The Poultry Keeper

Old Man of the 80's · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 302 Location: Wittering, UK

Not a "newbie know-all". Well informed and passionate.

But...

Killing things isn't nice, however you do it. But how else do you get meat? What we need to ensure is that the rearing of animals specifically for food production is done ethically, humanely and respectfully.

Fingers crossed, HFW's programme will educate the masses and we will stop buying drug laced, intensively raised chicken. When demand drops, and stays dropped, producers, suppliers and supermarkets will have no option but to raise/stock/sell free range chicken.

Then we can hope that consumers will realise the benefits of free range and extend this to all their meat purchases.

EGirl · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 468 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Signed up today, looking forward to Hugh's installment tonight.
I and my family commit to never buying or knowingly eating standard chicken meat or battery hens again.
Small steps to a better world, for us and for chickens...

EGirl · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 468 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Of course that should have read 'Battery Hen
eggs' ....long day!

ntsmama · Joined: 06 Dec 2007 Posts: 232

Signed.
And we've decided based on this campaign to keep our own table birds as we found that even the free range system is shocking

stephen · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:50 am Post subject:

Thought this might be interesting.

Here in Sweden battery egg production has been banned for many years. Battery production, full stop, is banned. Everyone still manages to eat eggs and chickens, no problem. People don't think twice about paying about £1 - £1.50 for half-a-dozen eggs. That's the acceptable price to pay for animals to have a reasonable life.

Chicken production is also better, though not perfect, and interestingly many breeds that are used across Europe for chicken production are banned here. You would never see a chicken produced in 30-odd days here. The heavy quick growing meat breeds are not grown here.

The chickens you purchase in the supermarkets are no bigger than around 1.5 - 1.7Kg, and then cost around the £4-£5 mark. Again, no one complains, and thinks it's a fair price to pay.

CP · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:33 am Post subject:

How long has it been like that Stephen? Question

stephen · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:03 am Post subject:

When I've asked in the office, no one could remember! When I checked, the law to ban battery hens for eggs was passed in the late 80s and everyone had to be non-battery by Jan 1 1999. It was brought in due to public demand. Most complied well before then.

I found these figures:

CP · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:07 am Post subject:

I suppose they've had time to get used to it by now. I wonder if there were any problems & shortages etc. in the shops whilst the changeover was going through? Be interesting to know. Wink

If Sweden can do it....why can't we? Confused

Sandra Hilton · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:36 am Post subject: River Cottage Campaign

That sounds as good as anyone could expect. when chickens have to be reared, or eggs produced in a large scale, doesn't it? Or am I being naive again?

Why is the UK always last in the queue? Why can't we give animals produced for food (indeed any animal) the respect that it deserves? If you cut them they bleed and they wince when they feel pain, but people don't seem to think that they do! (My husband didn't even know that to get milk from a cow or a goat, it had to have had offspring first! He thought they were all born producing milk! And he went to a grammar school, where is the education that we need?)

Is the problem the apathy that was shown so clearly by the people in the area where they were filming or the Supermarkets insistance on producing such ridiculously low priced table birds? Because it has been that way for ever, why worry about it? Why change it? They are only chickens and if it isn't broke, don't fix it!

Did you see Hayley, the lady who had turned into the spokesman for the group of allotment chicken keepers, buying 2 chickens for a fivver in Tesco? Because it was all she could afford! (Was she the same lady who had never stripped a chicken carcass until Hugh explained how? How much more minced beef might she have bought for £5 to feed her family, when the cow had most probaby lived long enough to at least see the sky!) Watching the final programme last night sickened me it really did. Hugh seemed ready to tear his hair out too and I don't blame him!

In the UK we lag behind the rest of the world so much in so many areas, but we can't just blame the population, the government have to do something about it too, they have a responsibility to change things, they take so long to change anything, it shouldn't take years, surely? How long have we been trying to stop battery egg production? And yet is still going yet! I'll believe the change in that area when I see it and I hope it is fast, but I am not holding my breath, no matter what they say! It is disgraceful, it really is.

