The Ethical Dilemma Around Chicken Farms
Chicken is a very popular meat, but many feel the chicken production industry can be cruel to the birds. Broiler chickens are the most popular chicken on the market and fast-food menus. These chickens are raised in large, windowless buildings in flocks between 20 000 and 50 000 birds. Feeding, watering, temperature and ventilation are all automatically controlled. Most broiler chicken are slaughtered after just six or seven weeks (a chicken's natural lifespan is around seven years). The farm carefully controls the artificial lighting within the broiler sheds. When the chickens first arrive, the lighting is bright so the chicks can find the food and water. This encourages eating and rapid growth. After a time, the lighting is dimmed in order to prevent fighting between the chickens. The birds have little space in which to move. The space diminishes even further as the chickens grow.
Free-range chickens are raised in open pastures where they forage during the day for natural foods. They return to their nesting sheds at night. As a result of their daily exercise, the chickens develop good muscle tone and are much more meaty than the farmed chickens (it is the muscle tissue of the chicken that we eat). The chickens are treated better, and the meat is tastier, but these birds are more expensive for the consumer. If we impose free-range standards on all chicken production, the price of chicken will skyrocket.
Another issue to consider is the environmental impact of these chicken farms.
How important is it to you how chickens are raised?
Do you care more about the availability of inexpensive chicken from the supermarket or your favourite fast-food restaurant?
What is your standard for ethical treatment of chickens?
Some resources:
http://www.peta.org/
http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html
http://sustainablepoultry.ncat.org/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/epa-plays-chicken-regulations-poultry-farm-emissions--steel-mills-oil-refineries.php
Free-range chickens are raised in open pastures where they forage during the day for natural foods. They return to their nesting sheds at night. As a result of their daily exercise, the chickens develop good muscle tone and are much more meaty than the farmed chickens (it is the muscle tissue of the chicken that we eat). The chickens are treated better, and the meat is tastier, but these birds are more expensive for the consumer. If we impose free-range standards on all chicken production, the price of chicken will skyrocket.
Another issue to consider is the environmental impact of these chicken farms.
How important is it to you how chickens are raised?
Do you care more about the availability of inexpensive chicken from the supermarket or your favourite fast-food restaurant?
What is your standard for ethical treatment of chickens?
Some resources:
http://www.peta.org/
http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html
http://sustainablepoultry.ncat.org/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/epa-plays-chicken-regulations-poultry-farm-emissions--steel-mills-oil-refineries.php
How important is it to you how chickens are raised?
ReplyDeleteBeing a vegetarian I still think chickens should be raised freely with lots of space. Free-range and organic production insist on more space. Free-range chickens are treated better, and the meat is tastier, but these birds are more expensive for the consumer. The chickens should be in a place where they can have freedom and are not forced to do anything. Keeping animals in such a close place creates diseases that can spread very quickly amongst other chickens too, and if they don't find the disease amongst the chicken it can cause harm to the consumers too. If they are raising the chicken the Free-range way they are more likely to have fewer diseases and deaths from competition or lack of food. Free-range chickens are more expensive so consumers who are having some money issues will not buy that causing the producers to make less money. Consumers who care more about how the chickens are raised are more likely to buy the free-range chickens without worrying about the cost. So, it depends on how big the economy is in the place they are selling the chickens.
I think its very important how chickens are raised.The reason I became vegetarian was because of how they treat their animals its important how an animal is raised if an animal like a chicken is being raised in a terrible condition like bad heating systems ,terrible water etc its bad for the chickens as well as the company because the company is losing profit from these chicken the more the chicken dies the more money they lose from this in this case I think they should give chickens more space to be free to breath and run freely so I think is important to know how chickens are raised to see if the chickens conditions are safe for the person to buy
DeleteAlso if a chicken is raised bad conditions like humans their organs can get infected with terrible disease so its important to know where they are raised to get a sense of what type of chicken meat you are eating
I think it is totally wrong if the purpose of raising the chickens in free range is to get tastier meat. It is acceptable if it is just a marketing strategy used by the farms to advocate consumers to buy free-range chicken. Boosting the sales in order to give the chickens a better living standard. Economy that you mentioned is an interesting factor to consider. Places with better economy are more likely to have better educated people. People who don’t have to worry about money are more likely to care about the ethics of the chickens life.
