Why do chickens stay alive

Usually, these flocks consist entirely of layer hens—the female birds who produce the eggs, as well as a rooster or two in order to maintain the population.

Here, chickens are kept in coops or cages which prevent them from ever leaving the backyard they are confined to. In backyard flocks, humans protect chickens from predators, ensure they always have enough food, and shelter them from bad weather.

This can extend the life of chickens, with many living a decade or more. It might surprise you to know that, in the United States alone, there are billions of chickens living and dying every year. Virtually none of them are wild, and a very small percentage of the chickens are in backyard flocks.

The vast majority are kept on intensive agriculture operations known as factory farms, where they are raised and slaughtered for eggs or meat. This means that, the number one cause of death for chickens in the US is, unquestionably, human beings. Chickens are raised for either meat or eggs. What they are used for affects how long they live, although both egg-laying hens and broiler chickens who are raised for meat face abnormally shortened lifespans. Layer hens —those who are bred and forced to lay large quantities of eggs—live to be about 18 to 24 months old before being sent for slaughter.

Broiler chickens , or chickens raised for meat, live to be about 47 days old before they meet their violent end. A factory-farmed chicken begins their life in a sterile hatchery, where they emerge from their egg along with thousands of other chicks.

Many of these chicks will go on to experience a brief, misery-filled life—but for some chicks, life is about to come to an abrupt, horrifying end even sooner. Broiler chicks of both sexes will live to be the same age since both genders are used to make breasts, nuggets, and the multitude of other chicken products eaten by Americans.

In egg production, however, there is a huge difference when it comes to the lifespan of male and female chicks. It was found out later that the blood clot prevented the loss of blood and sealed the injury.

OK - still an amazing fluke that it didn't damage the brainstem at all - just really freaky all round! All posts. Newcomers' Community. Steemit Feedback. Explore communities…. Have you ever wondered for how long the chicken would be able to live after having his head getting chopped off? Reply Sort: Trending Trending Votes Age. You know What a buzz kill. These nerves are what can make a chicken keep moving, even after its head has been chopped off.

Nerves are very important, because they make everything in our body work, including making our muscles move and helping us to feel things, with our sense of touch. When the signal gets to your brain, the brain decides what to do about it and sends another little electrical current back down a different nerve, called a motor nerve, with a message to the muscle to move. Then the decision about what to do goes straight back down the motor nerve to move the leg or arm.

There was one cockerel who became known as Miracle Mike , who had his head chopped off and carried on living for another 18 months! Mike was kept alive for all that time by dripping milk and water into what was left of his throat, and he used to walk around just as he had always done.

Some scientists have noticed that frogs that have had their brain destroyed which should kill them will hop towards the light from a window. This plan did not come to fruition. So: The axe makes contact with the head and the bird squawks and flails about for several visceral seconds before finally biting the dust.

Even with the most humane slice and dice methods out there, the chicken will still writhe around once it loses about half of its blood content. So what is perceived as a seemingly panicked state of the still-living headless chicken could, in fact, be simply the firing of postmortem nerves. Though to be sure, placing the chicken in a chamber with low atmospheric pressure or calf stunning it is a humane way to slaughter — and without a lot of squirming.

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