I was out and about early today in order to prepare for a family gathering. During my rounds, I stopped at a local grocer called "Redner's." They are known for their fried chicken. If you stop their during lunch you can expect to wait in line to get your chicken.
Well this morning, I noticed a big sign where they usually have their fried chicken. It read "do to the chicken shortage, we will not be serving fried chicken for the foreseeable future." I was stunned. You could tell there was many people who showed up just to pick up some chicken, they were very upset walking out of the store. So I when I came home, I began to research.
The first bit of news I came across was from Chick-fil-A. "Citing diminishing chicken supply, Chick-fil-A will back off its pledge never to serve chicken that was fed antibiotics, and instead it will embrace a looser industry standard: "no antibiotics important to human medicine." Chick-fil-A first announced that it would abandon antibiotics in 2014.
The change comes after Tyson, America's biggest poultry company, last summer ended its eight-year-pledge to keep antibiotics out of its chicken. Like Chick-fil-A, Tyson said it will ensure the chicken it produces is not fed antibiotics that are important to the treatment of humans - a standard recognized by the USDA and the World Health Organization.
Oh great, now even Chick-fil-A is taking orders from the WHO. The next bit of news I found. Apparently these signs are all over Costco's in many parts of the US:
According to social media posts & news outlets, Costco has been struggling to maintain stock of their ever popular rotisserie chickens.
Next, many KFC chains across the UK have been closed because of the chicken shortage in the UK. The ad said: “We’re sorry. A chicken restaurant without any chicken. It’s not ideal. Huge apologies to our customers, especially those who travelled out of their way to find we were closed.
“And endless thanks to our KFC team members and our franchise partners for working tirelessly to improve the situation, It’s been a hell of a week, but we’re making progress, and every day more and more fresh chicken is being delivered to our restaurants. Thank you for bearing with us.”
The chicken shortage is of course a manufactured crisis. If just one chicken tests positive for the bird flu, and entire flock has to be culled. Just last fall, South Africa culled about 7.5 million chickens in an effort to contain dozens of outbreaks of two separate strains of avian influenza that threaten to create a shortage of eggs and poultry for consumers, the government and national poultry association said Tuesday.
There are also issues with labor shortages within companies like Tyson, and there have been manpower shortages that are affecting the supply chain.
We are blessed to be able to raise our own meat birds. Unvaccinated, no hormones, and we know exactly what's going in their little bodies. Things are going to get worse before they get better. If you don't have the option to raise your own birds, find local farmers.
God bless,
George
"The Fact Hunter"
Of course they throw "organic milk" into the mix.