Culling birds is against our religion – who doesn’t agree with this?

Every single Bhutanese would be very sentimental to hear the birds are culled when they are old and unproductive.  However, we have grown up with this as our every day rural life style. The pig that we fatten for lochey is more brutal as we intent to kill and we feed the best feeds. The beef we eat from meat store is more ironic as it is coming from a cow which gave milk or an ox that ploughed our field.

Let’s be practical. The judgment we pass can thwart the opportunity for our farmers to earn some income. Our government is trying its best to educate our farmers about food self-sufficiency and domestic production. Hundreds of extension workers in the rural areas are helping our farmers to understand the benefit of poultry framing.

The underling fact is that farmers in Bhutan are now striving to get out of poverty. Poultry is the fastest growing sector in the country due to favorable conditions created by the Department of Livestock for the farmers.

In a span of three year from 2009 to 2011, about 1030 farms are established in the country and earned about Nu 244 million from the sale of eggs ( IMS, DoL 2010).  Imagine how many poor mouths must have been fed, number of children sent to school from the income, and how many families got financially empowered by rear poultry birds.

It is not to feed the greed as the author mentioned. The bigger picture here is the financial trap in which the farmers are circling and wanting to get out .

Poultry birds can be reared by poorest of the poor. It is one of the low budget farming activities where farmers are assured with definite returns.

Many Bhutanese condemn slaughtering cow as it is believed to be a great sin to do so.

However, a study conducted in 2009 shows beef as the most eaten and most preferred meat of all. This finding makes it difficult to explain how religious sentiment effects meat production. Are we  really a religious soceity?

The study also shows that religious sentiment has a minimal affect on the amount on chicken consumed and pattern of future consumption. Interestingly, Bhutanese people support chicken farming in the country.

Today Bhutan imports only about 64 percent of poultry products. That is  because our farmers are rearing poultry birds. The birds reared for eggs must eventually be culled as they become unproductive. The fact is: even if our farmers don’t cull them, someone somewhere will  do it.

Culling is a technical term used to select unproductive birds. It cannot be used as synonym for mass killing.

Tshewang Tashi

Department of Livestock

One Response to “Culling birds is against our religion – who doesn’t agree with this?”

1. Culling birds is against our religion – who doesn’t agree with this? | NewsoftheWorld.nu says:

   January 20, 2012 at 7:52 pm

   [...] Every single Bhutanese would be very sentimental to hear the birds are culled when they are old and unproductive.  However, we have grown up with this as our every day rural life style. The pig that we fatten for lochey is more brutal as we intent to kill and we feed the best feeds. The [...] Bhutan Observer Newspaper – Bhutan news [...]

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