HOW TO KILL A CHICKEN: Large numbers of chickens are rapidly slaughtered on an efficient automated assembly line. First, the fully conscious birds are shackled by their feet to a moving line, then they’re hung upside down and have their heads dipped in an electrified water bath. This zap of electricity knocks all of the chickens (or at least many of the chickens) senseless. Next, the birds have their throats slit by an automatic neck cutter and their blood is drained for at least 90 seconds. Further down the line, the exsanguinated chickens are scalded in hot water to make plucking easier, then the denuded birds are summarily eviscerated.
BROILERS AND LEGHORNS: Chickens raised for meat (broilers) are different from chickens raised to produce eggs (Leghorns). Broilers are typically the offspring of white Plymouth Rock females and white Cornish males. This popular cross produces a docile bird with easily plucked feathers, a long, broad back and a moderately deep, full breast. Males and females are slaughtered about six weeks after hatching.
Leghorns are small, noisy birds named for the city of Leghorn, Italy where they supposedly originated. When female leghorns reach maturity at 20 weeks, they lay an average of 268 eggs per year. Even though a chicken’s natural lifespan is up to seven years, after only 18 months of life, leghorns are either euthanised or sent to the slaughterhouse. Their so-called “fowl meat” is not as highly prized as broiler meat in Canada. It’s often exported to Asia or used in preparations that benefit from a strong chicken flavour.
Newly-hatched male leghorns (cockerels) are of no use to egg farmers and must be destroyed. Agriculture Canada recommends chucking the fluffy little boy-chicks alive into a high-speed machine called a macerator -- sort of a cross between a meat grinder and a garbage disposal. Agriculture Canada considers maceration a humane and practical method of cockerel elimination that creates a minimal level of distress to the chicks as well as to the person performing the euthanasia.
DARK MEAT: There are lots of popular misconceptions about chicken meat. In spite of what some hyperbolic waiters would have you believe, all chickens are “hormone free” and “grain-fed” simply because the use of hormones in poultry is not allowed in Canada and grain is what chickens eat. “Free range” chickens are just chickens allowed to wander around outside where they’re at the mercy of predators, inclement weather and a haphazard food supply. Conversely, most commercial chickens in Canada are raised in clean, well-ventilated, climate-controlled barns where they can wander, drink and eat at will. Agriculture Canada recommends that chicken farmers give a distinct knock on the barn door before entering to prevent the chickens from being startled.
WHITE MEAT: In 1998, the average Canadian ate 26.1 kg of chicken meat. That’s about 10 birds. In the future, chicken is expected to be an even bigger part of our diet. During the last ten years, we Canadians have seen a huge increase in our consumption of chicken (up 19 percent from 1988 to 1998) and a steady decrease in our desire for all other meats (down 8 percent during the same period). In Canada, our favourite part of the bird is still the breast because this cut of tender white meat is somewhat low in fat, relatively economical and extremely versatile. If you’re thinking that 26.1 kg of chicken a year is a lot to swallow, consider our American cousins who inhale an average of 38.3 kg of chicken per person every year -- or how about the residents of Hong Kong who pack away a staggering 53.3 kg?
LEFTOVERS: After the heart, liver and gizzard are removed and saved (giblets!), the blood, head, and remaining viscera go to a rendering plant where they are cooked down into a sterile, high-protein animal feed. And no, chicken feathers do not end up in fluffy pillows and duvets. They are thrown in the rendering vat along with the other leftovers because feathers are high in protein, making them the ultimate “light” snack.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: It’s believed that 5,000 years ago, someone in India got the bright idea to domesticate the chicken. Like all good ideas, chicken farming caught on. Today there are seven billion domestic chickens in the world and each year Canadians eat about 316 million of them. The Canadian chicken industry, which employs 15,500 people full-time, is certainly big business. Across Canada there are 2,800 chicken farmers, 109 poultry processing plants, and 109 hatcheries. The income generated from all those chickens isn’t exactly chicken feed, either. In 1998, total chicken farm cash receipts were $1.3 billion and total chicken retail sales were $3.3 billion. Of course, about 215 million kilos of this chicken meat (26.9 percent of Canada’s total chicken consumption) end up in our fast food restaurants, often in the plasticine guises of Chicken Tenders, Crispy Strips or McNuggets.
THE EGGS: There are 1,200 egg producers in Canada producing 500 million dozen (i.e., 6 trillion) eggs per year. Sales from the entire Canadian egg processing industry hover at around $87 million -- excluding the value of biochemicals extracted from eggs for use in pharmaceuticals. The largest chicken egg on record was nearly 340 grams and measured 31 centimetres around. The greatest number of yolks in one chicken egg is nine. And one very prolific chicken topped the record for output by laying seven eggs in one day. Go, girl.
THE FEET: Not surprisingly, Canadians by and large don’t like to eat chicken feet. Asians, on the other hand, can’t get enough of them. By volume, a whopping 50 percent of Canada’s poultry exports to China are nothing but chicken feet. And the number one favourite movie snack in China? Let’s put it this way: it ain’t popcorn.