DeleteI think it's very important how chickens are raised for bot of chickens and humans. I am not vegetarian, I like chickens. I like to eat chickens because they are tasty. But, I still think current system to raise chicken is very immoral. They cannot even move, they are just eating food, defecating and waiting for death. Animals have right to have comfortable life. For now, it's impossible for people not to eat chickens. So, at least we should provide comfortable life for them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Chicken will have a huge stress in current system, and it's bad for quality of meat. People want to have good quality food. For better quality, chickens should be raised in free range having less stress.
Last, Current system occurs a lot of diseases, and it's big damage. To have economical benefit, chicken owners should have free-range system to have better quality meat, and prevent the disease.
I agree with your opinion, current system should be improved for chickens also for humans. That's a good point that it's good for quality of chicken to provide free range to not get stressed.
DeleteI agree with you especially that animals have a right to have a comfortable life because it's not fair for the chickens to be treated so harshly and we should definitely provide them with a better life.
DeleteI agree with you on how bad chickens are treated nowadays, I think that most people realize the problem with how they are treated but I don't it's going to change any time soon because this way is the most time and price efficient. So if they want to spend the least amount but win the biggest amount this is the best way, and this is the easiest way to keep up with the current market.
DeleteI agree that chickens should have a better life, however if some companies decide to switch to free range, which is more expensive to raise the chickens, they would need to sell it for a higher price to make profit, meaning that consumers would want to go with the lower price, even if it is of less quality.
DeleteI agree the chickens need a better treatment. To have rights, to not be in a box or room waiting for food and death. An animal doesn't matter the species deserves this.
DeletePosted on behalf of Sihan:
DeleteI agree that now the chickens are treated badly and that’s also why we need to increase the realization of how chickens are raised in people’s mind. Also we need to pay more attention about how to deal with this problem globally
I also think that people don’t have to be vegetarians to care for how chickens are raised. I’m not a vegetarian either but I still would like to think the chickens I ate were raised ethically. And I won’t mind pay more for that. Diseases that are caused by brutal farms is a huge issue.
DeleteAlthough I would rather the way certain animals such as chickens, to change and become nicer, I don't think it will. From a business standpoint, raising chickens like this is the most efficient way to keep up with todays market. Owners are looking for cheap ways to keep up with the growing demand of todays fast food and chicken market and although inhumane, they wouldn't change it.
ReplyDeleteIf there was a free range law imposed, the cost of chickens would go up. This means the price of the chicken products would go up and customers wouldn't want to buy pricy things if there is an alternative. This inevitably means the businesses lose money which the owners obviously don't want to happen.
Another example of this is the use of Steroid Hormone Implants in animals such as cattle and sheep. Although this is inhumane and unfair to those animals, it makes them grow quicker and produce meat quicker. The FDA has approved multiple different types of Steroid Implants since the 1950's. In the end, as long as business owners make more of a profit, there wont be any change in how chickens are treated and raised.
I agree with you, people nowadays are changing the growth of chicken, and destroying natural pattern. We, as human beings, are still involved in the biological environment pattern, never forget it.
DeleteI completely agree with you, the only incentive for change with most companies is one that has the potential to generate more money. It's not that they don't understand what they are doing could be wrong, but are turning a blind eye for the sake of profit. As long as there are consumers that will buy the cheap chicken, these companies will happily serve them.
DeleteI agree with you that a lot of customers would choose the cheaper chickens but, if people were told about the facts concerning the current system and how it can spread diseases easily and the also the effect on quality. So if people know about those facts do you think it would change the way they think about what they buy and try to purchase healthier chickens or strive to do something that can change the current system?
DeleteI agree with the fact that most people see the problem with how chickens are not well treated but there is a very low chance that the way the chickens are treated will change. I also agree that free-range will also not happen because of how it is not convenient for the business.
DeleteDo you care more about the availability of inexpensive chicken from the supermarket or your favourite fast-food restaurant?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don’t mind paying extra for a product, if I knew that I was being sold better quality food. Though I don’t think I would still hold this opinion if my family were struggling financially, so it's hard for me to picture how others may feel. With the way these chickens are being produced, their inexpensive to raise, and because of this are also inexpensive to buy, by having the ability to sell inexpensive chicken, the companies are able to sell their products to poorer and much larger demographics, and make even more money even though people aren’t paying as much. In conclusion, I don’t mind paying extra for better quality foods, but for people who can’t afford high quality meat, changing all chicken to free-range raised, may pose an issue.
