Roberta J Leong, LAc wrote:

> Sounds like the right thing to do is to kill all the sick birds
> and start propagating again, but that would never happen here.

Interesting---I've thought for a long time that your suggestion is *exactly* what
occurs.  Of course, the "sick birds," the whole shebang, then goes on supermarket
shelves.

A little study will reveal confined factory chickens must breathe an unceasing
miasmic cloud of fecal dust even as they are forced to eat a pure grain diet.  It
tends to keep them ill, very ill.  Normally benign micro-organisms then proliferate
and the industry fights back with antibiotics.

Free-range chickens are as healthy as the birds flying overhead.  Moveable,
bottomless cages (called "tractors" in the US and "arks" in Europe) are a slight
step down, but they still allow the chickens to fortify their diet with abundant
greenery plus whatever else they can scratch out of the earth.  That, and freedom
from fecal dust, grows healthy chickens.

Hopefully, you'll relax a bit about that scary *study* that was pre-ordained to
claim ALL chickens are dangerous.  Don't you remember the dilemma the Secretary of
Agriculture was in over the recent attempt to define organic standards?  He couldn't
admit food grown under organic rules was safer than the chemically-forced garbage
that *is* the US food supply---without simultaneously saying mainline food is a
peril to the consumer.  I smell the same sham.

My chickens are well, happy, and, most of all, safe to eat any way one chooses.
However, they are spoken for.

Regards,
Rex Harrill