Freshsein
It happens in all of the bigger and more popular chicken farms, chickens are given antibiotics in order to prevent them for catching nasty infections and preserve their health. However, a certain farmer spoke up to remind us all that it is not the healthiest alternative and how he implemented another approach to it. Read more about it in the following article!
Industrial antibiotics are a relatively cheap, widely available method of keeping chickens healthy while keeping profits quite high. But one chicken farm in Pennsylvania does things a little differently and still manages to maintain excellent results.
The farm, owned by Scott Sechler, is one of the first to rely solely on a blend of oregano oil and cinnamon for use in the treatment and care of its chickens. In addition to being completely natural, oregano oil provides the chickens with many health benefits, making this particular technique produce a much higher quality of natural chicken in a much more humane way than would be achieved with antibiotics.
Like antibiotics, the oil helps the chickens fight off infections, reducing the amount of birds – and thereby revenue – lost to disease. The difference? The oil is all natural, of course, and produces much healthier chickens than those fed unnatural, manufactured antibiotics and drugs.
While the cost of feeding chickens oregano oil instead of antibiotics is considerably higher, Sechler’s farm continues to sell plenty of chicken to consumers and grocery stores alike.
This success reveals an interesting trend when it comes to food shopping in the United States; people are generally becoming more aware of the health risks associated with mass produced, drug-fed chickens that are found on most commercial chicken farms. As such, more and more people are choosing to pay a little more for chicken like the ones found on Sechler’s farm.
The idea of using natural herbs instead of drugs has been spreading into other areas and onto other types of farms as well. Bob Ruth, president of another Pennsylvania farming company, has been testing oregano on his pigs for the past six months to see if it really does beat out antibiotics as a means of raising healthy chickens.
Read also: Cooking With These Oils Releases More Toxic Cancer-Causing Chemicals
Why are so many farmers looking for alternative solutions to antibiotics? For starters, antibiotics should not even be a necessity on an animal farm if the farmers do a good, clean job. The issue arises when animals are living in filthy conditions prone to infections and viruses and is also caused as a result of poor slaughterhouse cleaning. Farmers like Scott Sechler realize this and take care to ensure that their slaughterhouses are hosed down and thoroughly disinfected after each set of chickens are slaughtered.
The oregano oil that he uses to keep his chicken healthy then becomes simply just a precaution – something to fill in the gaps. If more farmers and companies valued running humane and healthy operations as opposed to trying to keep profits as high as possible, antibiotics would undoubtedly have no place on modern chicken farms.
Now if only more chicken farms would do the same!