How many chickens?

Post by **kman** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:48 pm

This question came across my email last week:

How many chickens are killed annually for MREs?

This turned out to be a pretty fun subject to research so I dug into it and came up with my own best guess. I don't know if there's an official answer to the question out there so I thought it'd be fun to throw the question out to you guys to see how you would figure it out.

I won't give away the number I finally came up with or how I got there...yet...but I will explain the basics of what you'll need to figure it out:

1. How many MREs are produced in a year. I used 2007 for all my numbers.
2. How many chicken-based MREs there are.
3. How many MREs you can get out of one chicken.

So post your answers and feel free to explain how you got there!

Post by **German_EPA** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:18 pm

to point 3: i guess 4 MRE

Post by **kman** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:24 pm

So combine that with what you think are answers to 1 and 2 and that should give you your final answer to how many chickens are killed annually for MREs.

Post by **German_EPA** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:48 pm

to 1: 7 200 000 chicken mre (1 800 000 chicken)
to 2: 6 (3 a and 3 b)
to 3: how i said 4

what does the quizmaster say?

thechip1 · Post by **thechip1** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:49 pm

Are we talking about normal chickens, or are these special MRE-only chickens that already have the fake grill marks on them?

MR.EMAN · Post by **MR.EMAN** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:37 pm

I've been unable to find production numbers, but if I was to go by German EPA's figures of 28,800,000 MREs for 2007, then I get the following:

28.8 mil rations assuming production of each menu is split evenly, by 24 menus, of which 6 menus contain chicken.

So we got 7.2 mil chicken mre's for 2007.

Assuming we're using standard commercial chickens, white meat only, I'd say approx. 2 LB per bird. Depending on the menu, some would have higher proportion of meat to net wt. So, if we average it all out to say 4 oz of chicken each MRE, and 8 MRE's per bird, then I'd guess that 900,000 chickens are used.

Post by **kman** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:07 am

German_EPA - you've got all the numbers there you need - now you need to put them together and come up with a single number of how many chickens you think were used for MREs in 2007.

MR.EMAN - you're getting pretty close! This slide ought to help you refine your numbers:

MR.EMAN · Post by **MR.EMAN** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:36 am

Thanks for the production numbers Kman. So, using my formula, with the numbers you posted, I get 107,492. (rounded up to nearest whole)

Mkim340518 · Post by **Mkim340518** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:46 am

PLEASE THINK OF THESE POOR CHICKENS!!!!PLEASE!!!!

sorry too much coffee already

Post by **German_EPA** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:21 am

ok next try:

214984 chicken

and

859936 mre contain chicken

How many chickens?

How many chickens?

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THESE POOR CHICKENS!!!