I am so sorry for my rant, I am wound up like a coiled spring right now! My MP is going to hear from me today and I am wondering whether to attempt to set up a petition or something like that to bring attention to this problem locally. Anything to make a few people think what sort of a life the hen had before laying her egg, or the chicken had before being killed for someone's dinner, having never seen the sky! It is unforgiveable Maybe I should demonstrate outside Tesco in Caernarfon?

Evil or Very Mad

Sandra

CP · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject:

I agree. For a so-called civilised country it is disgraceful. Mad

We're lucky enough to be able to buy a lot of lamb, pork & beef straight from our local farm, where we've seen the cows & sheep in the fields, helped (on occasion) with a few lambing, & seen the piglets being born.
They are friends of ours (kids go to school together) so we know the animals are treated well, travel short distances to local abattoirs & local butchers.

Having said that, I still buy meat from supermarkets when I need to, especially chicken as they don't have them on the farm. We can only buy half a pig or lamb at a time so when I run out of mince for instance, I have to buy elsewhere & that usually means the supermarket.

I do my best to get either organic or free range, or as near as possible (RSPCA Freedom Food, etc) when I can.

I haven't had to buy eggs for a few years now, but they were always free range. Wink

When I think back to how I used to shop years ago before becoming more enlightened, I cringe! Embarassed

The cheapest eggs, meat etc, not thinking about how it got to my shopping trolly. Embarassed

I do know that not everyone can afford to buy this way as so much of the more ethically reared meat is expensive. But if we all tried at least some of the time, filling the gaps with more vegetables etc, maybe the prices would start to reduce as the demand rose & the farmers started to supply more.
(Or maybe I'm being naive now? Confused

)

I'll get off the soapbox. Wink

Parrot · Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Norwich

It was Calves's last night (Wednesday), I agree, not very nice to watch.

But we do have to have a sense of proportion here. We that eat meat know that it's got to come from somewhere and that it will be slaughtered to accommodate us.

We may like to see it happen but we do know it will.
The best we can hope for is that the animal lived it's life (even if it is a short one) as comfortable as possible and be slaughtered humanly.

The makers of the program 'Kill it, cook it and eat it' are surely trying to bring us into the real world and dispel any myth's that are floating around.

Make no mistake, I am not a lover of the program but I think it is a good thing to show us the real world. Exclamation

CP · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject:

Absolutely. I think it should be compulsory viewing.

Sandra Hilton · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:42 am Post subject: River Cottage Campaign

I do agree about Kill it, Cook it, Eat it, they have obviously made the programme in a bid to make us thing about the food that we put into our mouths. I didn't watch last night, I am a coward. I know that people eat veal and suckling pig, but I don't want to watch it. I prefer my meat to be a little older when it is slaughtered! I suppose that it is the 'mother' instinct in me that finds the idea of 'babies' being killed so hard to deal with.

I realise that it is a fact of life and I have seen animals slaughtered and 'processed' in an abattoir, many times, I know it is a fact of life and as I don't think that I could l live my life as a vegetarian I have to accept that it has to be done for me as well as for every other meat eater in the world. I just want and hope that the meat that I choose to eat has seen a decent life, that's all.

Sandra

wemfish · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 167 Location: Wem Shropshire

I think the chicken out campaign and particularly the part in the HFW C4 programs where some locals kept and eat their own chickens was very good. my own family and the majority of the population are to far removed from the production of meat and so squeamish at the thought of eating an animal they know, or a wild animal that has been killed for food.

typical of this, when some years back I told my mother about a deer I had shot. She got upset and said I was cruel, I replied - you eat venison, how do you think you get venison? she thought about it, only for a few seconds and then decided it was OK to shoot deer!

I now plan to raise our own chickens and hope that my wife and children will so by loose this irrational squeamishness as well as having better healthier and tastier food.

I know I have a hard job, they are fussy about eating fish I have cought or ducks I have shot but I will get there in the end. I myself have no qualms over eating such meat having done so since I was young

Sandra Hilton · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:07 am Post subject: River Cottage Campaign

Oh Good luck with that Wemfish, I have a similar battle with my husband, but he won't turn the chicken down when it is roasted and on the table I can assure you! Laughing

Sandra