Saturday, December 13, 2014

1959, the Year in Review: Agriculture (How the debeaking of chickens got its start)

Another sidebar from the Agriculture entry.


 As a United Poultry Concerns fact sheet describes it.
...de-beaking started around 1940 when a San Diego poultry farmer found if he burned off the upper beaks of his chickens with a blowtorch, they were unable to pick and pull at each other's feathers. His neighbor adopted the idea but used a modified soldering iron instead. A few years later a local company began to manufacture the "Debeaker," a machine that sliced off the ends of birds' beaks with a hot blade.

From a blowtorch to a soldering iron to a machine with a hot blade.  But as the article also notes,
If an electric beak trimmer is not available, a temporary form of trimming can be done by using a sharp jackknife.

Whatever will get the job done, apparently.

Related posts:
Advertising.  (12/7/2014)
Afghanistan.  (12/7/2014)
Africa.  (12/12/2014)
Agriculture:  mattresses for cows.  (12/13/2014)

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