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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

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Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and it's just something is going on

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Speaker 1: with Chuck. I'm okay so far, but Jerry's not here

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Speaker 1: because she turned into the Chicken Lady in his in

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Speaker 1: treatment for that doing the chicken dance. Do you remember

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Speaker 1: the chicken lady from Kids in the Hall? Oh? Sure,

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Speaker 1: I was referencing arrest the development cock Cuck call. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you're you're taking aback even further to the great

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Speaker 1: great kids in the Hall. That's right. I can just

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Speaker 1: sit here and quote Kids in the Hall one liners

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Speaker 1: all day. I love those guys. So that's not what

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Speaker 1: we're here to do, though, Chuck, settle down, settle down.

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Speaker 1: We're going away from the kids in the Hall. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and since you mentioned that, Uh, what we're also not

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Speaker 1: here to do is shame anybody or make anyone feel bad,

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Speaker 1: or to tell anyone how to live their life and

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Speaker 1: eat their breakfast. But we're here to arm you with

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Speaker 1: information on this one about uh. And I'm not surprised

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Speaker 1: you picked this one, but I just thought, since I

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Speaker 1: had somewhat scarring experience a commercial chicken farming industry. For

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Speaker 1: those of you listening that don't know this, one of

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Speaker 1: my last real person jobs before this job many years ago,

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Speaker 1: as I worked for a software company that designed software

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Speaker 1: for commercial chicken uh operations to better track how they

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Speaker 1: lay eggs and how they gain weight and how you're

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Speaker 1: feeding them and kind of everything how they're killed uh.

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Speaker 1: And I hated that job. It was sold killing and

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Speaker 1: I never understood it. I never invested in it, and

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Speaker 1: as far as understanding the software, and I was in

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Speaker 1: tech support, and so I was terrible at it. But

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Speaker 1: my friends ran the company and eventually they fired me

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Speaker 1: because I was so bad at it. And that's the

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Speaker 1: best thing that ever happened to me, because that led

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Speaker 1: directly to getting this job. It's like Garth Brooks said,

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Speaker 1: some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. All Right,

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Speaker 1: you know your prayer to be good at your chicken

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Speaker 1: killing software job was unanswered and instead an even better

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Speaker 1: prayer that you didn't even know you had was answered. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have that prayer. I didn't want to be

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Speaker 1: good at that job. But yeah, so this is like

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Speaker 1: all this is probably pretty well known to you because

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Speaker 1: this this is We've been doing this kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: to chickens for a good seventy years by now, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know the you know, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: some about factory farming. Finally. I don't think we've dodged it,

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Speaker 1: but people have, you know, long said hey, guys, can

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Speaker 1: you get into this? And you know we're not touching

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Speaker 1: cattle or swine. We're just starting dipping our toe into

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Speaker 1: it with poultry, dipping our beaks, dipping our beaks untrimmed beaks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can peck you till the cows come home, which

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Speaker 1: is something that happens on the farm. That's right. So

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Speaker 1: let's enough dancing around, chuck Um. We're talking about today,

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Speaker 1: not not necessarily factory farming all the like you said,

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Speaker 1: we have to talk about We're gonna talk about those

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Speaker 1: labels that you see on your eggs or on your chicken,

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Speaker 1: usually cage free or UM free range or something along

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Speaker 1: those lines, and whether it means anything. But one of

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Speaker 1: the great successes of the last probably five six, maybe

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Speaker 1: even ten years or longer Um came very quietly out

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Speaker 1: of the effective altruism community. Chuck Yeah, A group of

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Speaker 1: effective altruists said, you know, we're always looking to maximize

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Speaker 1: our charitable contributions. There's a lot of chickens out there

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Speaker 1: that are not being treated very well. Supposedly, there's seven

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Speaker 1: point six billion egg laying hands alone worldwide at any

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Speaker 1: given time, almost eight billion, So if you could improve

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Speaker 1: the lives of them even by a little bit, you

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Speaker 1: would really be reducing a massive amount of suffering. So

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Speaker 1: they got three million dollars together, and like um Laser,

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Speaker 1: focused it on advocacy, lobbying, getting legislation put through, and

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Speaker 1: then most of all pressuring really really big companies. They

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Speaker 1: went after some whales um to to commit to going

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Speaker 1: on cage free eggs within a very short period of time,

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Speaker 1: sometimes four sometimes twenty thirty UM but all of these

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Speaker 1: huge companies, everybody from dan Owe to Burger King to

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Speaker 1: McDonald's to Whole Foods not surprisingly but also like Dollar General,

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Speaker 1: all of them have signed a pledge that says, all

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Speaker 1: of the eggs that our customers buy, whether it's imprepared

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Speaker 1: food or eggs you buy in the store, are going

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Speaker 1: to be one cage free eggs within the next few years.

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Speaker 1: And they did it with like three million dollars and

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Speaker 1: and a lot of elbow grease. I think all those

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Speaker 1: companies probably said, alright, alright, if they're cheese, if they're

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Speaker 1: cage free, eggs out there, will use them stops. That's

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Speaker 1: what the burger king said. Yeah, the guy that he

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Speaker 1: said it with his mind, yeah, because his mouth doesn't move.

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Speaker 1: But it was a big deal. I mean, the fact

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Speaker 1: that they got that, that that that's happening. It's a

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Speaker 1: big deal. And one it's one of those things where, um,

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Speaker 1: if you scratch beneath the surface, it's not an intended punt,

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Speaker 1: but if you scratch beneath the surface, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of these terms and phrases that the U. S d

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Speaker 1: A likes to bandy about, things like cage free and

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Speaker 1: things like free range and stuff like that, it's often

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Speaker 1: really disappointing. But that's one of the things about cage

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Speaker 1: free is that it is an actual, substantial will increase

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Speaker 1: in the welfare and quality of life for egg laying

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Speaker 1: chickens in the in the United States. It's a big,

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Speaker 1: big deal. And it's not that they're they're they're in

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Speaker 1: these amazing conditions all of a sudden with cage free.

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Speaker 1: It's that they're in such poor conditions otherwise that this

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Speaker 1: is a huge improvement for them. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: you know a lot of people agree. Even cage free

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Speaker 1: isn't all it's cracked up to be. Um, But there

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Speaker 1: a lot of like chicken based idioms that we use.

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Speaker 1: There's suddenly coming to the Uh. When I worked with

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Speaker 1: that company, they made everybody at one point, even if

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Speaker 1: you didn't do like project management where you had to

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Speaker 1: go to the farms, they made us all go to

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Speaker 1: the farms and tech support at one point. And I

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Speaker 1: know I've told the story before, but it was a

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Speaker 1: pretty awful experience. Uh. And it smells really really bad.

