Free Range Chickens or Segregated Coupe Chickens? (hamburger, organic, tomatoes)
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chickens need protein from feed, which even when they are on pasture makes up 80% of their diet. when the feeder goes empty, they will start pecking at each other, first the feathers, then the flesh.
Chicken... I'm a picky shopper. I want veggie fed animals. I spend alot for meat & eggs (although WMart has the BEST deal on any egg under the sun).
I have a running joke with the meat department guys at Whole Foods. It basically revolves around why "vegetarian free range chicken" costs so much more than regular free range chicken. It's because chickens are not, not, NOT vegetarians any more than cats or dogs are and so they must have to pay a lot of people to follow those chickens around taking the bugs and small rodents out of their beaks before they can swallow them.
You only have to see a chicken running across a paddock once, with a mouse in its beak and the rest of the flock chasing after it crying "Share! Share!" to understand this one.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sarahkate_m
Oh Huck, it hasn't been long enough since I repped you...
Chicken... I'm a picky shopper. I want veggie fed animals. I spend alot for meat & eggs (although WMart has the BEST deal on any egg under the sun).
My chickens lately have been looking very BANGED up & BRUiSED. Gross. I don't want abused chickens... But I have to eat. And it's like I'm MAKING food & I'm not going to stop in my tracks & return the chicken just to find every other chicken is also going to be bruised & yucky.
So I just pick out the bruises after the meat cooks. The bruises are red & bloody.
I don't think about free range or not although it sounds prosaic. I think the ones I get are probably free RANGE when they're thrown into the truck... like a MISSILE. Poor li'l chickens.
Kate
by veggie fed, i meant i don't want animals being fed their own kind...
i don't care if they eat bugs or whatever, just not chopped up sick animals from the farm... i don't think anyone chases down the chickens to watch what they eat off the ground.
Kate
Last edited by sarahkate_m; 09-29-2009 at 04:58 PM..
How about chopped up healthy animals from the farm?
And, no, I don't think that "vegetarian free range chicken" really means that someone chases them around taking bugs out of their mouths - I do realize that it means that the feed they give them is vegetable based (and hopefully the poor chickens get some bugs and such for protein while they're free ranging - I wouldn't make a chicken be a vegetarian any more than I'd make a cat be a vegetarian, it's not natural). It's a joke.
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Most free-range labeled chickens are only that in a legal sense, especially from the big factory farms. They're mainly in coops but have the chance to wander out to a small enclosed area if they want to ...... I've heard they don't usually go.
Real free-range chickens from a small farm are much tastier (and somewhat tougher) than store-bought "free range".
There are free range and truly free range. Most of us, unless we are buying directly from a small farm have no idea what the term "free range" really means. Let's also consider the price; most of us would love to buy all our produce from local farmers at our farmers market. Most of us would love to have nothing but free range eggs and poultry, but for a huge % of our population the family budget holds the strings to what we do and do not buy.
Growing up, most of us did eat mostly fresh from the farm everything. As the population started growing (the baby boom generation) and housing projects replaced the farms we started depending more on mass marketed everything. So for those who can find fresh from the garden foods and afford free range, good for you, enjoy. I just enjoy eating and don't lose sleep over whether last nights chicken came from a free range environment or the caged grower down the road. I do care about the conditions for the sake of the animal. That bothers me more than anything else.
Maybe to you and others, but again you are in UK, I don't know what you pay for a chicken, but I know what we pay here and I know what the average family can afford. I am not questioning so much the taste as much as keeping within a budget. I grow our veggies, as many as I can; the rest, this time of year will come from neighbors or the local farmers when possible, but this doesn't work for everyone, nor can we get everything locally. As I said, I don't know about UK, I would think it would depend on where you live.
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Kate
