49 Days

I recently read that factory-farm chickens raised as fryers are ready to send to the slaughterhouse 49 days after they hatch. Fryers are the chickens you buy whole or in pieces at the grocery store. If you bought a package of drumsticks for a BBQ this weekend, those legs came from fryers. Those chickens were roughly seven weeks old when they died.

Today, my baby chicks turned 49 days old. They don't look anywhere near big enough to eat. They've barely passed the kabob stage.


Of course, fryers from the concentration coops are fed a special diet of shit that makes 'em grow real big real fast, unlike my little 49ers who eat real food.

I can't help but think of all those people who shun veal because omg it's baby cows but scarf down dozens of baby chickens. Sure, they're big chickens, but they're still just babies.