Hugh fearnley-whittingstall Has just recently started a campaign to get his home town of axminster to go totally free range in there consumption of chickens.
This was started because of the huge production and consumption of chickens in the u.k, which are raised in large indoor sheds in which 17 chickens share a sq metre and are fed under lights for 23 and a half hours a day with just 30 mins rest during there half hour darkness. These chickens reach selling weight in 39 days from hatching. These birds see no sunlight in 39 days, they shit on each other for 39 days, which cause them to recieve burns on there knee's which can plainly be seen on standard supermarket birds if you no what to look for!
Check it out!!
https://www.chickenout.tv/

The reason i'm posting this? why am i bothered? why should you support?

The reason i am posting this is to see how other people feel about this, do you buy free range or standard chickens?

why am i bothered? well something like this would have gone over my head 5 years bk, but i'm older wiser now and things change.
since i have been growing my outlook on nature and my outlook on what i put into my body have also changed.
I cannot eat anything which has been sitting in its own shit in a artificial shed, just like i wont smoke anything other than organic weed!

Why should Ic members support in u.k?
If you are a true lover of weed and what we have been gifted then i'm sure you feel as i do about other matters.
And i'm sure there is many more uk growers who have become more in touch with mother nature since they have been growin this wonderfull plant!

Please take some time out to look at the above link and sign up! get other peole to sign up to free range only too! There is some programe clips and info on there too!
And tell me what you think here also.
Peace one and all.

Yeah man, mass producing nature isnt good...thanks for sharing.

[GMT]

You may be rich enough to pay top dollar for your food, and if you are, congratulations, but not everyone is. Knocking someone for buying their food in accordance with their budget is not on, though becoming the standard in this country. I am tired of being told what I can smoke, where I can smoke, what I can eat, and now, how my food should have lived before I eat it. I am an animal lover at heart, but lets face it, chickens are not the smartest of animals, or even in our animal group. I have no quarms about killing flies and spiders, we keep fish in tiny tanks, we keep birds as pets in cages that they can't fly around in for years rather than days, cattle are intensively farmed and they are mamals like us, same with pigs etc, I dont eat the animal group that I come from, ie mamals, but as for chickens, I'm afraid that while we leave humans to live on the streets and freeze to death in the winters and lock people up for being unable to pay their bills, then 34 days in the life of a meal that most can afford is not a priority in my mind.

GMT thankyou for raising this issue, I was fully prepared for the money side of the argument so here we go.
Well as far as being rich far from it, I am as poor as i have ever been in my life!
i'm not going to go into details but trust me i'm poor at the mo, jobless in dead end town with familly more on the way anyway i said no details.
I was thinking the same as you not so long bk, But trust me you can get just as many quality meals from one £6 free range chicken as you can from two £2.50 standard birds. Most people and i'm not saying you or all, throw most of the best meat away even on a standard chicken.
If you take the time to look at the site hugh himself will show you many ways to make a free range chicken economical. also they taste ten times better you can tell.
And i'm also as a keen amature cook gona show some of my own ideas, please take the time to look and think about it before you rush in with rash comments.
trust! Peace man

It's more about a quality of life for us, the less standard birds we buy and the more free range birds we buy tells the producers what we as a whole want.
this decreases the production of standard and increases the production of free range, thus lowering the price.
It doesn't require much more effort to raise birds that can roam!

[GMT]

Well its not so much of a rash comment, its just that I dont buy or use a whole bird, I buy fillets pre packed from a supermarket. To get the same fillets from a free range bird rather than a non freerange bird would increase the price of each meal by 50% at least. And there wouldnt be any extra meat there as they are sold by the weight rather than the number of birds they came from. Do you for example check the conditions of the farms where your beef was raised etc? Do you track the water quality of the rivers or seas that your fish was caught in? Do you truly wish to see battery chickens taken off the shelves to prevent anyone from being able to buy cheap nutritious meals in order to guarantee that no bird suffered to badly. Try wandering through India, coming face to face with a tiger, and telling him you've had a hard life. Do you think he will refrain from eating you? Yes you have a mind that can make judgements, but the way of nature is, (if you truly wish to respect natures way) that some animals eat other animals, and we are nothing more than an animal who guarantees their own food supplies. I'm sorry, but it is my opinion that there are far more important battles to fight than changing the way chickens live their lives.

Originally Posted by GMT

Well its not so much of a rash comment, its just that I dont buy or use a whole bird, I buy fillets pre packed from a supermarket. To get the same fillets from a free range bird rather than a non freerange bird would increase the price of each meal by 50% at least. And there wouldnt be any extra meat there as they are sold by the weight rather than the number of birds they came from. Do you for example check the conditions of the farms where your beef was raised etc? Do you track the water quality of the rivers or seas that your fish was caught in?

I think you miss understand me i'm not trying to hug a chicken far from it i agree there are far more important things to worry about, its about us and what we eat.

Tesco standard chicken breast without skin 250g-333g £3.38
Tesco freerange chicken breast with skin 260g-560g £4.16
Thats 78p difference 39p a head for two people, come on!
And yes i like to no were my meat as come from, And as a unemployed fisheries manager and keen fisherman. I take extra pride in the water quality in which my fresh and sea water fish are caught in and the way they are caught!
All the fish i now buy are part of a new system set up by fisherman who use non-evasive fishing to get there catch,these have a special tag with a number, simply put this number in on a on-line site and i can see who were and when my fish was caught. Again peanuts in terms of cost increase.

so if the cost differnce is that little, then surely it would become the same as standard chickens once it became the norm?

[GMT]

Lol I wasn't prepared for that answer. Fair enough, although you should shop at the co-op £3.00 for 410g of skinless fillets.

all i see on the shelves is chicken this, chicken that. this mass produced hormoned laced shite is everywhere, stuffed into sandwiches, wraps, ready meals etc. i don't go near it.

Is this to do with that series starting later this week? I know Jamie Oliver's and someone else is doing some programme where they show the whole process of it.

[Stoner4Life]

I've eaten a lot of chicken in my days but the best ever is from a kosher joint in New Rochelle NY. I bought it fried about once a week for lunch as it was along my trucking route. It was advertised as 'free range' and was wickedly great, clean and fresh tasting.