they move to the Kill Room where a knife-like instrument cuts their throats; then down the 'bleed tunnel' where their blood drains away into a vat of hot water which loosens the feather sockets and then past rubber finger-like pluckers which remove most of the feathers and through a flame that singes off the fine fuzz." Next in the processing, the head and feet are removed. In the Eviscerating Room, the birds are gutted by machines and inspected and graded by government inspectors. Finally, they are chilled, weighed and packaged. Nothing is wasted. Those parts considered inedible by humans are made into pet food, or, as in the case of legs, considered a delicacy in the Orient, exported. Even the feathers are processed and made into a component of chicken feed.

Francisco M. Fronda (December 22, 1896-February 17, 1986)

 the Father of Poultry Science in the Philippines for his immense contribution

to the poultry and livestock industry.

Education
 In his childhood in Aliaga, Nueva Ecija,he was regarded as unusually

 

  

precocious since he can read and write at the age of four. He attended elementary school in the town of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. At the age of 17, without high school education, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture in Los Baos, Laguna. In 1919, he graduated from the six-year course with the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture. He was sent the same year to Cornell University in New York as a government pensionado. A year later, in 1920, he obtained his Master of Science. In February 1922, he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Poultry science, major in Physiology and minor in nutrition and pathology. He also earned the distinction of being one of the first five in the world who had a doctorate in poultry science.

Career and Contribution  worked extensively on the Cantonese, a breed of chicken from Canton, China. For 15 years, he culled, selected and bred the Cantonese to improve the breed. He succeeded in developing the chickens, but the line was not

continued since all the fowls were consumed due to famine during World War II.  was also the first Filipino researcher to work on improving duck meat. These ducks were often referred to as "Fronducks," in recognition of his success in breeding them and in producing stocks.  author of a textbook in Poultry Science Production for students in agriculture and also co-authored a series of books for primary and secondary students, entitled the Let Us Raise Series. He also produced around 500 articles on the poultry and livestock industry.  received numerous accolades for his work, such as the Distinguished Service Medal and Diploma of Honor from the President of the Republic of the Philippines; the citation as "The Father of Poultry Industry in the Philippines" by the Philippine Association of Animal Science; the degree of "Doctor of Science" honoris causa; and the "Father of Thai Poultry Industry" by the Kasetsart University, Bangkok, presented by the Princess of Thailand in 1982. In 1983 he was conferred as a National Scientist by Former President Ferdinand Marcos.