I'm watching Hugh attacking the supermarkets for inhumane and cruel processes in cheap chicken production.

after watching this i have stopped buying chicken from the supermarkets.

its cruel what they are doing to chickens!

in quite a few circumstances i we won't have a choice still, for example the only sort of chicken product i buy these days is chicken kievs and there isn't free range choice as far as i can tell

if i had a wife and kids (lol, singleton talking here ) i'd certainly be buying free range after seeing this programme. i think the only people with an excuse are those on a really low budget, however everyone else really should be fair and cough up a little extra to ensure their food hasn't been created in a cruel way

Surely the fact you eat an animal which has been slaughtered for food is the cruelest thing.

Don't be fooled by free range either:

Similarly, although free range and organic animals usually (although not always) lead better lives than factory farmed animals, they still suffer in many ways. For example, so-called free range egg farms may involve thousands of hens being kept in a shed with limited access to outside and to limited land. Even in the better free range/organic egg farms, all male chicks are killed within hours – useless by-products as they do not lay eggs and are too scrawny for meat. All animals kept for farming are prevented from mixing in normal social groups, and ducks never see their ducklings; hens their chicks; pigs have their piglets taken away much too young; dairy cows have their calves ripped from them at one day old. Even on free range farms the male calves are shot as they don’t give milk and are the wrong breed for beef. All farms prevent animals from living natural lives. And all are sent for slaughter as soon as there is more profit in killing them than in keeping them alive.

Yeah, OK, cos you're going to get an unbiased, objective point of view from a vegetarian website....

You've been reading too much "Animal Farm"! It is all propaganda!

This always puzzles me why some fm's don't like links from veggie sites. It's not like vegetarians are going to make a profit out of trying to make conditions better for chickens or banning chicken farming. Think about who has got the vested interest here...

Non veggie sites, soil association, BBC

Hmm... I wonder where the propoganda is really coming from? Who is making the profits out of all of this?

That's better - very informative, and not so much of the pulling on heart strings, because having lived next to a dairy for 18 years, I can tell you know that half the stuff you quoted (specifically, about cattle) from the veggie site is absolute crap.

I will defy only buy 'FREE RANGE' Chickens and eggs after watching that prog ...
reading some of the posts here, i
guess it won't solve all the probs, but at least i feel i'm doing something and that's all i can do.

jo x x

How do you rip a calf away? Do they mean 'take'?

Though not quite as dramatic.

Bit like calling flesh 'meat'. It's too easy to use language that disguises reality, sounds better doesn't it?. 'Take' is a very polite word don't you think to describe something quite barbaric. It's not like the cows have given permission for their calves to be 'taken' away.

It's a load of crap anyway.

The animals in this video are not actors

All I get is 'This Video is Currently Not Available Please Try Later'

What's in the video then?

Clearly they are made from velcro.

Oh sorry! It works when I click on the link. Maybe you have different settings to me. When I get a chance I will see if I can find a version on a different site (I have to go out in a minute).

It shows conditions in factory farms which actually isn't what we were talking about at all! (duh) I lost track of the discussion!!! I have too many things going on at home here.

the channel 4 programme about chickens is fantastic.

I have watched 2 of the 3 episodes. I always tended to buy free range chickens, but this has confirmed to me that if there are no free range available, I will buy something else to cook. Never again will I buy a battery hen.

Here is a link to Meet Your Meat on YouTube, which Ruby Shoes posted previously if any one is interested in watching it.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4

Another interesting documentary is Earthlings.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxKnys7Ryw

Neither about free range compared to factory farming specifically, but still worth watching if you're interested in humanity's dependence on, and exploitation of animals.

What I have found interesting is the naivety of people with regards to where their food comes from. Did everyone think their cheap chickens had been running around a country farm?

The amount of people who have said to me they will never buy one again is quite high yet many of them will still regularly get takeaways so it's all a bit of an empty gesture.

I'm vegetarian and obviously have my own opinions on animal products which I wouldn't dream of shoving down anyone's throat but what I find amazing is how people will pay fortunes for designer trainers and the latest mobile phones etc but when it comes to thefood they eat, cheapest is best!
Given the choice between cheap chicken with ammonia burns on its flesh and free range chickens I know which I would buy if I ate meat. Money I know is an issue for a lot of people, but surely the ideal would be to buy free range chicken less often and have a couple of meat free meals along the way.

Very true, we seem to be a nation obsessed with bargain food which I really don't understand. An awful lot of this food wasted anyway, why not buy smaller quantities of good quality food and eat all of it.

Saying that, I also know people who will practically faint at the site of a battery farm egg yet will quite happily buy clothes from the cheapest possible place possible. So a chicken's life is obviously more important to them than the welfare of children working in sweatshops?

I just find some people's values strange I guess and much of this 'ethical' eating appears to be more about making people feel better about themselves than actually having any impact on the way food is produced.

if you think its all propaganda would you believe it from the mouth of an actual farmer in the trade??

I suggest you watch 'lie of the land' if its repeated, of if you have virgin , its on 'on demand'

perhaps you wont be so sure its propaganda when you see them shoot the calves , and cart them away to feed the fox hounds at the local kennels