What age is meat and poultry in the supper market ? is it true that chickens are less than 2mths old ?

Question

also what about the lambs, cows and pigs what age are they ? many thanks

Answer 1

Don't know about the others listed but yes it is true about chickens being less than two months old. One day old chicks and about forty to fifty days later fully grown chickens ready for slaughter.

Answer 2

If I am not mistaken, I had friends w/ chicken farms for the big poultry industries in ARKANSAS, and the "T" brand breeds theirs to go out in 6 weeks...

Answer 3

That is why we eat chicken rather than hen and lamb rather than sheep. Animals that are too old are too tough to eat in their normal state so are processed into pies and sausages etc

Chickens are usually kept until fully grown ie 2-3 months. Pigs are fed until they are fat enough.

Animal feed is expensive, best to eat the animal before the food bill exceeds their market value.

The truth, though hard to accept for some people is that we eat baby animals. They make for the best meat.

Answer 4

different animals gain weight at different rates..i think if my old ag teaching are still true pocine (pigs)can gain up to 7 lbs a day bovine(cows) are at about 5-6 and lamb are right in the same at about 4-5lbs a day but this is under ideal conditions chickens i'm not too sure but in the spring we would mail order about 50 broilers that is what they call young chickens and by the middle of summer on the farm we would be choping and pluckin and then have chicken on the grill at least twice a week. lambs would be born in feb or mar and by sept or aug about Fair time we would take them to the sale barn or market which ever you prefer. one year my sister got reserve champion rate of gain at the Fair with a lamb that gained about 4lbs a day...protine carbs and roughage play a part in all of this. as well as genetics just like an athlete trying to build mucle if all they eat is protine (b complex) they wont have enough energy for endurance to many carbs or starches and you wont build or repair muscle as effectivly. and none of this matters if your genes are wrong. chickens grow to about 3-5 pounds ...lambs get to about 100-125lbs pigs are about the same 150-190lbs cows get to about 500-800lbs  when you got to the sale barn they dont sell by the pound usally they sell by the "hundred weight" in closing yes it is possible that chickens are about two months old when slaughtered.

Answer 5

9/10 animal meat products, unless marked organic / free range etc, will be genetic freaks and chicks at the age of two months, yes, are availiable to eat in super markets. cows and pigs also get this treatment but they have extra genetics to plump them faster etc etc.

Answer 6

Let's look at this on a case by case basis.  Chickens in the supper market, or any where else you might buy them, are sold in several ways.  Most are sold as fryers, the best quality available, these chickens are produces in about 6 weeks to 2 months. They are not baby chickens as others would have you believe.  They are young almost reaching their full growth, tender, and what the consumer commands for this quality of chicken.  I support free range chickens and not the factory produced type chicken, but the consumer still want the young tender chickens no matter how they are produced. Older chickens, like hens that have fallen off in laying are sold for baking.  They will be labeled as such.  Very old chickens and larger roosters will be processed into other food products such as chicken hot dogs, soup, chicken and dumplings etc.

   Cows, the meat displayed in stores comes from fed cattle, usually about 1 year old to 2 years old.  Again these are not babies but fully grown to about 1,000 t0 1.500 pounds, but still young enough to be tender grade A meat.  Older cows and bulls are processed and sold as bologna, hot dogs, stew meat etc.  In cows  the exception to not "eating babies" is veal.  Veal is a very tender high price meat which comes from milk fed baby calves.  So, if you eat veal, your are eating baby calves.  Pigs and lambs are sold in much the same way as cows.  Pigs are fed out to around 200 to 240 pounds (about 6 months old) for the meat you see in the supermarket.  Again, not babies but grown animals still tender enough to meet the consumers demands.  Lambs are sold about the same way.  The older mature sows and sheep are sold as such and go into processed foods.  Remember the ads, "whole hog sausage" we put in all the prime cuts like hams and other prime cuts into our sausage?  True, but these "prime" cuts are from old sows and boars to tough for anything else. Mature sheep are sold as mutton, very good for Bar BQ.

Answer 7

Supper market?  I think you'll find you mean "Supermarket" - and yes, that's where they sell chickens that have never seen daylight, are kept in such cramped conditions that they peck at each other out of sheer frustration which causes the "farmer" to clip their beaks, yet he doesn't keep their flooring clean so they all get foot-rot and damaged legs - and that's why you find that when you buy a whole supermarket chicken it invariably has red marks where the legs have been cut off - the knees were going rotten by the time they were electrocuted ready for cleaning (?) and packing.

It's little wonder they're so tasteless is it !

The meats aren't much better because although they're killed at a young age (nowadays by law as much as farmer's greed) meat should be "hung" for about three weeks before it's ready to use by the likes of us, but in the rush to make a quick profit, it never gets that hanging time and thus gets to the supermarket nice and fresh - and TASTELESS compared to what it SHOULD be ! ! !