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Speaker 1: It smells so bad that me and my one friend

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Speaker 1: that I worked with, Barry Um, were like, did the

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Speaker 1: sort of the silence to the Lamb's trick with dabbing

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Speaker 1: some uh like menthal on our upper lip under our nostrils,

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Speaker 1: just so we could walk through these things. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: you know that I think they thought it would benefit

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Speaker 1: as just sort of just see boots on the ground.

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Speaker 1: What happened. I was like, it's I appreciate the peel trip,

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Speaker 1: but it did not benefit me in any way except

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Speaker 1: hearing things like oh man, cage or free range just

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Speaker 1: means there's a door open, they don't even use it.

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Speaker 1: And I heard this back then. I was like, oh

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Speaker 1: my gosh, is that true. And as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: as we'll see, if that's kind of true. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't confuse free range with cage free. There are

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Speaker 1: two different things. We'll describe them both. But yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so cage free is a huge improvement. Free range is

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Speaker 1: as bad as you'd expect it to be, basic because

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Speaker 1: it's coming from the U. S t A. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: I guess let's talk about um let's briefly, and big

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Speaker 1: thanks to Dave Ruse for helping us out with this one.

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Speaker 1: But Dave starts out with a little bit of history,

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Speaker 1: and I think that's a good place to start because

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Speaker 1: you don't have to look very far. Are back in

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Speaker 1: this country. Uh, it seems like a long time ago,

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Speaker 1: but the nineteen forties isn't that long ago in the

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Speaker 1: in the lifespan of America. And back then they were

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Speaker 1: still like feeding America their eggs or its eggs. I

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Speaker 1: don't even know what America is um with backyard chickens basically,

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Speaker 1: um they were big farms, of course, but they weren't

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Speaker 1: like these big, massive battery cages that we see today.

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Speaker 1: They were hens living outdoors, generally on farms, laid about

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Speaker 1: a hundred eggs a year. Uh. And then after a

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Speaker 1: few years when they quit laying eggs, then they would

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Speaker 1: be used for meat. They'd turn into Sunday dinner they

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Speaker 1: would uh. And these days, starting in like the fifties,

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Speaker 1: things became a little more industrialized and mechanized, and that's

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Speaker 1: when battery cages came into play. Which is the wire

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Speaker 1: cage that you might like. If you have friends that

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Speaker 1: have backyard chickens, you probably built them a large coupe

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Speaker 1: and within that coup some battery ca just but if

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Speaker 1: you're a backyard chicken person, you probably have battery cages

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Speaker 1: that are very large for two or three for chickens. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these are not the battery cages that they're raised in.

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Speaker 1: After farming became industrialized in the fifties, like these things

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Speaker 1: are usually have I've seen anywhere between three and seven

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Speaker 1: chickens in there, um and usually each one has about

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Speaker 1: the amount of space about a little lower or a

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Speaker 1: little smaller than the size of a standard piece of paper.

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Speaker 1: And for the the teenage listeners out there, smaller than

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Speaker 1: the size about the size of an iPad. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a chicken. A chicken. They can't move around, they can't

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Speaker 1: flap their wings, they can't do a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: that we'll find out is a is a big problem

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Speaker 1: in a minute. Um they're meant to be kept basically

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Speaker 1: in one place, and because this stuff has all been industrialized,

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Speaker 1: their whole job and everything about their life is to

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Speaker 1: just sit there and lay egg after or egg after egg.

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Speaker 1: So they're kept in these battery cages. The battery cages

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Speaker 1: are kept off the ground, which is good because it

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Speaker 1: means that they're away from parasites and poop borne diseases.

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Speaker 1: And the eggs are yeah, they when they poop, they

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Speaker 1: it falls onto a conveyor belt that carries the poop away,

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Speaker 1: so it's a little more sanitary. When they lay an egg,

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the cage is slanted downward, so it

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Speaker 1: rolls downward onto a different conveyor belt thankfully, that whisks

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Speaker 1: the egg away. So the whole thing is really automated.

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Speaker 1: And because these cages are are so um uh uniform,

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Speaker 1: they can be stacked. It's modular, so you can go

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Speaker 1: upward with chickens as well as outward too. You can

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Speaker 1: really raise a lot of chickens in these battery cages,

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Speaker 1: which is good if you're a farmer, not really good

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Speaker 1: if you're a chicken though. Yes, and these chickens. You know,

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Speaker 1: I said that the backyard chickens of your uh laid

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Speaker 1: about a hundred eggs a year. Today's chickens lay closer

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Speaker 1: to three hundred eggs a year. Because they are bread

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Speaker 1: is scifically to do so, and just the way beyond

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Speaker 1: being bred to do so, Like you said, they're set

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Speaker 1: up as such that it's just uh, you know, they

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Speaker 1: have made it a very efficient operation as far as

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Speaker 1: how much they can extract from each hen. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was a real quick check. That was a big part

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Speaker 1: of the industrialization of farming. Two is is breeding practices

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Speaker 1: to where we started selectively breeding types of chickens that

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Speaker 1: either laid a perfectly nice brown egg or um ones

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Speaker 1: that gained weight in certain places that we wanted them to. Like.

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Speaker 1: Genetics has been a huge part of that as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're really lucky because are really really good friends. Justin

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Speaker 1: and Melissa. I've known Justin since college, you know, Justin

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Speaker 1: he uh, they have chickens. They have these four beautiful

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Speaker 1: ladies in their backyard. Uh. And they have a big,

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Speaker 1: wonderful coupe but anytime they're outside uh and can safeguard

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Speaker 1: them from hawks by keeping an eye on them. Those

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Speaker 1: those ladies are running around the yard with their dogs.

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Speaker 1: They've somehow managed to train these dogs to kind of

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Speaker 1: give them their space. Uh. And it's great. And you know,

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Speaker 1: they give us eggs and we spend money in their

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Speaker 1: wine shop and it's a great symbiotic relationship that is

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Speaker 1: really great. Yeah, yeah, it's a good. Uh. We we

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Speaker 1: save our cartons and stuff when we do have to

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Speaker 1: buy eggs, so they have cartons to give out to

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Speaker 1: their friends because these ladies are laying a lot of eggs. Lightly.

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Speaker 1: So Justin has a chickens in a wine shop. Now

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Speaker 1: he's living the life. Oh man, it's the American dream

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Speaker 1: realized by my British import friend. Look good. So he's

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Speaker 1: doing it what you could call the right way, I think, um,

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Speaker 1: which is to say they're very necessarily the profit maximizing way.

