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

[Patricia W]

There's an article coming up which apparently is about free-ranging not being better....

 

Tricia

[Looney]

I've just switched it on.....

[Guest]

I'm recording it - for some reason I'm watching Grease - for about the 50 milionth time....

[chelsea]

 

Who was shouting at their tv?

 

We were!

 

Furious, why are they sending out this statement that enriched cages are better than free range.

 

I thought this report was an april fool for a minute.

 

And as for those experts - what a load of tosh

[Looney]

I thought it was quite interesting. And I quite agree that not all free range establishments are maintained to the same standard (just like everything else in life). Some of the comparisons between caged and free range were slightly strange.

 

If they were doing a comparison in well-being between battery versus enriched cages and then enriched cages versus free range I think it would have been a bit more balanced. I reckon it was a credit-crunch type article trying to show how people can save pennies on eggs without feeling guilty....

[Patricia W]

I agree - it was rather muddled. It seemed to be praising the " enriched" cages and rubbishing the claims free range always best. It seemed to me that one shot of free- range was actually of barn " free-ranging" - which is not the same as the shot of the " real" free ranging.

 

I think the term " free-ranging " means different things to different people.

 

Tricia

[Olly]

I think the basic premise - that well-managed enriched cages can be better than a poorly-managed free-range - is probably fair, but I agree it wasn't put across very well. I think the real message was that the standards for free-range are either not set high enough, or not enforced well enough, but that point wasn't really explained or brought out.

 

The most interesting point was perhaps the one made right at the start - that we eat 10 billion eggs a year in the UK, and that the current free-range industry couldn't support this country's egg consumption. I'd rather we still have enriched cages with our welfare standards, than start importing eggs from countries with low, or no, standards.

[Looney]

Very true Olly

[Suzy]

I found the biggest reason I had to shout at the TV was that the hens looked fantastic. My ex-bat hens have been with us for 4 months and don't look anywhere near as good as these enriched hens, their combs were all up, and they had a full set of feathers that my ex-batts could only dream of.

 

I appreciate that free-range may need to step up a gear as not many are kept in conditions that we assume they are, but there's something fundamentally wrong with what was portrayed last night that a caged set-up is acceptable.

[Helly Welly]

I thought it was a terrible article. Luckily, i think the people that buy battery eggs are not the type to watch countryfile. I don't see how those enriched cages were any good, although they were better than standard battery. The man who owned the cages reckoned a chicken had a place to scratch and it was a bit of plastic grass stuff. The reason chickens scratch is to look for bugs and seeds to eat, you're not going to find them on plastic. Not every chook could get on the perching bars and their was one nestbox between 60 chickens. Surely this would mean more fighting???

 

The answer has to be better regulation of free range farms. What right have we got to cage animals for our own ends.

[chelsea]

I thought it was a terrible article. I don't see how those enriched cages were any good, although they were better than standard battery. The man who owned the cages reckoned a chicken had a place to scratch and it was a bit of plastic grass stuff. The reason chickens scratch is to look for bugs and seeds to eat, you're not going to find them on plastic.

 

 

I completely agree. I forgot about the plastic matting actually and I thought it was ridiculous to think chickens would like to scratch a piece of matting. These so called poulty experts have not got a clue. I've only been keeping chickens in my back gardens for 3 years and feel I know more about chickens personalities and traits and I didnt have to go to university to study this!!

 

Did you see their poor little combs? They were really really pale and there was some baldness on the caged hens. The free range hens had lovely red combs and were happily dustbathing.

 

I personally would still rather eat an egg from a free range hen that was from a lower standard farm (british) than eat an egg from a caged hen. At least the hen has seen daylight.

[Omletina Kyckling]

I just watched it on iPlayer and am beginning to wonder if the so-called experts may be on the payroll of some of the larger supermarkets, or am I being super-cynical?

 

I didn't think it was a very well balanced report at all. Humph....

[Janty]

What was that professor Graham Scott on?

 

 

He actually said,''It seems to me that the need for birds to be outdoors is more of a human need. People who eat eggs like to see birds outside roaming around in the countryside. The consumer needs to be educated about the benefits of caged egg production.'

 

I'll just go and explain to my girls that they don't need to be out wrecking my garden...that seeing them scratching and roaming around the garden is purely for my benefit and not theirs.

