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Myth of hormones in Australia’s chickens busted
THE following is ex- tracted from a podcast featuring Bruce Reynolds of the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Byron Stein, the de- partment’s development officer for poultry meat, looking at the myth of hormones in chicken and why it lingers.
perception still there, why are people convinced that hormones are still being used in the poultry indus- try?
intensive animal breed- ing programs, intensive animal nutrition programs and very good housing for birds,” he said.
“Well, the science of feeding chickens is quite in- tense and complex, and the industry continues to spend billions of dollars globally on getting the diet of chick- ens perfectly formulated.
it by giving the birds poor housing conditions.
are across the board. “That’s one of the rea- sons, and I think the chick- en meat industry and some of the retailers are also oc-
“I suppose the industry has shrugged its shoul- ders and said, if you can’t change people’s minds, we might as well market our products as ‘hormone free’ because that’s what some of the other meat products have done.
Bruce asked, are hor- mones used in the poultry meat industry?
“In fact, in a recent sur- vey by one of the large chicken meat processing companies, 76 percent of consumers still think there are hormones in chicken,” he said.
“A well-formulated chick- en diet helps the chickens reach their genetic potential and that provides fast and efficient growth rates using the best feed available.
“I guess to summarise, it’s the combination of genet- ics, nutrition and environ- ment that have all come together – perfectly almost – which has resulted in the birds growing much bigger and much faster than they have ever before.”
chicken being sold in my local supermarket some- times and I’ve got to say, I laugh when I see those labels on the chicken be- cause the truth is that I couldn’t buy chicken with added hormones, even if I wanted to.
“Maybe it’s an attempt to compete with beef for ex- ample, which interestingly is still allowed to use hor- mones, and as I’ve said in the past, one of the retailers has marketed their product as being ‘hormone free’.
Byron’s answer was no.
muscling,” Byron said. “Much in the same way breeding and selection has been done for other animals such as cattle and sheep, the difference of course is that chickens breed much quicker and produce off- spring in a relatively short
“The research into nutri- tion continues all the time, with the industry and the feed companies investing bucket loads of money in an effort to keep one step ahead of each other, so it’s very competitive.
“I get that question a bit when I tell people I work with the poultry meat in- dustry,” Byron said.
“There are a number of reasons why this myth hasn’t died.
“Not that I would, but it’s impossible to do because it just doesn’t exist – it’s been illegal for 50 years.”
To summarise, does chicken have hormones?
“And one of the questions I get is, ‘Well, how come they keep putting hormones into chicken to make them grow so big and so fast?’
“One reason is that people can’t believe that birds can go from chicks just out of the shell to being ready for the dinner table in only 6-7 weeks.
amount of time.
“So this means that you
“And also, to try to keep in step with the genetic gains the breeding compa- nies are achieving.
Bruce asked, “We’ve looked at a couple of the reasons why the myth still exists, but I assume there are other rationales why the myth about using hormones in chickens hasn’t died – what are some of the other explanations?”
So, why does the chicken industry do this, why do they continue to put ‘hor- mone free’ on their pack- aging – implying that if it doesn’t read ‘hormone free’, then the other chicken that doesn’t say it might have hormones?
“No, the answer is cat- egorically no, and not only is it illegal, it is logisti- cally impossible to pro- vide hormones to chickens because of the way they have to be administered,” Byron said.
“The fact that the ques- tion begins with ‘why’ and not ‘do’, shows me that people still think that hor- mones are used in poultry meat farming.
can see the results of your breeding program in 12 months or less.
“Nutrition is a continuing feast, excuse the pun.”
“Growth hormones are injected not consumed, so it couldn’t be added to the feed, it would have to be injected.
“But the truth is that hor- mones haven’t been used in chicken meat since the 1960s in Australia.
“They believe that farm- ers must be putting some- thing special in their feed to give them a boost.
“Compare this to cattle or sheep, for example, for which breeding programs take several years.
The third area was the en- vironmental factors and the way we’ve changed these to grow out the chickens.
“This is very much my opinion, but one of the main reasons why the myth about hormones in chickens is still alive and well unfor- tunately – because it’s not true – is due to the market- ing strategies of some of the other meat industries, some of the retailers and by some of the chicken meat industry itself,” Byron said.
“Look I’m only guessing here but in essence, I think it’s because despite the ban on hormones in the 1960s, they just haven’t been able to convince consumers that there aren’t hormones in chicken,” Byron said.
“It was banned in the 1960s, so it’s illegal.
“So that’s probably the main reason people can’t get their heads around how chickens can grow so big without a bit of help.”
“Obviously, it also is the case of numbers, so each breeding hen can produce 300 chicks in a lifetime.
According to Byron, ge- netics and breeding are two reasons for this fast growth, the third is the environ- ment.
“In a farm with multiple sheds and 250,000 birds, it’s impossible to inject 250,000 birds.
“A m e r i c a b a n n e d h o r - mones in their chicken in the 1950s.
So, if chickens aren’t get- ting a shot of anything spe- cial, how are they growing so quickly?
“There aren’t too many cattle or sheep or even pigs that can produce anywhere near that number of off- spring.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in finding out and then pro- viding the optimal growing conditions for the birds,” he said.
“That this myth has per- petuated.
“So, it’s not only illegal, it’s logistically impossible.”
“That’s over half a cen- tury ago, but people don’t have to take my word for it, anyone can check out the National Residue Sur- vey, which was published by the Federal Government Department of Agriculture and is on their website – if people want to have a look at what residues are in meat, including chicken, to test my statement about no hormones.”
According to Byron, es- sentially there are three key reasons why the birds are growing so quickly and so big – it is because of genetics, nutrition and the environment that they’re grown in.
“So selection pressure is massive for the chickens and that is probably the key reason why it’s had such massive genetic gains in the past 30-40 years.”
“So things such as tem- perature, humidity, air quality, lighting, water quality and ventilation are all painstakingly monitored and adjusted to provide the birds the very best condi- tions to grow in.
“For example, one of the large retailers promoted their beef products as being hormone free a few years back and one of the con- sequences of that market- ing ploy was to bring the issue of hormones back to the spotlight, back into the public domain.
Bruce asked, why is that
“Good question,” Byron said.
Growth hormones are injected not consumed, it’s impossible to inject 250,000 birds.
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National Poultry Newspaper, September 2022 – Page 13
Byron responded that it’s interesting – it’s a myth the industry’s been trying to dispel for a very long time but it has had limited suc- cess.
Let’s look at genetics and how have genetics changed. “It’s not so much a change, but chickens are excellent breeders and have very short generation in- tervals, so this has helped breeding companies select for fast growth and bigger
“The industry’s invested a lot of money in that space – to give the birds the abso- lute optimal conditions to grow out in, so that they can achieve the genetic gains that they’ve been breeding the birds for.
casionally to blame.
“I still see ‘hormone free’
“So, the industry has es- sentially grown tremen- dously in the past 30-40 years, it’s been a star per- former – mainly through very good science and
Bruce asked, “You also mention nutrition, how have we changed the nutritional balance to get that perfor- mance in that 6-7 weeks?”
“There’s no point in in- vesting hundreds of mil- lions of dollars in breeding and nutrition only to waste
“And once that hap- pened, chicken got brought into the mix and so people think hormones