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Speaker 1: But the chickens are, you would guess, much happier than

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Speaker 1: the ones that are in these battery cages. And one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons why we would say the chickens are

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Speaker 1: not so happy in the battery cages because like again,

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Speaker 1: they can't move. If you put a chicken on a

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Speaker 1: piece of paper, it's going to take up most of

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Speaker 1: that piece of paper or iPad, right, So when you

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Speaker 1: visualize that, you suddenly get like, this is this is

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Speaker 1: for the whole for its whole life, usually somewhere around

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Speaker 1: seventy weeks. This is how it spends almost all of

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Speaker 1: that time in this little cage, just laying eggs, laying

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Speaker 1: eggs to an unnatural at an unnatural pace. And because

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Speaker 1: it's kind of stuck in this this one small place,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that it can't do that

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Speaker 1: people who have studied chickens say, chickens need to do

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Speaker 1: this or else they're going to go insane and have

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Speaker 1: a really horrific life. Um, and that is kind of

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Speaker 1: what the basis of creating like cage free setups or

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Speaker 1: like genuine free range setups is. It comes from giving

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Speaker 1: chickens a better life while during those seventy or so

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Speaker 1: weeks that they're alive. Yeah, I mean, I think it's

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Speaker 1: easy for somebody maybe who doesn't think about it much

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Speaker 1: to think of a laying hen as just this sort

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Speaker 1: of organic egg machine, like a living egg machine. Not

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Speaker 1: organic in the sense that it's you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: hard organic, but a living machine that just pumps out

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Speaker 1: these eggs that we love to eat for breakfast or

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Speaker 1: on top of a hamburger or you know, a good meal. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but that's not the case. Like,

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Speaker 1: these birds have personalities and they have behaviors that they

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Speaker 1: want to do and that they normally do, like, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's just a handful of them they love. And you know,

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Speaker 1: you can see this when I go over to Justin

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Speaker 1: and Melissa's house when they're out doing their thing. They're

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Speaker 1: preening and they're cleaning their feathers and they're flapping, ruffling

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Speaker 1: their feathers around and flapping around, and they take a

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Speaker 1: little dust bass, which means they roll around on the ground,

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Speaker 1: and uh, they're absorbing oil for their feathers, and they're

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Speaker 1: getting rid of their dead skin and their shedding feathers

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Speaker 1: that they don't need, and little feather mites, and they

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Speaker 1: love to nest. And then here's the big one is

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Speaker 1: And I've seen it happen and I've tried to guard

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Speaker 1: my eyes because I know what's going on. They don't

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Speaker 1: like a lot of attention when they're laying these eggs.

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Speaker 1: It's a they're giving birth. It's a private matter to them,

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Speaker 1: you know, giving birth in the figurative sense. But it's uh,

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Speaker 1: it's like they're doing their business. They don't want a

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Speaker 1: lot of attention. They'd like to do this instinctively in private,

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Speaker 1: and they're not able to do that there. It's called

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Speaker 1: the laying act and it's on full display. And they

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Speaker 1: can get so upset about having to do this without

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Speaker 1: any privacy in battery cages, not can they do. They

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Speaker 1: get so upset they peck at other hens and they

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Speaker 1: fight each other. And that's why they end up clipping

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Speaker 1: their beaks because the other hens are getting injured from

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Speaker 1: being henpecked because they're stressed out from living on an iPad. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Dr con Conrad Lorenz Or Lawrence Um, who starred in

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Speaker 1: our Animal Imprinting episode, I think he's popped up elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: He had a quote he said, the worst torture to

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Speaker 1: which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to

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Speaker 1: retire somewhere for the laying act. The person who knows

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Speaker 1: something about animals. It is truly heartrending to watch how

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Speaker 1: a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her

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Speaker 1: fellow cage mates to search their in vain for cover

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Speaker 1: because they don't get what's going on too. It's it is,

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Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. Yeah, So, like that is an enormous thing.

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Speaker 1: Like not only are we forcing them to have more

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Speaker 1: eggs every year, we're forcing them to do it against

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Speaker 1: their instinct basically every day, and they really suffer tremendous

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Speaker 1: amount of distress for that. And then one of the

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Speaker 1: other ones, one of the other behaviors that's really really

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Speaker 1: big is roaming, their freedom to roam. Chickens are very

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Speaker 1: social animals. They like to hang out, they like to

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Speaker 1: mess with each other, like to pren one another, not

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Speaker 1: to supreme themselves, um, but they also need space to

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Speaker 1: get away from one another there and when they can't

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Speaker 1: do that, that's when things like hen pecking to uh

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Speaker 1: to an injurious degree, or cannibalism we're all sorts of um.

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Speaker 1: Terrible zookosis can happen when chickens are stuck together in

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Speaker 1: a very small area for their entire lives, and that

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Speaker 1: is the basis of battery cages. And you said, it's like,

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Speaker 1: like it makes sense from a mechanized industrial standpoint. But

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Speaker 1: back in the day when when when they figured this out.

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Speaker 1: These are the same people who resisted putting seatbelts and

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Speaker 1: cars and got us into Vietnam, you know what I mean? Like,

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Speaker 1: these aren't exactly the most moralistic generation that we've ever produced.

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Speaker 1: They were very sensible and like rational minded and didn't

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Speaker 1: take a great deal of humanity into consideration when it

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Speaker 1: came to profit maximization. Yes, this is a segment we

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Speaker 1: like to call Gen X speaks to millennials and Gen

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Speaker 1: Z about boomers. That's right, you got that straight. But

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Speaker 1: it's true. They also you know, alter their UH diet

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Speaker 1: and lighting to UH to maximize their output. They don't

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Speaker 1: move around, so they're obviously you know what's gonna happen

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Speaker 1: when an animal is just sort of stuck in the small,

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Speaker 1: tiny thing, They're gonna have no muscle. They have muscle

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Speaker 1: loss because they can't move around and do their thing,

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Speaker 1: and they basically become what I described, which is these

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Speaker 1: living egg laying machines, which is exactly how the industrial

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Speaker 1: egg complex, if that's a term wants it. But things

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Speaker 1: are changing a little bit, and we're gonna walk you

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Speaker 1: through some of you know, a lot of these are

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Speaker 1: marketing terms, but some of them are legitimate um terms

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Speaker 1: that the USDA allows them to use. Uh, in addition

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Speaker 1: to these great pictures that you see on your egg

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Speaker 1: cartons of chickens, like, you know, smiling under the sunshine

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Speaker 1: on a rolling pastoral scene. Uh, they're allowed to do

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Speaker 1: stuff like that, but the words that they use are

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Speaker 1: regulated to an extent. And if you really, really really

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Speaker 1: want to do your due diligence, though, you've got to

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Speaker 1: know what all this stuff means and then even do

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Speaker 1: a little more investigation. Yeah, typical U. S d A

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Speaker 1: type stuff. But let's take a break and then we'll

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Speaker 1: get into cage free. How about that, Let's get out

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Speaker 1: of the cage. If you want to know, then you're

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Speaker 1: in luck. Just chuck. Okay, So we're talking cage free,

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Speaker 1: and I think I already let the cat out of

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Speaker 1: the bag, although hopefully not in the chicken cooper um

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Speaker 1: that cage free actually does have some meaning like actually,

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Speaker 1: if you if you look at it compared to the

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Speaker 1: battery cage operations of your or actually I shouldn't say,

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Speaker 1: of yours are still most chickens in the United States,

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Speaker 1: at least they're still in battery cages. I think something

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Speaker 1: like se which amounts to two and thirty million hens

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Speaker 1: are currently in battery cages. Um, so it's still going on,

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Speaker 1: still happening. But if you if you compare the battery

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Speaker 1: cage to the cage free operation, it is a substantial difference,

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Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, Like the more we describe this stuff,

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Speaker 1: there are levels of getting better, for sure. Uh in

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Speaker 1: cage free is better. Uh, it is greater than it means.

