Is the use of hormones in Poultry Production a taboo or a reality?

Hormones usage in the poultry production is a trending topic these days. The people that are not related to the poultry industry directly, including medical professionals, media personals and others are not only suffering from a severe misconception regarding the topic, but are also spreading certain health related threatening rumors to the general public. Concern of common household consumers of chicken meat in relation to the abuse /use of hormones in poultry for the enormous growth of broilers in limited time is a consequence of misinformation being communicated to them by less knowledgeable persons on this subject.

Discussing the Reality of the subject, the addition of hormones in the feed of poultry for early weight gain or increased production is not viable or practical at all in the modern and intensive poultry industry due to several factors, some of them being narrated below for the better understanding of general public with a brief introduction to the history of the subject:

History- The Capons:

Taking in account the use of capons (a rooster castrated before reaching the age of maturity) decades back in old days, was cast off on basis of the cost in production as well as the inhumane methods of producing capons. Capons came with the promise of a substantial amount of buttery, tender meat as the hormonal changes caused by caponization allowed more fat to build up both below the skin and within muscles. The surgical procedure for getting capons was not post medicated and pre medicated by the use of anesthetics and antibiotics, that was why, as per animal rights, their production and marketing, based on consumers response was abandoned in most of developed countries.

Furthermore, such practice was never being done in Pakistan’s commercial poultry industry.

Impractical Administration:

As the growth hormones are protein in nature, they must be administered regularly via injectable means or through certain implants in each individual animal in order to ensure adequate levels of distribution in the body of the animal. Due to intensive farming and more recently introduction of environment control houses housing large no of broilers in each shed i.e ranging from 25000 to 30000 broilers in one shed. Such multiple sheds under one holding are common. Therefore, this stressful to the chickens and labor intensive practice is commercially impractical and economically non-viable to catch and inject individual chicken multiple times.

This is next to the impossible practice for commercial poultry hence ruled out.

Poultry Feed processing:

The processing of poultry feed takes place at different conditions and variable temperatures, reaching as high as 80+ degree Celsius. As discussed earlier considering the protein nature of hormones, one can simply understand that adding growth hormones to the feed are impractical because proteins easily get denatured at such temperatures.

Therefore no hormones are used in the feed.

Constituents of a Poultry feed:

There are no hit and trial methods applied to raise the commercial poultry rations as there are large bird populations at stake. One cannot simply afford the addition of any experimental preparation that may or may not help to meet the preset production targets from commercial birds.

Commercial poultry feed formulation parameters of the requirements during rearing, growing, production under various environment and management conditions are established on the basis of extensive studies, controlled/ field trials and equally supported by substantial repeatable research data from various reliable sources upto the molecular levels for certain nutrients. There are very precise computer programs being used to balance out feed formulations by comprehensively satisfying poultry need economically. All of this process of feed formulation is looked after by highly qualified and well trained professionals throughout the world and Pakistan is no exception.

Broilers gain substantial weight in a specified term just because they are fed a very well balanced ration. Reviewing the records of genetics firms, it will be noted that for the past several decades birds have reached a specified market weight one day earlier per year. The challenge to poultry producers is to provide high quality feed (proteins, vitamins, minerals, etc.) and a healthy environment in the poultry house to meet the broiler’s prodigious genetic potential.

Hormones Preparations for Poultry:

There’s NO commercially available growth hormone preparation for the poultry worldwide.

Conclusion:

Parallel to poultry (which are not fed any hormones), the beef and dairy animals might be given hormones in feed or may have slowly releasing implants placed surgically in the back of ears or hind quarter region. Adding to this, it’s a less known fact to common people that male sacrificial animals have castrations done in early age, which gives a sharp rise in estrogen levels, suppressing the natural testosterone levels in their bodies. It is similar to capon rooster production in chickens which is abandoned now.

For those who are less familiar with the technical aspects of poultry production should know that this rapid growth and development of modern broiler is a logical consequence of consistent high quality improvement in poultry genetics, nutrition, management and disease control at all levels including the commercial levels. Therefore, people should rest assured that poultry meat and eggs are safe and are free from any sort of hormones.