maintain a happy flock of chickens/cows/turkeys,
and makes sure it stay healthy and in appropriate
size
is practically non-existent. E.g. even "free range/cage free" chickens:
- Have their beaks burned off because they live in crowded conditions where they will attack and main / kill each other.
- Are sorted male from female as chicks, where the males are then immediately killed in bulk. The 'industry standard' way to do this is to put them all in garbage bags to suffocate them, or to toss them all into a wood chipped en masse[1].
[1] Note: Even the chicks sold to people raising chickens in the city go through this process. E.g. in Portland, you can only raise 6 hens on your property. Roosters are not allowed.
Industry maybe. Local farmer, heck no. If they do, don't buy from them.
It might be added, that in Europe, farmers get subsidies from the European union, and thus can keep the flock in rather low size and still earn a living on it. It is still a rather small income however, so many local farmers now days only supplement their earning with cows/chicken/eggs/sheep, and their main income comes from something else.
Yes, local farmers. Even small farmers and people who have a flock in their backyard generally get there hens from large-scale facilities that routinely kill the male chicks within hours of hatching (usually in terrible ways).
Bootstrapping is an issue, but then I have no experienced of your scenario in the wild. Small farmers tend to collect/receive hens from other small farmers, often as barter or gifts. Small farmers have a common ground which each other, which is a primary part of personal networks. It was not an uncommon chain of events in my childhood to hear during parties complements of the color of the eggs/feathers/subspecies, and see a trade emerge. Sometimes with a bottle of something expensive changing hand.
Same goes for male chicks. Those that aren't eaten (keeping the flock happy and appropriate sized), are observed closely when they reach mature age. If they don't fit well with the flock, they get bartered with a other farmers with an male from their flock. This was often the first step in handling an fight between two males that fought aggressively over dominance of the flock.
Sure, there will always exist bad apples in the world, and people should try avoid those. In the past, it was a strong asymmetrical information problem for buyers. Hopefully, with more information sharing and systems where buyers can rate sellers, we might get improvements where local suppliers that treat their animals well are encouraged.
There is a certain inescapable problem even with small farms raising layer hens. I know exactly how this plays out large-scale and some idea on a smaller farm.
There are different breeds that are raised as layers and for meat. Layers have been bred to produce more eggs than normal, and meat birds to produce more meat than usual. Layers are not raised for meat. But farmers do need to fertilize and hatch a certain number of eggs to continue to get new generations of layer hens. Somewhere around 50% of those are males. If you're lucky, you can keep 1 rooster for 6 hens, and even that is pushing it. Those numbers just don't work.
I know that many small farmers and families with small flocks already get their hens from large hatcheries. I would like to know what happens to that minority of male chicks that are hatched on small farms though.
| In England the standard way is to gas the chicks
I'm referring to the US. Specifically, there was a case where an animal rights group (maybe PETA?) sued a farmer (in Montana?) for using one of those two techniques, and the judge threw it out as acceptable because it was standard industry practice.
| Killing off the males is a problem for dairy
| cattle too
My understanding is that, in the US, they send these males off to become veal (so technically people that are vegetarian for ethical reasons -- "I don't want to kill animals" -- are supporting animal killing anyway).
Dairy cattle males may not be suitable as commercial veal, like not all sheep breeds are suitable as meat sheep.
If they are suitable, then you've got to deal with either raising them from birth as white veal or, allowing them a bit more freedom in movement and food, as rose veal.
Just to add another animal to the mix, the same problem can be seen in dairy goat herds in countries where goat isn't consumed by the majority of the population.
- Have their beaks burned off because they live in crowded conditions where they will attack and main / kill each other.
- Are sorted male from female as chicks, where the males are then immediately killed in bulk. The 'industry standard' way to do this is to put them all in garbage bags to suffocate them, or to toss them all into a wood chipped en masse[1].
[1] Note: Even the chicks sold to people raising chickens in the city go through this process. E.g. in Portland, you can only raise 6 hens on your property. Roosters are not allowed.