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Speaker 1: And this is a direct quote from the U. S

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Speaker 1: d A means the eggs must be produced by hens

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Speaker 1: housed in a way that allows for not only unlimited

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Speaker 1: access to food and water. And you might think, well, duh,

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Speaker 1: but they used to like keep food from hens. Uh,

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Speaker 1: so different things would happen with their production and they're like,

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Speaker 1: you can't do that at all anymore, and then the

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Speaker 1: rest of it goes. But unlike eggs from caged hens

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Speaker 1: also provides them freedom to roam during the laying cycle.

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Speaker 1: That's huge. But here's the deal is, they are there

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Speaker 1: aren't any guidelines about what that access to outdoors means uh,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't say how much space there needs to be,

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Speaker 1: And so basically what you're still seeing is a big,

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Speaker 1: long barn with a bunch of laying hens packed inside there.

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Speaker 1: They're just not in those wire cages. No, they have

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Speaker 1: now instead of about an eight by eight square of

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Speaker 1: space available to them like they do in the battery cages,

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Speaker 1: typically a hand in a free or cage free situation

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Speaker 1: has about ten and a half inch by eleven inch

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Speaker 1: space available to them per bird, And it's not like

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Speaker 1: it's designated. That's what they can move around. At least

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Speaker 1: they can move around these giant, giant barns. The problem

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Speaker 1: is that there's tens of thousands of hens also in

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Speaker 1: these barns, and they just don't have that much room

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Speaker 1: to move. If they had a ton of willpower and

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Speaker 1: they decided they were going to go to point B,

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Speaker 1: they could conceivably make their way there. But it's not

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Speaker 1: going to be easy and it's not like they're just

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Speaker 1: roaming around and they have a bunch of free space

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Speaker 1: to move around in or do much in. Again, compared

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Speaker 1: to the battery cages, where they had no chance of

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Speaker 1: moving away from their little cage, it is a huge improvement.

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Speaker 1: But then when you see a picture of what a

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Speaker 1: cage free barn looks like, it's it gets a little

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Speaker 1: depressing again. Yeah, and you know some of these egg

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Speaker 1: producers are not the hens, but the operations. Obviously there's

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Speaker 1: only one egg producer in the scenario. Um. They do

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Speaker 1: have some perches that are built up, and they do

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Speaker 1: have some nesting areas so they can hop up there.

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Speaker 1: They can stretch their wings, but they're not required to.

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Speaker 1: That's not part of the U s d A requirement.

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Speaker 1: If you want to look for requirements that you could

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Speaker 1: look for a label from the United Egg Producers. They

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Speaker 1: have a different certification guideline for cage free that's a

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Speaker 1: little more um, I guess open than the U s

395
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Speaker 1: d A s are restrictive. I guess if you're a farmer. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They must allow hens to exhibit natural behaviors that we

397
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Speaker 1: talked about and include enrichments such as scratch areas, purchase,

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Speaker 1: and nests, so they have to have those, and then

399
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Speaker 1: they must have access to litter. And litter is just

400
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Speaker 1: like the stuff on the ground that they like to

401
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Speaker 1: roll around in. It's not like beer, canson, old batteries

402
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Speaker 1: and stuff nothing crying ironized cody kind of. Uh. They

403
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Speaker 1: must have protection from predators and be able to move

404
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Speaker 1: through a barn in a manner that promote that promotes

405
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Speaker 1: bird welfare. So that's a little hazy, but that generally

406
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Speaker 1: means not as crowded. But I don't think that that

407
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Speaker 1: even specifies what that means. No, And and that is

408
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Speaker 1: much better than the U. S d A standards. And

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Speaker 1: the United Egg Producers are an industry industry group of

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Speaker 1: like agg operators, Like I think there's maybe a hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty in the in the United States, which is

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Speaker 1: way less than there used to be almost all the eggs, right, yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we explored a lot of them too. Um. Surprisingly

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Speaker 1: Uh so it's a it's a car, it's a cartel,

415
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: a lot like a salabbying group basically for the egg producers. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know, at at the risk of sounding like

417
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Speaker 1: suspicious of them, like I would guess that they created

418
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Speaker 1: these standards to get ahead of this problem that was

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00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: growing all of a sudden and costing them money. So

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Speaker 1: by doing better than the U. S c A, you know,

421
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: that's great. Like their hens are are genuinely like um, um,

422
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: what's the word, what's the opposite of suffering benefiting from that?

423
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Speaker 1: But it makes me suspect and actually I know from

424
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Speaker 1: research it can be much better than that, right. And

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Speaker 1: a big one is density. It's a it's a huge

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Speaker 1: part of it. It's density. How like there should be

427
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,919
Speaker 1: much greater limits on how many hens you can have

428
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 1: per barn. And then also another one is even under

429
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: these um these better more stricter standards for hand welfare,

430
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: their their lives are very much artificially controlled still because

431
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: they're kept in this barn. They're still in a barn.

432
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 1: They don't go outside to be cage free. You you

433
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: still don't go outside if your hand. You spend your

434
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: entire life in one single barn until you stop producing

435
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,400
Speaker 1: enough eggs fast enough, and then they turn you into

436
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: pet food. That's right, Uh, sometimes feeding yourself back to

437
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: your fellow chickens. Uh. I looked a little bit into

438
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: what chicken feed is mainly made of. And because I

439
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 1: remember at the time when I took this tour, someone

440
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 1: said something about, you know, there's chicken parts in the

441
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: chicken feed. Uh. This was someone telling me this. I

442
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: didn't find that in my research, but there has been

443
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: a movement away from things like fish meal because fish

444
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: meal is obviously the oceans are being depleted too, to

445
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: using fishes to feed chickens isn't a great idea. And

446
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: I think just a few years ago, um, there was

447
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: final approval to use uh and it sounds gross, but

448
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: like fly larva, and you might think, like that's good.

