General Chat

Ros, they said the birds had ammonia burns on their 'knuckles' so I assumed wee, but suppose it is sort of in with poop!

Still means they have open wounds where infection can get in ugh!

Lizx

Just a bit of an update on the time it takes to rear a chicken for the table, not sure for egg production, but it is 39 days and not 39 weeks. Chickens reared by the broiler method are between 6 and 7 weeks old. Free Range would probably take longer.
Birds don't wee, they only poop!!

Beef is two - three years before it is killed, veal is obviously less.

Unfortunately I don't have the dish to watch the programme, or wouldhave done. I'm not a veggie and never will be, I like my meat too much. Informed choice and all that.

Rosalind

I watched all the Hugh F-W programme and it has put me off cheap chicken, think of the germs getting in through the knuckle injuries, poop and wee ugh! If more people were discriminating in their choice of chicken purchases maybe the supermarkets would provide better sourced food.
My dad used to have chickens in the garden so we always had fresh eggs and chicken when I was a child.
Some people are very wasteful with food, my o.h. throws giblets away and also throws away chicken carcase with lots of meat on. I don't, I use the carcase for stock or soup as I did this week. Made me think a bit more about what I buy tho.
Lizx

Im afraid its something that will happen unless everyone becomes vegetarian. I always buy free range or local farmers but I still feel guilty. When you see the lambs gamboling in the fields in spring and the young calves next to their mums in the field and you know those young calves will become meat in about 9 months.

Its horrific and my dad was a veggie all his life - lost him 2 years ago aged 91. I was a veggie til I was 13 and forgot my sandwiches one day when I went to school. Weak wasnt I? Wish Id had my dads strong principles.

such a waste - so much she could have made from the rest. But then I was brought up in the days of rationing - waste not, want not!

45 million chickens die or are culled before they reach the 39 week old processing date. Now think how many actually make it! We are mass producing food that isnt really needed - and then put on the supermarket shelves really cheaply. As Hugh FW said - it's not that free-range birds are expensive, it because mass produced birds are artifically cheap.

He had one mum on the program saying free range was much to expensive for her budget. Five minutes later she said she only ever took the breast of the chicken and threw the rest away! I bet a lot of people do that - because they are so cheap.

Yep it hasn't put me off eating chickens at all, but it has helped me to make a better informed choice about what I am buying and what kind of life it has had.

Thank goodness someone like Jamie is getting the message across. We have been fed rubbish for years, no wonder there is so much sickness around. Like I say, eat a creature that's had a happy life albeit a short one. BC XX

Yes the dairy farmers are getting a slightly better deal these days. And the supermarkets are being watched as there was some price fixing going on.

He had convinced me by 9.10 pm! I did close my eyes a lot and just listened. I used to buy eggs direct from farm but developers bought the land! I did buy Barn thinking I was doing right thing - I was wrong!

Was horrified to hear farmer gets 3p per chicken and I thought dairy farmers were hard done by. Milk has shot up in price a fair old bit lately - is the farmer getting any of it?

I agree with what Jamie says, we are meat eaters by nature, but we shoudl care about the animals welfare, and should think about whether they have had a good life, treated with respect and killed as humanely, cleanly and quickly as possible.

I worked in a Battery hen unit collecting eggs in the 1970's, 4 hens to a small cage, three tiers deep, faeces falling through to the lower levels. Horrific!

These battery farms are no more, but have been replaced with units with slight improvements.... Improvements which should be significant as 30 odd years have lapsed.

I applaud Jamie and Hugh on trying to change the supermarkets policies an animal welfare.

Tina x

I had no idea Peter,

Im glad Im lucky enough to have a local source where i CAN SEE THE CHICKENS,

iM ALMOST VEGGIE BUT THIS MAKES ME THINK ABOUT COMPLETELY CONVERTING.

cAZ X


soz caps lock slipped on

If only free range was the little farm down the road with hens clucking round the yard.

If you can get eggs from a small farm like that then by all means do. Unfortunately those of us living in towns and cities can't as easily.

Commercial free range is no better than battery. Only a tiny percentage, perhaps less than 5% get to go outside, and many that do are horribly injured in the process.

He's just talking about the ammonia burns now.

Hugh's intensive farming set up was no where near reality... he kept them very clean, this is not the 'norm' unfortunately.
In most of these intensively reared units the ammonia is a serious issue, as is the amount of muck produced - detrimental to the health of the birds.

thats why for years i get mine off friend..they are fresh that day,,,and hers run everywhere,,in the house if they can--- often !!!!!!!,,,,,,,,plus I dont eat chicken but I dont like it,,,,

i chose not to watch it cos seen it before, i do my bit in buying but wish i could rescue all the factory farmed!!!!

I get our eggs from a farm close to where my little ones go to school and they are treated very well,


What worries me is other egg source produce,


Caz x

Kem, they are collected twice a day where my BIL works, they start at one end and work their way to the other, then start all over again, every day.