Interesting random facts.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by BlackDog

No matter how large or small it is, the commerical chicken you buy in the supermarket was 44 days old when it was butchered. The chicken companies manipulate how fast the chickens grow by the amount of feed and "daylight" that the chickens receive, but they are always 44 days old when they're butchered.


The turkey you buy in the supermarket for your Thanksgiving dinner may have been butchered as early as April. The farmers cannot grow, and the processing plants cannot process, enough turkeys in a shorter amount of time for hundreds of millions of people to consume in one day.

Them are broilers, Warren. The seven poundish chickens you buy. We used to grow them. They grow so fast that you have to dress them at six weeks, otherwise they "flip" on you. That means their little hearts explode in their chest and when they die, they flip over on their back.
If you're real careful and adjust their diet, you can keep some of them alive a little longer and they'll get huge. Turkey huge.
On the turkeys...
Commercial birds are broad breasted whites. They're all born via artificial insemination because the size of the birds makes mating impossible. They're not so dainty as broilers, you can raise them out till they dress out at 40 pounds or more. You literally can't fit one in the oven, you have to quarter them. That's some big turkey.