449
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: That is good because that's what chickens would eat if

450
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 1: they were just roaming the countryside, they would eat things

451
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, so they're starting to be fed things

452
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: they normally would would eat otherwise, which is good that

453
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: their their food is still very much controlled and portioned

454
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: and everything, but they, um, they're starting to be fed

455
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: things that more resemble their diet was before it was

456
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: just whatever was cheapest and most abundant that you could

457
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: feed a chicken like soy and fish. That's yeah, that's

458
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: not natural. And you, as the person eating the egg,

459
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 1: should be like, I don't want to egg from a

460
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: chicken that's been eating fish. It's whole life. Chickens don't

461
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: eat fish. This egg probably tastes way different than it should.

462
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 1: And that's another thing too. There's a lot of health

463
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: benefits that have been documented in eggs that come from

464
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: well treated chickens. It seems to be that the you

465
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: treat a chicken, the healthier the egg it produces. Is

466
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: you can just get a and you know, if you

467
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 1: don't have a friend that has a back air chicken,

468
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: there's probably some local farmers market where some fish fan

469
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: will sell you their eggs. Uh. And you you need

470
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 1: only look at them from the outside at first, to

471
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: what they look like in the pan, to what they

472
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: taste like. It is a stark difference. It just is

473
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 1: U Yeah, totally. You eat one and you can take

474
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: on like five cops. Yeah, there's that nutrient. These cage

475
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: free chickens, whether they're United Egg Producer Standard or just

476
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: usd A standard, they still have their beaks trimmed when

477
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: they're ten days old. They're still forced molted. Molten is

478
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: a natural process, but they do something called force molting

479
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: when uh and this is where they used to take

480
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: away their feed entirely to force molting. Now they just

481
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: withhold some feed to force the molting. It's when they

482
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: shed those feathers and molts and that extends there their

483
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: layer life by you know, it's pretty substantial. It can

484
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: be like forty weeks so that again they're just they're

485
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: ringing every last egg out of those chickens, k tree

486
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: or not. I saw that the forced molting is not

487
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: actually in and of itself harmful, and that it might

488
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: actually be beneficial for the chickens because they live their

489
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: life indoors, and one of the ways that they do

490
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: that is through adjusting the length of the light, the

491
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: artificial light. But the problem is natural their withholding. No,

492
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: it's not naturally happening, but it's not going to naturally

493
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: happen during their lifetime anyway, And it actually is good

494
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: for them to go through a mold. But they wouldn't

495
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: without this induced or forced molting because they aren't They

496
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: aren't subjected to um natural light. They don't get natural light.

497
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: It's all artificial. They spend their entire lives basically indoors,

498
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: almost entirely cut off from natural light, if not entirely

499
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: cut off from it. See I thought hens malt by

500
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: being a hen. No. No, I think they take their

501
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: cues from um a shorter duration of days, and then

502
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: they stop eating quite as much. Then they go through

503
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: the molting process, stop laying eggs uh as frequently, and

504
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: then that happens. I'm saying, yes, it does, but it's

505
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: cued by changes in natural light. And if they're not

506
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: exposed to natural light, they're not going to undergo the mold,

507
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: right unless you Yeah, but like justin Melissa's eggs malt

508
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: because they like it can be the shorter day of

509
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: the natural light cycle of a year, right right, Yeah,

510
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: And that's a natural thing. I'm just saying, like they

511
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: can induce it through artificial light changes an artificial light,

512
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily bad that they induce it artificially.

513
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: It's probably better than just not doing it at all. Right, Okay,

514
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: I got you. Okay, I thought you're saying they molt normally. No, no, no,

515
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: I would never say something like that. Uh, now we

516
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: can move on. Those are hens that lay eggs. Now

517
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: we can move on to hens that are raised for meat.

518
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: They're called broilers, uh in the industry, and um, it's

519
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: kind of the same deal of American broilers. Chickens never

520
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: see light in this country. Uh. They are in those

521
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: from the moment they're born as a little chickie chicks.

522
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: They are in a barn, and they live about six

523
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,719
Speaker 1: weeks and they are they are pumped up as fast

524
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: as they can be pumped up to get the biggest

525
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: breast meat possible. UM. I think there was, Dave, this

526
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: is pretty startling. UM day found a calculation that if

527
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: you if you sort of transferred their growth rate to

528
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: like what a human baby would look like, Uh, it

529
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: would be a three forty nine pound baby by their

530
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: second birthday, like baby huey. Yeah, that's maybe we are right. Yeah.

531
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 1: So the the way that they did this is through

532
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: basically selective breeding UM, selecting chickens that UM grow in

533
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: their breast area. But they've basically surpassed any any point

534
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: where you would normally stop because it's now very harmful

535
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: for the chicken. These chickens that we eat, the broiler

536
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: chickens UM not necessarily a whole chicken. It can also

537
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: be like you know, um, like drumsticks or breasts or

538
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: thighs or whatever, all that comes from a broiler chicken.

539
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: Any chicken you eat is a broiler chicken. UM. So

540
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: these broiler chickens are are usually selected for their breasts,

541
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: and their breasts are so heavy that they can't really

542
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: walk because their legs aren't developing the way that they should.

543
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: But then In addition to that, their legs can't develop

544
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: the way they should because the breast is so heavy,

545
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: so they end up with metabolic diseases, they end up

546
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: with muscle atrophy, and they don't do much of anything

547
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: except eat and rest because that's basically all they have

548
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: the energy to do. Six weeks is their lifespan. Yeah,

549
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: they just want to reiterate that. So over the six weeks, Yeah,

550
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: they go from like chicks to slaughtered adults in six weeks,

551
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: So they're growing that fast. But they're also growing way

552
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: bigger than any normal chicken would write, any normal breed.

553
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: So during that six weeks um, they're stuck in this litter.

554
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: If they're in a situation where they have litter available

555
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: to them and they're just pooping and peeing in this litter,

556
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: and they're not getting up enough to not get like

557
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: blisters from the ammonia in the litter, it's a it's

558
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: a problem in and of itself, Like that's how basically

559
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: obese these these chickens are. That they cannot move much

560
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: at all, and they end up getting sores from exposure

561
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: to all the yearine they're they're sitting in. Yeah, this

562
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: was the hardest part of that tour for me in

563
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: the one where my buddy Barry and I actually left

564
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: the building after And I'll go ahead, and we probably

565
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: should have issued a trigger warning period hopefully the titled

566
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: episode would scare off any like vegans who really didn't

567
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: don't even want to hear about this, but trigger warning

568
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: right here. Uh, one of the you know, and this

569
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: is what they do when one of the broilers or

570
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: any of the chickens are are injured or you know,

571
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,719
Speaker 1: uh winged in some way that isn't uh, I don't know.