[Patricia W]

You're right - it wasn't well balanced. I'm sure you could have had a much better debate with a more balanced report. Poor quality " free range" conditions need exposing - but showing pseudo " better" battery conditions is not the way to do it.

[Mutrix Farmers]

What was that professor Graham Scott on?

 

 

He actually said,''It seems to me that the need for birds to be outdoors is more of a human need. People who eat eggs like to see birds outside roaming around in the countryside. The consumer needs to be educated about the benefits of caged egg production.'

 

I'll just go and explain to my girls that they don't need to be out wrecking my garden...that seeing them scratching and roaming around the garden is purely for my benefit and not theirs.

 

I was so disgusted I nearly threw the iron at the TV!!

 

It's a bit like the experts saying smoking doesn't kill then you find out they are on the payroll of BAT!!!!

[The Dogmother]

I missed this as I was away, but Olly's right about the need to buy UK produce (as well as free range). The UK has far more stringent restrictions on the use of routine, unnecessary dosing of battery and broiler chooks with medication/growth promoters.

 

Some drugs, which are quite rightly banned in the UK are routinely used in Mainland Europe and THOSE eggs are imported by our supermarkets The rise in drug-resistant infections in our hospitals is largely due to our ingestion of low levels of antibiotics from eating dosed meat (not just chicken) and eggs.

 

These drugs are necessary to keep down the galloping infections that are rife in overcowded factory farming. Some antibiotics even promote growth, so are used to encourage even faster maturing times.

 

*gets off soapbox*

 

Sorry to those who are eating their lunch

[mostin]

Thanks to that program I've had a couple of people at work this week satrt conversations with me about how good these enriched cages are . The trouble is these people are good outdoorsie types and normally buy free range, and they are actually considering buying caged eggs after watching that program now .

 

Thank goodness I can sell my eggs at work, and soon I'll have even more to sell, so I'll be able to stop them all having to make that choice soon.

[Patricia W]

That's what I was afraid would happen. Free range purchases cost more, so in a time of constraint people will look for a cheaper alternative.

[Valkyrie]

Only saw it last night. OH was fuming! I thought the experts were too up their own bottoms - so battery cages (however large) probably do seem much brighter to them! You only have to look on this forum to see battery hens so much happier away from that environment. Thing is I heard that they might change the new cage regulations to add more hens to them - don't know whether that's true, but it certainly sounds as though they want to go backwards rather than have happy hens outside. But I agree that there are some free range farmers that probably are not the best - but then that is up to the regulating bodies and vets to check up and make sure that isn't happening. Does that mean that the vets who should have the birds welfare at the forefront are still wearing blinkers? I'll do it for free (they can pay my travelling and that's all - do it for love of chickens).

[The Dogmother]

You'll find that most battery farmers hate it as much as we do and would love to move over to 'kinder' methods of egg farming, but so long as the British public keeps the pressure on by buying battery eggs and products containing battery eggs, the farmer can't afford to farm otherwise.

 

Very sad, but true.

 

I know that I am preaching to the converted here, but vote with your shopping trollies and encourage others to do the same. Rosie designed and printed up a leaflet about this and she puts one into every box of our eggs that she sells.

[Olly]

I wouldn't buy battery eggs (not that I've needed to buy eggs for a couple of years! ) and I'm pleased to say that all my close friends have been converted to the cause. They know what I'd say if I saw an egg-box in their house that didn't say 'free range'!

 

A lot of battery farmers would like to switch to free-range production, as Claret says - but for some it isn't an option, their 'farms' are not in suitable locations. If everyone in the UK changed to buying free-range eggs, then there just wouldn't be enough eggs to go round.

 

I'm a pragmatist - there will always be some people who say they can't afford free-range, or who just don't care enough, and manufacturers will always look for the cheapest option. At least they will be buying UK produced eggs to the minimum standard of enriched cages. If we banned battery farming altogether in the UK then the only option would be imported eggs, probably produced in very poorly controlled conditions.

 

Unfortunately the Countryfile report didn't really bring this out, they seemed to be jumping to the conclusion that 'battery can be better than free-range', no doubt because it makes a better headline than 'battery conditions still bad but improving slightly'.

[The Dogmother]

They know what I'd say if I saw an egg-box in their house that didn't say 'free range'!

 

that made me laugh Olly - I cat and house-sit for a friend and neighbour and when I opened his fridge last time, there was a big post-it on the box of eggs saying 'THESE ARE FREE-RANGE!'