Personally I don't care about where I get the chicken from because I am vegetarian but in this case I would chose both because for me as long as the chicken taste nice and prepared in a safe and neat working place I don't care if its inexpensive or fast-food
DeleteI agree, if all farms made a unanimous decision to switch to free-range chickens then there will be a lot of people who will not be able to afford it and will need to resort to other sources of meat, which could also be not raised properly
DeleteI think it’s important to me how chickens are raised. I eat chickens, but I think the way chickens are raised now is too cruel to chickens. Chickens all have their lives, being hunted is just an accident for a wild living chicken. However, the way chickens are raised now makes the chickens born for being killed. Their lives should be longer and should get freedom. They are even not being raised well. People use different ways to make the chickens grow faster, most of these ways are bad for both chicken and us to eat it. The chicken farms can’t shut down for now. However, the way farms raise chickens can be changed. Make a big space for them to grow and let them live free eat things in the nature and not being disturbed by human. They can be hunted at last. Chickens can have a normal life and will taste better.
ReplyDeleteI still felt a little bit too cruel to decide which way of raising chickens taste better. But I agree with your opinion about it's important to know how chickens are raised. We are humans, and we are still a part of the ecosystem, so do the chickens. We are always a part of it, and when you think about the method of how we treat chickens, put it on us, for example, think about what will happen if chickens use the same method on us? This will reflect how cruel it is.
DeleteI agree with you about the way that farmers treat chickens should change but, I think they should use a balanced solution that can work for everyone. For example, there should be a supervision on these farms and what are they feeding the chickens and is it safe for consumers. They should also put a reasonable price so more people can benefit from healthy chickens.
DeleteI agree with your opinion. Chickens should get freedom even though they get killed by humans, they can't suffer from the system how they are raised. Also, it is bad for human health and chickens to use the way which makes chickens grow faster.
DeleteI agree with you, I fell bad now at days of eating chickens. Knowing how they were treated. We eat them, put sauce on them and fried them like they were nothing.
DeleteChicken has been a main dish of human beings for a long time. In order to get the meats, people need to raise them in a typical chicken farm. As our society and the method of treatment toward chicken evolved, we started to think, how ethical is this? Is this sustainable?
ReplyDeleteBasically, while people becoming the "apex predator" in thee food chain, we can eat anything we want. Think about it, if the chicken farmers just let the chicken naturally breed and reproduce, it's going to be a really nice picture, right? But, the truth is, chicken farmers nowadays just barely do that. They need to make profit really quick, so they make injections, give pills to the chickens, in order to gain higher growth rate. I still remember a couple of years ago, there is a news about KFC(PFK) raising chickens in the farm with six wings in order to get more chicken wings sell. That is just corrupting the natural growth of chicken, and that may lead to a disorder of our natural environment.
In British Coloumbia, there is also a situation about a year ago. Farmers are killing male chicken because there is barely any space for them to live, and they cannot reproduce by itself, so they leave only female chicken. I remember a year ago, my past teacher said that when the farmers saw a male chicken, they just squeeze it with their bare hands. This is totally intolerable.
For conclusion, when we eat chickens, we still need to think about, how did they come to our dishes, what method of treatment did the farmers use on the chickens. Our natural situation is corrupting, people are destroying the balance, maybe in the future, there will be new ways to deal with it.
Nowadays, people do not care how chickens are raised, they only care how to earn more moneys. The only way to solve the problem is to let the chicken farmers rich. Without getting enough money, people will care nonthing except getting more money.
Deleteit's important for the chicken to be raised and treated in a good manner, because the way they are raised, either good or bad; will play a role in the quality and taste of the product. In an article by Felicity Lawrence,(the Guardian, April 2016), the time required for a chicken to reach the market has decreased by almost 50% over the past fifty years. This shows that chickens living on these farms are living with stress due to the surrounding circumstances which would affect food quality. If chickens are living in bad conditions, that can predispose them to diseases that can potentially be transferred to humans.
ReplyDeleteAs a consumer, I think there should be a balance between the price and well-reagualted chicken farms environment even if that leads to slightly higher prices.