572
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put I'm not gonna label what exactly

573
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: is wrong with the chicken when they pick it up

574
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: by the neck and sling it in a little circle

575
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: real quick to snap their neck and then throw it

576
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: back on the ground. But that's exactly what happened in

577
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: front of us when we saw a chicken that apparently

578
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: wasn't doing well. And the guy is literally in mid

579
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: conversation and I know this is the job that they do,

580
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,959
Speaker 1: and I don't expect him to hold a funeral. But um,

581
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: that's when Barry and I stepped out and we're like, uh,

582
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna be out here for the rest of the tour,

583
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: I can imagine, And yeah, I had five cigarettes at

584
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: the same time. So there's this um this right, or

585
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: from the New Yorker named Michael Spencer who went to

586
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: a poultry farm and he wrote that, um, there must

587
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the floor

588
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: in front of me. They didn't move, they didn't cluck.

589
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: They were almost like statues of chickens living in nearly

590
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: total darkness. And they would spend every minute of their

591
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: six week lives that way. It's pretty sobering. And those

592
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: are the brothers, those are the ones we eat, right,

593
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 1: So um, again, they're bread to to grow this way,

594
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: and it's totally unnatural. Chickens don't normally get like that.

595
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: And when they do interact with people, which is not

596
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: obviously a requirement for a chicken to have a good life,

597
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: but it's for what you just said. It's to to

598
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: harvest or kill a sick or just a sick chicken,

599
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: or get the carcass of a dead chicken out of there.

600
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: And if you want to see just how little humans,

601
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: how little of a role humans have in chicken farming today,

602
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 1: there's a video that Day found. It's actually like a

603
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: trade video that I think Ink is kind of like

604
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: to sell all of these different machines. It's called Inside

605
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: the Million Dollar Chicken Farm, Amazing Modern Chicks, Poultry Farming

606
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: check Technology. It's on YouTube and it's like sixteen minutes long.

607
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 1: I didn't watch it with the volume, so I don't

608
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: know if there's narration, but if you watch it on mute,

609
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:22,479
Speaker 1: it's just it's mesmerizing. And it's also like, I really

610
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: hope humans don't end up like this in the next

611
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: like hundred two hundred years, you know, like it's really

612
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: really weird and unsettling, but then also at the same

613
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 1: time deeply fascinating. Yeah. So the answer then would be

614
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: free range. That is seemingly the solution. So what does

615
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: that mean. We talked about cage free and what that means. Uh.

616
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: For the U s d A, any egg or poultry

617
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: product that can be classified as free range means the

618
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: housing for the birds must provide continuous free access to

619
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: the outside through their normal growing cycle. Uh. And again,

620
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: this is sort of like that story when the guy

621
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: said it just means there's a door. They don't go

622
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: out there because their food and water is in here

623
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: U S D A D A doesn't say, um, how

624
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: big this door has to be, where it has to

625
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: be placed. They don't say they don't require them to

626
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: go outside, like they don't shuttle them outside every day

627
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,439
Speaker 1: for some sunlight like you would like in a prison

628
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: yard or something like that. All that matters is that

629
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 1: they have continuous access. That door stays accessible and open.

630
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 1: And uh, so you've got your big barn again, you've

631
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: got your small door, and if they want to go outside,

632
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: they can. But then even if they do go outside,

633
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: it doesn't say like and you've got to have this

634
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: much area for this many chickens to roam around if

635
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: they want to. It can be anything. It can be

636
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: a pretty small little area and it still qualifies as outside.

637
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: So so those huge dark barns with artificial light filled

638
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: with tens of thousands of chickens, if you popped a

639
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,760
Speaker 1: hole the size of a bread plate into the wall

640
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 1: of that barn, you could call your operation a free

641
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: range chicken operation. Now that's it to be fair. But uh,

642
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: technically you're right, yeah, And it's like, yes, it is

643
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: technical that I'm right, But from from the research and

644
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: into just how um, how much of a finger the U.

645
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: S d A has on what constitutes free range and

646
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: who meets those requirements. It's entirely possible that somebody's just

647
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: cut a little hole inside of the barn and now

648
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: is is saying free range and could argue that if

649
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: an inspector did come out and argued it with them,

650
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: they would probably the the egg producer would probably win

651
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: that argument in court, right. I mean, the doors I

652
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 1: saw were bigger, and chickens could easily fit, like more

653
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: than one chicken, like they were sizeable. But again, the

654
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: whole point is their food and water is inside, and

655
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 1: so chickens are generally an especially when they're they're still

656
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 1: pretty crowded in there. They're still gonna stay where their

657
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: food and water is. Generally, it's not like they're saying, hey,

658
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 1: we're gonna put the water out. We're gonna have outdoor

659
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: class today. Guys, we're gonna put the water in the

660
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: food outside. That will really encourage you to go outside.

661
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 1: They don't care if they go outside or not. So um,

662
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 1: we should say the EU has much better standards for

663
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: what constitutes free range. They've been working at free range

664
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,840
Speaker 1: and cage free stuff since like ninety nine and have

665
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: really made some big gains since then. Um. But then

666
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,760
Speaker 1: even in the United States, Chuck, there's plenty of people

667
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: like Justin Um who are saying, like, no, I actually

668
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: want my chickens to be free range, like you would

669
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: think free range actually is. And so there's there's UM.

670
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 1: There's another kind of designation called pasture raised, which people

671
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: tend to use when they're to kind of separate themselves

672
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 1: from free range, because I think enough people have picked

673
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: up on the fact that free range is kind of meaningless,

674
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: so pasturage seems to be um more more legitimate, or

675
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: most people who do legitimately raise chickens outdoors would call

676
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: them pasture raised. So they're like wheeling them around from

677
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: place to place. They have an enclosure that they can

678
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 1: go to and inclement weather, but for the most most

679
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: of their lives, they're spending their time outdoors, UM doing

680
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 1: what chickens do given plenty of space for being chickens,

681
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: and that's typically pasture raised. Unfortunately, as far as the

682
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: us d IS can the U s d A is concerned,

683
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: pasture raised is the same thing as free range. So again,

684
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: if you have a shed that has all these chickens

685
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: and you cut a hole on the side. You can

686
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 1: now call that pastur raise too if you want, Yeah,

687
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 1: you can't. And and if you're saying, well, if you're

688
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: saying that some places use pastor raged raised or raged,

689
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: uh would be quite a party. It's like am trax

690
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: is loosing your pasture? Uh? If you're saying that, um,

691
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: some farmers are doing it right, smaller operations And when

692
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:05,760
Speaker 1: they say past your rays, they mean it. But technically

693
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: the U S d A D A doesn't make a distinction.

