Fast-growing chickens mainly rely on hormones to promote growth?

When it comes to fast-growing chickens, people immediately think that industrialized farming is unhealthy and unnatural, abuse of antibiotics and hormones is harmful to people's health, and gene mutation directly leads to species extinction. In short, there are still many "inside stories" about the horror of industrialized broiler breeding, but in fact, all these "facts" you know are wrong.

First of all, we can eat chickens that grow up to 40 days, mainly by scientific seed selection and breeding. For example, crossing broiler breeders with dwarf genes with excellent local chickens will produce new varieties that grow faster than local chickens. When our ancestors began to breed broilers, they carried out such breeding and improved and upgraded from generation to generation.

Secondly, broiler chickens have been slaughtered for more than 40 days, which is a normal level internationally. At present, most commercial broilers in the world are slaughtered at the age of 42-48 days, and the most common one is around 45 days. This growth rate is also recognized in China. According to the Technical Specification for Commercial Broiler Production revised by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in 2005, commercial broilers can grow in 7 weeks, and the standard weight at 6 weeks is 2355 g.

Finally, although it grows so fast, it is actually similar to the nutritional value of free-range chickens in general farmers. There is no obvious difference between dry matter (that is, the weight of organic matter after removing water) and ash (that is, the weight remaining after removing organic matter). However, with the increase of age, the protein content of slow-growing chickens will increase, while the water content will decrease.

Many people think that fast-growing chickens are not as delicious as domestic chickens, but this is not a nutritional difference. In addition to the inherent differences of varieties, it is also related to feeding methods. Many domestic chickens are raised in free range, with less fat accumulation, and the umami and fragrance of chicken breast will be higher than that of industrial chicken, but not as tender as industrial chicken.

In short, the saying that "broilers are slaughtered with hormones for more than 40 days" is mainly due to ignorance and misinformation of scientific and technological achievements such as broiler breeding and its supporting production technology. There are less than 300 kinds of feed additives approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, which are divided into nutritional additives and non-nutritional additives. All kinds of hormone substances that may be added in livestock and poultry feed are included in the banned list and included in the monitoring plan.

Broiler breeding pays attention to scale benefit, single chicken has low profit and high hormone. If hormones are added, the feed cost will increase greatly.

Author: Fu Xianxian