The companies that run the chicken farms are trying to meet the increasing consumer demand. Also, most of the people are willing to purchase farm chickens because of it's significantly lower price than the Free-range chickens.on top of that, farm chickens are also much more accessible and available to the consumers. With the aforementioned reasons, companies earn high profits which lead them to continue using this way or any other technique that will expedite chickens maturity.
I think the ethical treatment of chickens is to ensure the availability of a cleaner and more spacious environment. Also, there should be supervision of the chickens' health to make sure that it's diseases free and safe for consumers. according to the chicken farmers of Canada website, a third-party auditor should implement certifications of animal care measures.
If people didn't buy from these farms because of the substandard practices, there will be a decrease in demand which will translate into a loss of profit and will subsequently pressure the companies to respond to consumers demands in order to earn a profit. That's the consumer purchasing power, in this scenario, it can lead to better ethical treatment of chicken.
I agree with your opinion. Stressful chickens are bad for meat quality. Also, I heard industrial system causes a lot of disease. But, my point is more like Chickens should have right to be treated well. Animals have lives. If we cannot stop eating eats, at least I think we should take care about their amenity.
DeleteI agree that as a consumer, price is not the only thing we car about. I hope this kind of farm can be changed even if the price will increase.
DeleteYes, I think your right that people wouldn't stop eating chickens and they should be treated better, but I think the only way that chickens would be treated better would be up to the consumers. If consumers acknowledge that the quality of their meat is based on the way the chicken was raised. Also, show people the studies that prove that chickens who are living on these farms have lower meat quality than Free-range chickens.
DeleteI agree. Pulling farm chicken from shelves will create a big negative impact to our economy, and consumer demand should be the factor that provides chicken to be more healthy
DeleteI value the nutritional value and safety of the product when I buy food. The mistreatment of chickens in industrialized chicken farms both have ethical and safety problems.
ReplyDeleteThe chickens in industry farms are kept in a confined space to use as much space as possible which can lead to potential diseases and infections due to ineffective regulation of the health of the chickens and refusing to maintain a safe working environment. Also, these chickens are forcefully fed antibiotics which can develop bacteria or viruses immune to antibiotics, and for some reason we're expected to think it's safe.
Of course, not selling chickens is a good way to put an economy in complete anarchy, plus I love chicken and I hope that it doesn't become hard to buy, and more expensive.
What we need is to create safer, healthier environments that can produce mass amounts of poultry in a humane way, but not risk anyone with disease or sicknesses.
Brandon ^
DeleteI agree with your opinion. I think it's really great point that industrial system causes a devastating disease. Also, I saw the article which says Chickens with less stress are much healthier for Human body than industrial chickens. How do you think about the solution to support changes?
DeleteI agree that it is bad that there are so many diseases caused from the bad treatment of the chickens and that it is not good for us. But I don't think the solution would be to create better environments that can produce mass amounts, what we need is to have more areas where chickens can roam around and get good exercise and live better lives not only for humans, but for the chickens as well.
DeletePersonally, I do care about how chickens are raised. Of course, I still eat chickens even though I know how they are raised. The way people raise chickens is very cruel and pathetic for chickens. The current system must be improved for chickens and humans both of them.
ReplyDeleteThere are some disadvantages of raising chickens in a limited space. Chickens are very stressed in a small space. Even though they can’t fly, they still have wings and they feel stuffy in a tiny space which they can not move freely. Just think about you are stuck in a tiny room, you must feel stuffy and stressful. In fact, if chickens get stressed, the quality of chickens gets worse. Also, in a tiny space with a lot of chickens, it might cause diseases which can affect humans.
Therefore, even though they get killed by humans anyway, people have to provide comfortable and safe space for chickens and also for humans. It is very important to have free range husbandry. Let chickens feel comfortable and safe, people shouldn’t think that chickens don’t need proper space because they are gonna get killed anyway. It’s part of their life, and it’s also important for human health.
I agree with the point you made on how we definitely would not like being treated the way these chickens are treated
DeleteI agree with how the quality of the meat goes down as the chicken gets more stressed. I also agree with how chickens are inevitably going to be killed by humans but it still matters how they're treated leading up to that moment. Your closing sentence was very powerful because you made our well being matter along with the chickens well being
Deleteposted on behalf of Sihan:
DeleteI agree with your opinion. Just imagine that humans are treated like chicken, in a stuffy and narrow place, they will feel stressful as well. During their lifetime they don’t even know what’s going on in this world. They deserve a better life.