694
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: What am I to do? That's where you have to,

695
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: like do your homework. You can't just make if you

696
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 1: want to you if you, if you, if it matters

697
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,280
Speaker 1: to you, you gotta look up this farm and see

698
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: what they're doing. And a lot of times see smaller

699
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: farms will say, hey, come on out if you care,

700
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: and we'll show you our operation because we're proud of it.

701
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: Like you can. Uh. They generally have websites where you

702
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: can and it's all there. You know. I think the

703
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: U S d A even demands, not demands, but requires

704
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: a H. I demand a U r L. They take

705
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: their shoe off and bang it on the death. They

706
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: require a u r L where you can look this

707
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: stuff up if you want to. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

708
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: the U s d is all over that, which is

709
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 1: good because I mean, we've got third party certification who

710
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: you know who could be illegitimate. But I think that

711
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: like the industry would police third party certifiers because they

712
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: don't want to like give away their money unnecessarily because

713
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 1: getting um, getting things like pasture raised or um free

714
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: range like these are these are like it's not required.

715
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: You can opt to have it done to be certified

716
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: like that, but you're gonna pay for it. So if

717
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: we had like phony you know, certifiers running around, I

718
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 1: guess yeah, the big producers will probably co opted and

719
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: use it to their gain. But luckily there are some

720
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 1: really legitimate third party certifiers. And the one that seems

721
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: to have bubbled to the top as far as I

722
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: can tell, is called Humane Farm Animal Care, A fact

723
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:41,439
Speaker 1: I think is the way that you say the the abbreviation. Yeah,

724
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: I think that's a good uh cliffhanger. Okay, Yeah, and

725
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: let's take our final break and we'll talk about them

726
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: and uh and generally, how the U s d A

727
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,359
Speaker 1: determines if it qualifies as K free or free range

728
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 1: to begin with. If you want to know, then you're

729
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: in luck. Just chuck all right. So you mentioned a

730
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: couple of important things before the break. One is that, um,

731
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: if you want these certifications, uh, it is an uh

732
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: like egg grating stuff like that you see like great

733
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: A eggs. It is a voluntary thing you have to

734
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,359
Speaker 1: pay for. Uh, so you can you know, you do

735
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 1: it so you can put it on your label so

736
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: you can charge more obviously, Uh. And you know, maybe

737
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: you care about delivering a higher quality egg. Who knows.

738
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 1: But uh, the U s d d A doesn't. Um

739
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: Like if it's certified organic, they're not out there doing

740
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: that certification. That is completely done by U s d

741
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: A approved certification bodies, and those seem to be a

742
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: little more feet on the ground as far as actually

743
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: going to farms and looking at them. Uh, the U

744
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,759
Speaker 1: s d A does not require and and they can't

745
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: there are too many, you know that. I don't think

746
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: they even had the staffing to do that if they

747
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: wanted to to go out and actually photograph arms and

748
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,280
Speaker 1: check it out. If you want that descriptor and label,

749
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 1: you have to send in a detailed written description explaining

750
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: how it meets the standards along with an affidavit that's

751
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 1: signed that it's not false misleading. But that's kind of it.

752
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: Like that's the all the proof they need. That's so

753
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: that's for free range. Cage free they take away more seriously,

754
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:40,879
Speaker 1: that's where they do have inspectors go out and check

755
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: so like if it says cage free has been verified

756
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: that this this meets those cage free standards. So that's

757
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. That's another reason why cage free

758
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: is a big step up. But yeah, free ranges you say, um, yes,

759
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: my operation is free range under u s d A standards. No,

760
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 1: I'm not lying, and the USDA d A says, good enough,

761
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: you're you can put free range on your labels. Now,

762
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: yeah they did. Uh. I think they found a study

763
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: from that Animal Welfare Institute that examined records from the

764
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: f s I S and they found that only one

765
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: producer out of a hundred actually submitted photos of the

766
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: barn showing the access. Like I think eighty three out

767
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 1: of the hundred, uh provided evidence, Uh, I guess not

768
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 1: photographic evidence, but um affidavits and third party kind of certifications,

769
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: and then seventeen of them just had zero substantial substantiation

770
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: at all, and that they dug in a little bit

771
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: and found in forty four cases they had no detailed

772
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 1: written description at all, which is supposedly what's required, But

773
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: they still got approval from the U. S t A

774
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: did label their stuff is free range. Yeah, so I

775
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: don't want to say the words rubber stamp, but it

776
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: seems like it might be that way for sure. And again,

777
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: just buy or beware. Free range is synonymous as far

778
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: as the U. S. D A is concerned with free roaming,

779
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 1: pasture fed, pasture grown, pasture raised, and meadow raised. And again,

780
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: I just want to drive this home. It means that

781
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:13,839
Speaker 1: there's a hole in the side of this giant barn

782
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: filled with tens of thousands of chickens who may or

783
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 1: may not be going in or out of that hole

784
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 1: on any day or if ever, during their entire lives.

785
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: And on the other side of that it might just

786
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: be a concrete pad, is what they're They could be

787
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: free ranging on like, that's it as far as the

788
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: USDA is concerned. So we have a long way to

789
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: go with free range. Um. In particular because chuck like

790
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: you me and basically anyone listening to this podcast has

791
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: a totally different conception of what free range means, right.

792
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: And there was a survey that was done again by

793
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 1: the Animal Welfare Institute. They did it in two thousand

794
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: and fifteen, and they went out to people, just everyday

795
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: people and said, hey, what do you what do you

796
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: think free range? Should, shouldn't should um entail? And they

797
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: came back with some pretty interesting stuff. Yeah. They you know,

798
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: as would expect, people thought that free range should mean

799
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: that there's enough space outside for every bird to be

800
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: out during the day, uh, during daylight hours that they

801
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: want to be in. Consumers said they thought the outdoor

802
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: area should be at least partially covered by grass. Like

803
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: the expectation from consumers is, well, you put a picture

804
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 1: on your carton of a hen rolling around, uh this

805
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 1: beautiful pastoral scene. So that's kind of what I expect.

806
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: Or am I just being hoodwinked? And the answer is

807
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: you're being hoodwinked. Well, to be fair, these are the

808
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: same people that believe that those barbecue signs where a

809
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: pig is actually cooking the barbecue, they think that's going

810
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: on as well. So we got to really kind of

811
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: keep this in I never understood that one those are

812
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: so disturbing. It. This is my brother Lou. We we

813
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: were eating him. Later we had a falling out. Uh um. So,

814
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: like I said, if you're if is all of this

815
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: is just frustrating and confusing, all you have to do

816
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: is do a little legwork, um or you know, obviously

817
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 1: go to those local farmers markets because that's where that's

818
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:12,919
Speaker 1: where you're really getting into good stuff and talk to them.

