Well, yes, Ish, if you kept your own chickens yourself, they could eat anything they wanted. However, I think most people here who eat eggs are buying theirs at the store, and when it says on the carton "free range", it just means that they are given a bit more room. It will say whether they are fed a vegetarian diet on the carton as well, and whether they are treated with hormones or antibiotics.
Even people who eat meat SHOULD want vegetarian fed chickens, for their eggs and also as meat, because commercial farm animal feeds are full of disgusting things that can compromise your long-term health.
I won't even go into my concerns about your chickens eating mice. I hope there were no rodent poisons lying around your scatter . . .
From the Daily Times (Maryland) January 4, 2004
SALISBURY -- Since the 1970s, the poultry industry has used certain arsenic-based ingredients as chicken feed additives, but some researchers have started to scrutinize the long-standing practice because of possible health and environmental risks.
A common arsenic used by chicken companies is roxarsone, which is mixed with feed to control intestinal parasites and promote growth, according to research chemists.
After consuming roxarsone, the arsenic additive approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, chickens then excrete the compound in a chemical form that is virtually unchanged.
On the Delmarva Peninsula, poultry growers raise more than 500 million birds annually, producing vast amounts of chicken litter that is spread on farmland as manure.
Questions about potential risks associated with the use of roxarsone center on the practice of spreading manure, not the consumption of poultry. Very low levels of roxarsone are retained in chicken. The FDA limits the amount to 0.5 parts per million in muscle tissue.
Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a researcher from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said the poultry industry's practice of using arsenic compounds in its feed is something that has not been studied.
"It's an issue everybody is trying to pretend doesn't exist," she said.
Silbergeld, who is leading a study on the effects of antibiotic resistant illnesses among Lower Shore poultry workers, said she intends to initiate a research project examining what risks are associated with exposure to arsenic on industry workers.
"The arsenicals are there. Are they significant amounts? That's the issue," she said. |
