Intensive Chicken Farming - DEFRA Lowering UK Standards?

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boureki

boureki

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Apparently DEFRA are considering raising the "maximum stocking density" for intensive farming production. This basically means that even more unfortunate chickens that are sold cheap in the supermarkets will be crammed into even less space, which as we all know are already grossly overcrowded (think of the Tube during rush hour 24 hours a day).

There is a website called Compassion in World Farming which enables an email to be sent to DEFRA highlighting this issue, and if this is something you care about and you like to consider where your food comes from, please consider showing your support and make your feelings clear.

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Thanks for helping to raise the profile. We watched the Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall series on intensive chicken farming last year, and it kicked us up the backside to stop buying the cheap, mass (misery) produced chicken meat available everywhere. We now only buy "happy" free range chicken - we eat less of it to make it go further.

Intensively farmed chickens have a cr@p life, and I for one will be making my own small effort to stop this barbaric backwards moving coming to fruition.
 
I saw this from being signed up to the 'Chicken Out' campaign and added my name to the list.. can't believe they're considering LESS space for these poor birds. After watching the programme I haven't bought anything but free-range chicken and very little even of that. Should just take the plunge and be veggie again!

Sophie
x
 
its totally sick,isn't it?:)>>>:)>>>:)>>>:)>>>:)>>>:)>>> we will only buy free range and this news sickens me even more
 
I came across this a couple of days ago and was really disgusted and disappointed. I thought with all the media reports in recent months, the trend was in the opposite direction. But obviously I was wrong.

We decided a few years ago to only eat free range and won't eat any chicken in restaurants. Someone I know keeps chicken and I was really amazed by them. They are gorgeous and clever animals and so friendly!
 
hi everyone i know I'm not in the uk but i cannot stand animals being cramped and just on a conveyor belt for being food i agree they should have a nice life not one of torture and neglect so i voted and emailed my friends.I hope this can be stopped for the benefit of those poor chickens xxxxx
 
Thank you for raising this.

I only buy organic free-range eggs and try to ensure at all times that any product I buy has been made with free-range eggs too. I'm vegetarian so I don't eat chickens.
 
Yes, I got the petition note from hugh's website to sign. I keep chickens (Just 3) and they are so friendly and cheeky and lay lovely eggs every day at the moment. It would be awful to think of my three in those crammed conditions. They don't need a lot of space, but they do need to run and stretch their wings it's so awful to deny them that! They are in general as easy as a rabbit or guinea pig to take care of.
 
currently each chicken has the room of an A4 piece of paper, but in 2012 laws are changing, each cage has to be bigger and provide a perch, nest building material and a dust bath. defra are doing some things right.
however interestingly, more chickens obtain injuries through out their life, such as keel bone breakages etc in barn and free ranged rather than battery. probably due to falling off things.
also chickens are jungle fowl so prefer to pearch in shaded trees rather than out in the open fields of free range and barns.

everything has two sides. I'm against battery farming, but i think that free range and barn farming need a lot of improvement too.
 
That's a really interesting post Ellie-Jo - goes to show that nothing is ideal is it!

It's good to see that many people are still changing their buying habits, despite the higher price in these difficult financial times thanks to the raising of the profile of these types of conditions, and that people care enough to bother to make their feelings known to those in charge. Even if it turns out to be a single statistic and nothing more, it still has to be acknowledged and noted :)
 
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