4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[TAJ]

I was reading a book about small holdings at the weekend written in the 1970s. They were basically saying the factory hen production and physical 'improvement' in chickens had reached as far as it ever could. It was stating that some factory hybrids were then producing almost 300 eggs a year. Now practically every hybrid, even for free-ranging, is producing this number of eggs and some more!

 

For meat these day 'supermarket' chickens are killed at 37-39 days old - M&S are the only people of the supermarkets to have longer at 54 days. This 1970s book talks again about it getting as short as it possibly could at 6-8 weeks (42 - 56) - even M&S 'slow reared' are what was considered fast 30 years ago.

 

Hopefully the trends will now start reversing with people looking more carefully at what they eat.

 

Tracy

[superjules]

Hmmm - interesting stuff. Very sad, whoever developed these fast growing birds was obviously more concerned with whether they could, rather than whether they should.

 

People are so used to having mega-cheap food though (so they don't have to feel guilty when they chuck a third of it in the bin ) that when the prices go up and availability goes down as a result of these practices being outmoded, there's still going to be an element of the population screaming they need their 2 chickens for a fiver, or else they can't survive.

[chelsea]

only the "standard" chicken these days are killed at 37-40 days.

 

Free range at 56 days and organic at 70 days. Marks and spencer probably only do free range and organic anyway so that's probably why they are 56 days.

 

The majority of all the major supermarkets sell all of the above now so its good that we all have the choice

[deejmum]

My chicks are 42 days old and still babies really. How sad that other chicks the same age are already meat . I have only ever bought free range chickens for the last year or so, however always shocked at the price. Cant find chicken products (i.e nuggets kievs etc that are free range ) anybody else aware of any?

[chelsea]

Cant find chicken products (i.e nuggets kievs etc that are free range ) anybody else aware of any?

 

no, me neither, I make my own kievs etc now with free range chicken, they are actually tastier than frozen ones.

[Stevie]

Since watching Jamie & Hughs programes-i am more conscious as to what i buy now while shopping and avoid food with ingredients which contain chicken or eggs.Its fairly obvious that if you buy chicken nuggets,chicken roll,ready made egg sandwiches etc etc-they're from intensivlely reared stock.It is unfortunate that they're never allowed to mature.

 

Until mine start laying-i'll continue to get them from farm near my work.

[deejmum]

Might try that Chelsea. I wonder if Hugh and Jamie will start something in the free range products line. Lets hope so.

[superjules]

I think waitrose have the best welfare standard for their own brand stuff, that might be worth trying.

 

We have chicken less and less now. It used to be 2 every 3 weeks or so - now it's about 1 a month, and if it's from a supermarket it's sheepdrove farm at waitrose. I can't eat these chooks who haven't had a life!

[deejmum]

Yes I just cant bring myself to eat anything other than free range now, although I was cursing jamie oliver when my local sainsburys sold out the day after his programme! I probably should have cursed the supermarket though not the lovely Jamie!

[TAJ]

I very rarely shop in a supermarket at all these days, eggs from the garden, allotment for veg/fruit and use local butcher (who actually has kept pet hens for 50+ years himself) and 'The Natural Grocery Store' (which is local to us, but does now do national delivery). I have also just found I can buy fish direct from the Whitby Catch in Whitby.

 

So if we do buy chicken it is only locally produced, free range from the butcher who knows were all is meat comes from.

 

Tracy

[Abbey Road Girl]

I don't think I've eaten chichen since I ordered my Cube and hens from Omlet.

 

I live ten doors up from a river and haven't been able to eat duck, even though I had previously really enjoyed it in a delux Chinese takeaway.

 

Where will it all end? Very well, I hope!

[BarbaraJ]

Thanks for that site Tracy i have been looking on there for about an hour lol

[kiwichick]

I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but one of the things that has surprised me and something I find very distasteful is the size of the factory farmed chickens for sale in supermarkets these days. Growing up in NZ in a family of 7, a size 9 chicken would feed the lot of us with just the carcass left over. Most of a roast chook dinner was made up of veg and stuffing with the inevitable fights over who would get the wings and legs. Nowadays supermarket chickens are sized at 20+ (only acceptable in chickens apparently!!!) and there's always plenty leftover from a roast dinner. How cruel that these poor animals have been bred to eat themselves to their death