Hello from Chicken Paradise Hawaii! My voice is still a little hoarse. Today we welcome a couple of meat birds (broilers): Chibi and Sweetie. Chibi means “little one”, which is pretty funny when you see him.
Why they came to us
These two were lovingly cared for by a friend of a friend of a friend. But they were kept at a church, complaints came in, and they couldn’t stay. They were truly cherished, so they were given up in tears. Why would anyone complain?
A broiler living a long life
Meat birds are usually slaughtered at around two or three months old. They’ve been bred to outgrow a normal adult chicken in that time. But these two are two years and two months old! Their bodies grow so fast that the heart can’t keep up, so heart disease and lung problems are common, and few live this long. Just being alive and healthy is a miracle.
Bred to eat a lot, they do nothing else once they spot food. Their previous owner carefully restricted their diet, with lots of trial and error. There was once a third, another rooster, but he died early. These two lived alone for two years without learning the rules of chicken society, so in the coop they ignore everyone and do whatever they like.
Size check
Next to Cho, a fairly big hen, you can see the broad shoulders: Americans like breast meat, so broilers are bred to grow thick breasts. The older hens are threatening the new giant, who is bigger than my torso!
Sonata, our biggest rooster and one of our oldest members, looks like a chick beside him, smaller than a hen, and too surprised to make a sound.
Then I got bitten. The beak is so big that all my fingers went inside! A puff of feathers came out, but not from pain: meat birds are bred so their feathers pull out easily, and half-grown broilers often rub off all their belly feathers. It isn’t a lack of nutrition, just an unnecessary “improvement”. Later I got bitten again and bled. They’re very strong and can’t control their force, so I have to be the careful one.
A special diet
Their previous owner brought vegetables and fruit for them. Searching for something low-calorie and tasty for the special diet, they settled on bean sprouts, grown from homemade beans fertilized with these chickens’ droppings. They gave me beans to plant, too.
I want to prepare a home just for these two, so they can live as long as possible and happily enjoy their freedom. Because of their diet, they can’t live with everyone else.
Thank you for watching Chicken Paradise! See you next time.