http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=chicken&months=360
This is a link to check out chicken prices for the past 30 years.
Monday 30 January 2012
http://bit.ly/w8XOsA
Huge companies such as KFC, Mc Donalds and big commercial suppliers keep chickens in huge sheds like this.
The money behind the feathers
Chickens are surprisingly cheap! Day old chicks are bought by huge meat or egg companies for as little as 20 cents in the USA. Chicken is at an all time high in value with of just over 90 cents in the US per pound of meat. You can kind of see why these mega companies try to cram as many chickens into battery to maximise profits but it's not very nice for the chickens. If the hens are for eggs they are kept in cages with eight other chickens. This means each chicken has less space to live in than the area of an A4 page.
For meat hens they are crammed into giant barns called broilers. here chickens are raised for slaughter in just 6 weeks!
The poultry industry employ millions of people world wide and is worth billions of euros to the economy. It is worth $25 billion to the Chinese economy alone and employing millions of people around the world today.
So even though many companies treat chickens in horrible conditions there's no denying that chickens are where the money's at now. Prices of chickens have been on the general increase in the US for the past 30 years! I also am known to dabble in economics so my top tip is don't invest in oil or gas or put your money in a bank account. Buy a chicken farm in the country and you're sorted.
For meat hens they are crammed into giant barns called broilers. here chickens are raised for slaughter in just 6 weeks!
The poultry industry employ millions of people world wide and is worth billions of euros to the economy. It is worth $25 billion to the Chinese economy alone and employing millions of people around the world today.
So even though many companies treat chickens in horrible conditions there's no denying that chickens are where the money's at now. Prices of chickens have been on the general increase in the US for the past 30 years! I also am known to dabble in economics so my top tip is don't invest in oil or gas or put your money in a bank account. Buy a chicken farm in the country and you're sorted.
Monday 23 January 2012
Some chicken facts you probably didn't know
1)People didn't raise chickens for food in the beginning but actually for cock fighting.
2)Chickens can fly! well kind of. They can fly over fences or high enough to get into trees. The longest ever chicken flight was just over 300 metres long.
3)Chickens eat both meat and vegetation which makes them omnivores. They have been known to eat animals in sizes up to small rodents like mice.
4)Chickens have a world wide population of over 25 billion! That means there are 3.5 chickens for ever human!
5) Chickens can run up to 10 miles an hour! That's about as fast as a golf buggy!
6)Chickens give different alarm sounds depending on what animal is attacking them.
7)The chicken is the closest living relative to the t rex! Well genetically anyway. . . .
8)China also has the largest chicken population with 3 billion chickens living there.
9)Americans eat over 8 billion chickens a year
10)Chickens have more bones in their necks than giraffes
2)Chickens can fly! well kind of. They can fly over fences or high enough to get into trees. The longest ever chicken flight was just over 300 metres long.
3)Chickens eat both meat and vegetation which makes them omnivores. They have been known to eat animals in sizes up to small rodents like mice.
4)Chickens have a world wide population of over 25 billion! That means there are 3.5 chickens for ever human!
5) Chickens can run up to 10 miles an hour! That's about as fast as a golf buggy!
6)Chickens give different alarm sounds depending on what animal is attacking them.
7)The chicken is the closest living relative to the t rex! Well genetically anyway. . . .
8)China also has the largest chicken population with 3 billion chickens living there.
9)Americans eat over 8 billion chickens a year
10)Chickens have more bones in their necks than giraffes
Monday 16 January 2012
Map of chicken movement over time
This is a map of how the chickens dispersed over 6000 years.
The green area over Asia is where the chicken first was domesticated.
The blue arrows show people being to keep chickens over a larger area.
The red arrows show the chicken moving into Egypt and Europe (Please note there was 1500 years between these two, and this happened over hundreds of years not in one giant herd.)
The light blue area over Europe shows the roman empire and how far it brought chickens
And finally the pink arrows show where the chicken went during the age of exploration and colonial times.
Hope this helps!
Source: Wikipidea
Where did the chicken come from?
Hey guys! My first post is going to be on where the chicken came from!
The chicken as we know it originated from the red and grey jungle fowl. These little guys are similar to pheasants and found mostly in the south east corner of Asia in places such as India, southern China and the Philippians. People in these areas started to domesticate these critters around 7000 years ago!
Like chickens today they were used for meat and eggs but were very valuable. But the main reason they were bread was for cock fighting. People had major tournaments and was a major betting game.
Chickens started heading south for cock fighting next. They turned up in Egypt around 1400 BC.
Around 2000 years after the first chickens were domesticated they reached Romania, Turkey Greece and Ukraine. Then chickens went mainstream when they arrived in the roman empire around 50BC. The Romans brought chickens everywhere they went. They were pretty easy to transport, you could collect eggs when you had settled or eat the chicken when you were on the move!
People aren't to sure on how the chicken entered the rest of Africa though. Some people think it was from the Romans conquering north Africa, others say it was from Egypt and others say it was from Indian traders late on.
When people discovered America the chicken was the obvious choice of animal to bring with you! It was small and compact for travelling on a bout and produced nutritious eggs and tasty meat! The chicken multiplied in America and spread all over the continent.
This is why chickens have a worldwide population of over 25 billion today! I hope you found this interesting and you'll check up on the next post!
The chicken as we know it originated from the red and grey jungle fowl. These little guys are similar to pheasants and found mostly in the south east corner of Asia in places such as India, southern China and the Philippians. People in these areas started to domesticate these critters around 7000 years ago!
Like chickens today they were used for meat and eggs but were very valuable. But the main reason they were bread was for cock fighting. People had major tournaments and was a major betting game.
Chickens started heading south for cock fighting next. They turned up in Egypt around 1400 BC.
Around 2000 years after the first chickens were domesticated they reached Romania, Turkey Greece and Ukraine. Then chickens went mainstream when they arrived in the roman empire around 50BC. The Romans brought chickens everywhere they went. They were pretty easy to transport, you could collect eggs when you had settled or eat the chicken when you were on the move!
People aren't to sure on how the chicken entered the rest of Africa though. Some people think it was from the Romans conquering north Africa, others say it was from Egypt and others say it was from Indian traders late on.
When people discovered America the chicken was the obvious choice of animal to bring with you! It was small and compact for travelling on a bout and produced nutritious eggs and tasty meat! The chicken multiplied in America and spread all over the continent.
This is why chickens have a worldwide population of over 25 billion today! I hope you found this interesting and you'll check up on the next post!
Friday 13 January 2012
Introduction
Hi guys! This is my blog about the geography of chickens. So if you keep chickens and want to find out a bit more behind them or your just curious about chickens and their origins this is the blog for you! Here we'll be covering things like where chickens originated, how the different types emerged, how they spread out and how they're treated around the world. I hope you find this helpful, or at least interesting and keep a look out for new posts! You'll hear from me soon enough and make sure you become a member so you never miss a new post!
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