Essay Sample on Perdue Chicken Farms

Ethics in Perdue Farms

Perdue chicken farms are one of the main producers of chicken in North America. Employing more than 20000 twenty thousand people and collecting a gross revenue of over six million dollars in 2016, is the main chicken and poultry processing plant. In recent years, questions have been raised on the quality of the chicken that the company produces and how these chickens have an effect on the health of the people that consume them. In an attempt to get ahead of these concerns and regain the consumer confidence that it once had, the company came up with adverts and campaign that focused on showing its customers how Perdue's chicken is perfect and adheres to health standards (Fieser, 2015). However, there are several farmers and investigative agencies that have voiced their concerns on the safety of the consumers based on the treatment and health of the chicken in Perdue's farms. In this paper, I will review several articles and research papers that have been written on the concerns of consumer safety from eating these chickens. (Fieser, 2015).Majority of the chicken that is processed by Perdue farms come from factory farms. These factory farms raise thousands of chickens in small areas to maximize the returns that the farmers get. These tight spaces cause the chickens to have health problems and also encourages the spread of diseases between the chickens (Fieser, 2015). Some of these diseases that are caused by the lack of space are undetectable and result in the disease getting to the consumer's plate. The stress of the chickens also causes the quality of the chicken meat to reduce. This reduction of chicken meat quality will cause health effects on people.

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Bacterial contamination in the factory farms also raises consumer safety issues. Thousands of chickens are kept in these factory farms. More often than not, these farms do not change the litter that the chickens lie on for the whole duration of the litter. Sometimes the litter is not changed for years. This causes the accumulation of chicken waste on the ground. Most of the chickens in these farms do not have feathers on their belly side because of the acidity of the litter because of the feces from the thousands of chickens. These collections of waste are a breeding ground for diseases and infections which not only reduce the quality of meat but also can be transferred to humans (Hamilton, 2008).. The use of antibiotics to fatten up the chickens is also another issue that raises questions on the effects that the meat has on human health. Many companies that commercially grow these chickens add antibiotics to the feed they use on the chickens. The antibiotics enable the chickens to fatten up quickly and become ready for the market. Perdue has categorically stated that it does not use antibiotics in its chicken feed. However, reports from farmers and these investigative agencies have shown that the use of these antibiotics is still widespread. Not only does the antibiotics weaken the immune system of these chickens and make them more susceptible to diseases, but it also makes the chicken grow faster than they should and result in health problems (Vining, 2008).

Chicken is one of the main delicacies in the United States. Care should be taken to ensure that these chickens are grown in farms that are both humane to the chickens and meet consumer safety standards. The government should also put regulations in place to ensure that these chickens are safe for consumption of the public.

References

Fieser, J. (2015). Introduction to business ethics [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Hamilton, N. D. (2008). One bad day: Thoughts on the difference between animal rights and animal welfare (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Michigan Law Review First Impressions, 106, 138-142. Retrieved from http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1118&context=mlr_fi

Vining, J. (2008, October 10). Animal cruelty laws and factory farming (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Michigan Law Review First Impressions, 106(5), 123-127. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1282251