I do think that the way chickens and other animals are treated should change,, more space, not having to rush to get to the food before, etc. I highly doubt it will ever change because the way they do it now is much more efficient and cheap than any other way any one can think of to keep up with the market. Say you want more space for the chickens that means that they have to have less chickens brought in, which would cause a big drop in the pay check, or they should have more sheds which in the case that they can't afford to buy more chickens it's just a waist of space and money.
ReplyDeleteObviously I would prefer having more food on the chicken and being more tasty, but that would make the chicken more expensive for the consumer, which makes for less buyers and it would be less time efficient. This makes free-range very hard to become a law because less chickens would come in in longer amounts in time which potentially could leave some people out of business.
I would also prefer free-range because, apart of what I said, the chickens are treated much better, they're not squished in a shed with another 20,000-50,000 chickens, they get to go outside and walk around, the chance of disease to start and spread like wildfire is much smaller and they don't struggle to get they're food every time they eat.
I disagree with the point that the chickens held in an I closed space would struggle to get food, because they need to get as big as possible, as soon as possible, so these chickens would probably be fed loads of food all the time
DeleteIt is a tough decision to make because if we where to raise all chickens like free-range chickens then fast food restaurant would probably stop selling chicken because it is too expensive, and chicken would become more of a luxury. But over all I think that chickens should be treated like free-range chickens, or something like them. I think chickens deserve to see sun light at least once in their lives, and they deserve enough space to move around. Free-range chickens are also better because the chicken are healthier, which is better for our health and it tastes better.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely. I to believe that chickens should have at least the right to see sunlight; the fact that they are alive just to die is sickening. About the fast-food restaurants, they most likely would stop selling chicken if it became too expensive, which is very unfortunate.
DeletePersonally I think it’s better to buy chickens that were raised properly on a good farm instead of being raised in chicken slaughter houses where they are treated so badly. It is more expensive to buy free range chicken, but sometimes it’s worth the price because then you know that what you are eating wasn’t held with thousands of other chickens but instead the chicken lived more freely.
ReplyDeleteI would rather spend the extra money on organic free range chicken meat or any other meat because you know it wasn’t living in such harsh conditions. The inexpensive chicken that you buy isn’t as good quality and you are paying for what you get. The cheap meat isn’t usually the best quality because they don’t get enough exercise therefore the have less actual meat in their bodies.
It is hard for people to buy free range chickens when they don’t have the money to spend on more expensive meat. But if more people bought the free range chicken and less and less people were buying the tortured chickens, the businesses would see that people are more into free range chickens and other businesses would maybe want to convert to suit the needs and wants of their consumers.
Personally, it is fairly important to me how chickens are treated. Usually when I think about chicken I just think about free-range chickens and how they are living a decent life. However, after learning more about chicken farms and how the chickens are treated, I care a lot more. I had no idea that these kinds of farms existed; I wish I had known before now.
ReplyDeleteIf the free range law were to be enabled, the price of chicken would increase dramatically. This would mean that fast food chains would most likely discontinue selling chicken. I myself do not buy chicken from fast food restaurants, so I would not be affected. However, the consumers who do purchase chicken from fast food chains may be upset and take their business elsewhere. Therefore, I do not care more about the availability of inexpensive chicken; I would pay more for free range chickens because then I know that they are being treated properly.
Lastly, I prefer free range chickens for many reasons. First of all, if they are placed in chicken farms, their soul purpose in life is to die; they do not deserve to be treated like that, even if they are to be killed. They deserve a better life. On the business side of things, free range chickens would need to be sold as more expensive, which means less people would make the purchase. However, if more people become educated about how chickens are really treated, then maybe they would start to purchase more expensive chicken.
It's very important that how chickens are raised. They are treated cruelly and they don't even have space to live. They should have a better place to live but as we know it's almost impossible due to the demand of chicken in the market. Therefore basically what we can do for that is to make more people know about how chicken are raised. There should be a growing realization of buying more expensive chicken in order to relieve this problem.