819
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that fish fan is gonna invite you

820
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 1: out to their farm to check out what's going on. Yeah,

821
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: but you might walk away with more than eggs. You

822
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. That's right, it would be a

823
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: nice trip. So it literally am so Um if you

824
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: do want to figure out like where to get good

825
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: eggs or what eggs you can trust and because you

826
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 1: it's because you don't trust a fish fan. Um. There

827
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,800
Speaker 1: are organizations that say, like, let's not get fish fans

828
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 1: involved in this at all, let's keep them at bay,

829
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,799
Speaker 1: and everyone says, yes, agreed, agreed, How can we move

830
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: forward without the fish? Keep them on the couch where

831
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: they belong. So again, the humane farm animal care fact Um,

832
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: they they from what I can tell, at least in

833
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,399
Speaker 1: the United States, they definitely are yet and they've come

834
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 1: up with some definitions um for their certified humane label.

835
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: So that's the one that certified humane on a like

836
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: a poultry or some sort of food product. It actually

837
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: has met some really good standards and they were basically

838
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: like the U s d a's definition of free range

839
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 1: and pasture raised are so terrible, We're just going to

840
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: create our own definitions, and they did so, they created

841
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,879
Speaker 1: their own standards, and to to be certified humane free

842
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: range or certified humane pasture raised, they the producers have

843
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: to meet those standards and they're good ones. Yeah, they're

844
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: really good, or you know, comparatively speaking, at least for

845
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: free range, the hens must be outside for at least

846
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: six hours a day, weather permitting, obviously, and that that

847
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: outdoor space must have a minimum of two square feet

848
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: for every bird. And again that doesn't sound like much

849
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: and it's not, but the difference between being able to

850
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: move around freely when you have two square feet per

851
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 1: bird and when you have an iPad per bird is

852
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 1: pretty huge, Like you can actually move around and it's

853
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 1: not just like being at the worst party you've ever

854
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: been to. Paste Ray's certified humane as even better than that,

855
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: the hens must be outdoors year round, with mobile or

856
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: fixed housing where the hens can nest or rest for

857
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 1: the night. Get out about whether and they are. They

858
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: get about a hundred and eight square feet per bird

859
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: a thousand birds for two point five acres. A bird

860
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: doesn't even know what to do with that much space. Now,

861
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, can I build a wing onto my

862
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: little in house? That's right, and Chuck. One of the

863
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:43,720
Speaker 1: big things that they're doing at HAFAC is UM they

864
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: employ veterinarians, people with advanced degrees and animal studies. Those

865
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: are the people that go out and visit these farms

866
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: to certify them. People who know what they're talking about,

867
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: people who are not going to be bought off, people

868
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: with the UM animals welfare in mind, to verify the

869
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 1: everybody's meeting these standards before they get that certification. So

870
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: that's a good one. There are plenty of other ones

871
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 1: out there too, But that's UM just based on our

872
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: research and from what Dave came up with. Two it's like,

873
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: that's that's a good one to start with. But it's

874
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:17,359
Speaker 1: like you said, do your homework. You know, it doesn't

875
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: take long either. It's not like you've got to invest

876
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,399
Speaker 1: hours and hours into this chicken research. Like I guarantee you,

877
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: wherever you live, you can find some pretty good options

878
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: with you know, fifteen minutes of research online. That's right.

879
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: So there you have it. We just need to get

880
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 1: on the U s c A to increase to to

881
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 1: basically say no, they have to spend a certain amount

882
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: of time outdoors to be free range. And then we'll

883
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,720
Speaker 1: go from there because the USDA will probably say fifteen

884
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: minutes to start. Uh. If you want to know more

885
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: about free range chickens and cage free eggs, there's a

886
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: lot of stuff out there that you can read, and

887
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:57,719
Speaker 1: we hope that you will. And since I said we

888
00:50:57,760 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 1: hope that you will, it's time for a listener mail.

889
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:04,959
Speaker 1: That's right. This one is called egg on Chuck's face

890
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 1: because I've misspoken a big way on our National Parks episode.

891
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: When I touted disperse camping wherever you want national parks,

892
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,919
Speaker 1: I meant I was thinking of national forests. That's where

893
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: you can do disperse camping wherever you want. And a boy,

894
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:24,280
Speaker 1: I said it a bunch, So you can't camp anywhere

895
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: you want to national parks. Uh, and I feel terrible

896
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: for that being out there so much that we might

897
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 1: even have to edit that. But uh, greetings from your

898
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: friend and national park ranger. Your episode of National Parks

899
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: is excellent, and we heard from quite a few park rangers.

900
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 1: By the way, I like to address a statement made

901
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,280
Speaker 1: by Chuck. Some national parks may still allow disperse camping.

902
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: It's commonly allowed in national forests. Though national parks and

903
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: national forests are similar but have different missions and are

904
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:56,279
Speaker 1: therefore managed differently. National parks tend to regulate recreation a

905
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,280
Speaker 1: little more strictly. In fact, many national parks now permit

906
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: systems in play for backpackers. Yeah, that's very, very true,

907
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: and those who successfully acquire permits even then are often

908
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 1: restricted to camping and designated back country campsites. This prevents

909
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: overcrowding and popular destinations, which lessens the amount of abandoned gear,

910
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: garbage and food scraps and every left behind by certain visitors.

911
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: Certain visitors I wanted to address us because they're regulating

912
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: where people camp and how many people can camp in

913
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 1: a certain area may seem extreme to some. Helps preserve

914
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:32,080
Speaker 1: the wilderness character and solitude so many visitors are seeking

915
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: when they visit a national park. Additionally, visitors who disperse

916
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 1: camp in a park that requires a designated campsite and

917
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: or permit may be subject to fines. That's very important

918
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: for all visitors to research regulations for any park for

919
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: US or wilderness that they're visiting. Happy hiking and that

920
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:54,439
Speaker 1: is uh from our no named park ranger. Park ranger

921
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: wish to remain anonymous, which is we're always happy to do.

922
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 1: Thank you, anonymous park ranger. Happy high king to you

923
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 1: as well. That's right. And I even had one park

924
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: rangers say, don't make fun of our green shorts. Uh.

925
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 1: And to be clear, I don't think those shorts of

926
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: the same color as as trucks really color I was

927
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: really making fun of. Maybe they are, but I don't.

928
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a if you could even

929
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: make a fabric that color, right, they just kind of

930
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: appear it doesn't adhere to textiles. Um. Well, thank you

931
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: very much again, anonymous park ranger, into all the park

932
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 1: rangers and everybody who rode into correct Chuck, who, by

933
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: the way, it took it with a palm, So way

934
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: we go, Chuck. If you want to get in touch

935
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,240
Speaker 1: with this via email, like your friendly anonymous park ranger.

936
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 1: Did You Can send it to stuff Podcasts at iHeart

937
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

938
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,720
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

939
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 1: the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

940
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.