{"id":3154,"date":"2022-11-10T19:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T19:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farmforward1.wpengine.com\/?page_id=3154"},"modified":"2024-06-19T13:38:42","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T17:38:42","slug":"what-is-hybrid-poultry","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/issues\/genetic-modification\/what-is-hybrid-poultry\/","title":{"rendered":"What is hybrid poultry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<section class=\"normal_content bg-white padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"row center-md\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content-styled\"><p>In the United States and many nations around the globe, virtually all chickens, turkeys, and eggs come from birds produced through a genetic modification method known as hybridization. This includes poultry products <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/issues\/animal-product-labeling\/what-is-humanewashing\/\">labeled<\/a> as natural, organic, and free-range or bearing animal welfare certifications. The birds resulting from hybridization are known as hybrids. Thus, for example, industry will refer to \u201chybrid chickens\u201d to distinguish the unusual way today\u2019s chickens are engineered from traditional pre-1950s breeding.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAgribusiness has hidden the cruelty and public health risks of hybrid poultry genetics more effectively than the tobacco industry hid the health risks of smoking\u201d explains Farm Forward&#8217;s Founder, Dr. Aaron Gross. \u201cOnly with COVID-19 and the realization that industrial chicken farms are a hotbed for viruses with pandemic potential, have our gazes begun to turn to poultry genetics.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a result of modern hybrid breeding techniques chickens and turkeys are chronically sick and immunocompromised, suffering from unnecessary and painful problems with skeletal development, heart and lung function,<a class='endnote' href='#endnote1'>1<\/a> obesity,<a class='endnote' href='#endnote2'>2<\/a> and more. Making a bad situation worse, the factory farm systems raising these genetically unhealthy birds require the use of drugs that further aggravate a cascade of problems for human health, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/issues\/antibiotics-public-health\/\">antibiotic resistance<\/a> and the creation of new viruses with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/industrial-poultry-must-end-heres-why\/\">pandemic potential.<\/a><\/p>\n<div class='responsive-video'><iframe width='500' height='281' src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kbtgz-LoWH0?feature=oembed' frameborder='0' allow='accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture' allowfullscreen=''><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>No gene splicing is required to produce these birds. Instead, they are genetically engineered through the intensification of an age-old technique: mating two breeds of birds together to produce a third bird with even more desirable characteristics than its parents. The difference with modern hybrid poultry is that instead of mixing together the genetics of two healthy pure breeds like farmers of the past, factory farmers mix together 10-20 different lines of sometimes freakish birds carrying genetic markers identified with the latest scientific techniques.<a class='endnote' href='#endnote3'>3<\/a> These modern poultry breeding techniques not only ensure that today\u2019s chickens grow fast and are obese, it has made them an entirely new kind of animal.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe result,\u201d Gross concludes, \u201cis that with the possible exception of laboratory mice, the chickens on Americans\u2019 plates are almost certainly the most genetically modified animals on the planet.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What can we do? It\u2019s simple: the time has come to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/take-action\/end-big-poultry\/\">end big chicken.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Want to better understand hybrid poultry? Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/issues\/genetic-modification\/understanding-modern-poultry-breeding\/\">Understanding Modern Poultry Breeding.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3589,"parent":674,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3154","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3154\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}