ReplyDeleteFrom another point of view, not all of the consumers can afford free-range chicken and the inexpensive chicken will still be in the market. So far I don't really have to care about the availability of inexpensive chicken because I can afford it but it doesn't mean I don't in future. The chicken industry is bound to the business of fast food restaurant therefore if the restaurants are using free-ranged chicken less and less people will go for fast food.
I strongly agree that the chickens are treated terribly and deserve a better life. I also believe that people should learn more about how farm chickens are raised and then they too can encourage change.
DeleteI agree that there are clear ethical problems with the treatment of chickens in industrialized farms. Both ethical and health problems exist with the chickens hunched up in small areas and force fed antibiotic laced chicken feed with no exercise, which leads to bad quality meat and a bad quality life, at least for the chickens.
DeleteBut it doesn't mean that we can only sell free range chickens, which would raise the price for poultry. With less poultry to go around and higher prices multiple businesses, companies, and farms would go out of business, which can negatively impact the economy and dissatisfy many consumers who prefer their chicken cheap, and more readily available
With a population that is quickly increasing, food will no doubt become an issue. In the near future, we simply might not have the land to house free-range chickens, and even if we did, the amount of trees that we would have to cut down would cause severe harm to not only humans, but everything else on the planet. It is easy to say that you care about how chickens are treated, but if you think about it a a cold, realistic way there really is no other way that would not hurt anyone or the environment.
ReplyDeleteI think is so important of how to raise a chicken, because the treatment of the chickens when they are making them food. They suffer and now we are eating them. In the current system we put them all together in rooms or boxes to transport them to other places. They don't even move and they are waiting. I'm not vegetarian, but I care about this animals of how we the humans torture them. This animals just like any animal in the world deserves rights. We need to change the way of how we treat these animals in other words, to change the system.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement on how things need to change. The only issue is that many people don't care about what goes on behind the scenes as long as they get food. Personally, I think that if change were to happen, a large scale movement would have to happen and a boycott would have to occur. This also displays how the consumer controls the market these days.
DeletePosted on behalf of Caroline:
ReplyDeleteNowadays, more and more people like to choose chicken for their meat to eat. Chicken is suitable for many cooking methods and it has many nutrition. Chicken is not only suitable for stir frying, stew, but also suitable for poach and salad. For one, people who like eating the fast food may choose Fried chicken or chicken hamburger in McDonalds. For another, chicken is white meat, it represents protein is quit high, many fitness people would like to poach the chicken to be their part of the healthy meal. Although chicken is one of the meats that most people like, but there are some risks about chicken we need to notice.
For me, comparing between Free-range chicken and Broiler chicken, I would choose Free-range chicken. Although the price is higher than Broiler chicken, Free-range chickens through their daily exercise, it develop good muscle tone and are much more meaty than the Broiler chickens.
what's more, Broiler chickens are live in a building which can contains 20 000 and 50 000 birds, it means they do everything in the same place, eating, sleeping, and they do not have enough place to exercise. Moreover, people promote chicken eating and rapid growth, so that most Broiler chickens after just six or seven weeks are killed, but the chicken should raise for at least 3 month! That means some feed contain Fatten agents, growth agents, nutrients, antibiotics...... In my view, Broiler chickens are not healthy also the taste are not as good as Free-range chickens.
I do not care about whether I can have the availability of inexpensive chicken from the fast-food restaurant. As I hold that most of the fast-food restaurant would not use the free-range chickens to make food, most of them would use Broiler chickens. Broiler chickens have much few cost than Free-range chickens, of cause they would not choose Free-range chickens. However, I care about the price of chicken in supermarket. As I'm not going to the fast food restaurant very often, although I know the quality of meat is not very good, it won't has lots of damage for me. When I go to supermarket, I would not care about whether I can get more inexpensive chicken, as I know, Free-range chickens are more expensive also the meat of quality are much better than Broiler chickens. I would buy more expensive Free-range chicken for my health.
Do not be greedy for the number of chickens. All the chicken should feed enough food. Chicken cannot be malnourished because they can't eat enough food. On the other hand, chicken needs a wide range of activities, such as woodland, wasteland and barren hills. Do not feed chicken in the morning and in the daytime. The chicken should be hurried outside the house and let themselves to find food. Only when the chicken go back to the cage at night do the feed to them once. That's I think how to treat for chicken.