- Joined
- Jan 3, 2016
- Reaction score
- 2,094
- Age
- 46
- Lifestyle
- Vegetarian
An email I received from Animal Rising says that
It started with a mistake.
In 1923, a housewife in Ocean View, Delaware USA named Cecile Steele ordered 50 chicks to restock her laying flock. Her hatchery sent 500 by accident. Rather than return them, she raised them for meat in a 16-by-16 shed and sold the survivors at 62 cents a pound.
The next year she doubled the flock. Then doubled it again.
Her neighbours were watching and soon followed suit. Within five years broiler production on the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware had jumped from 50,000 birds in 1925 to 7 million by 1934.
To fact check this, I asked Claude AI how factory farming started and it said "The roots go back to the 1920s, when scientists discovered that vitamins A and D could be added to animal feed, making it possible to raise animals indoors year-round without sunlight or pasture." Then it mentioned breeding programs and antibiotics.
I asked Claude "Who was the first factory farmer?" and it said "If forced to pick one name, Cecile Steele arguably deserves the most credit as the accidental pioneer whose experiment showed the industry what was possible".
I then asked Claude "Would factory farming have happened without Cecile Steele?"
It says (and this seems logical) Almost certainly yes, just probably not through her. She's better described as an early pioneer rather than an essential one. The conditions that made factory farming inevitable were already in place by the 1920s — the vitamin discoveries, the economic incentives, the growing urban demand for cheap protein, and the general postwar drive toward industrial efficiency. If Steele hadn't stumbled into her accidental experiment, someone else in Delaware, Virginia, or Georgia would likely have made the same discovery within a few years. The broiler industry was already beginning to take shape independently in multiple places simultaneously.
That said, her specific contribution did matter in one important way — she demonstrated the scalability of the model very publicly and quickly, going from 500 to 10,000 birds within a few years. This gave other farmers a concrete, visible proof of concept to copy. Without her, the industry might have coalesced a few years later or in a different region, but probably not decades later.
As a side note to this main story, it is worth noting that factory farming cannot work without supplementation of some kind, such as vitamin D because they don't get sunlight. Worth remembering the next time someone tells you vegan diets are not natural.
It started with a mistake.
In 1923, a housewife in Ocean View, Delaware USA named Cecile Steele ordered 50 chicks to restock her laying flock. Her hatchery sent 500 by accident. Rather than return them, she raised them for meat in a 16-by-16 shed and sold the survivors at 62 cents a pound.
The next year she doubled the flock. Then doubled it again.
Her neighbours were watching and soon followed suit. Within five years broiler production on the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware had jumped from 50,000 birds in 1925 to 7 million by 1934.
To fact check this, I asked Claude AI how factory farming started and it said "The roots go back to the 1920s, when scientists discovered that vitamins A and D could be added to animal feed, making it possible to raise animals indoors year-round without sunlight or pasture." Then it mentioned breeding programs and antibiotics.
I asked Claude "Who was the first factory farmer?" and it said "If forced to pick one name, Cecile Steele arguably deserves the most credit as the accidental pioneer whose experiment showed the industry what was possible".
I then asked Claude "Would factory farming have happened without Cecile Steele?"
It says (and this seems logical) Almost certainly yes, just probably not through her. She's better described as an early pioneer rather than an essential one. The conditions that made factory farming inevitable were already in place by the 1920s — the vitamin discoveries, the economic incentives, the growing urban demand for cheap protein, and the general postwar drive toward industrial efficiency. If Steele hadn't stumbled into her accidental experiment, someone else in Delaware, Virginia, or Georgia would likely have made the same discovery within a few years. The broiler industry was already beginning to take shape independently in multiple places simultaneously.
That said, her specific contribution did matter in one important way — she demonstrated the scalability of the model very publicly and quickly, going from 500 to 10,000 birds within a few years. This gave other farmers a concrete, visible proof of concept to copy. Without her, the industry might have coalesced a few years later or in a different region, but probably not decades later.
As a side note to this main story, it is worth noting that factory farming cannot work without supplementation of some kind, such as vitamin D because they don't get sunlight. Worth remembering the next time someone tells you vegan diets are not natural.
