More than 850 million broiler chickens are slaughtered every year in the UK.
And of these hundreds of millions of chickens, most of them - more than 95% -are reared inside, produced in industrial conditions in vast, enclosed sheds.
Their lives are pitiful – but at least they’re short...
LATEST NEWS!! Public sector pension funds across Britain are being urged to back Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the food campaigner and celebrity chef, in his call for Tesco to raise welfare standards for chickens.
PIRC, the corporate governance adviser, said yesterday that it fully supported the chef's move and would be recommending its members to vote in favour of his special resolution at Tesco's annual meeting next week.
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall has raised £87,000 to table the resolution, which urges Tesco to adopt the RSPCA's higher standards on chicken or drop its claims that it fulfils the Government's aspirations on animal welfare.
Phineas Glover, a PIRC researcher, said: “This is not an economic argument, it's an ethical one. Tesco is lagging behind its competitors and failing to meet the standards it claims to endorse.”
Roast chicken is an iconic dish in British culture. It probably ranks close to the top of most people's list of favourite foods. It may be affordable for the masses, but it is also fit for a king.
But how many of you know about the life your fresh supermarket chickens lead before they reach your table? That their short, intensively farmed indoor existence is managed like a factory production line, to ensure the big retailers can sell them to you for as little as £2 a bird? Is that all the life an animal, born and raised to feed us, is worth?
Unacceptable conditions I believe that conditions in which most chickens in the UK are reared are unacceptable. Stocking densities are too high. Severe leg problems - associated with rapid weight gain and restricted movement - are common. The birds are deprived of essential stimulation and unable to express their natural behaviour.
Standard chickens are grown from newly hatched chick to oven-ready bird in an astonishing 39 days, that’s just over 5 weeks. (An organic chicken, which grows at a natural pace, takes more than twice as long.)
How do they do this? Poultry scientists have bred chickens which grow fast. As they grow, their living space – smaller than an A4 piece of paper for each bird – gets more and more cramped as they near the end of their short lives. With around 17 birds packed into each square metre they have barely enough space to walk, preen themselves, stretch their wings or even turn around.
A typical chicken shed holds 40,000 birds… They never set foot outside or see natural light… They feed around the clock - with as little as one hour of darkness for every 24 hour period.
There is another way… BUT IT INVOLVES YOU!The natural way for a chicken to live is outdoors – with grass under its feet, and the sun on its back. Outdoor access is fundamental to the free range system of poultry production.
Please
visit the website and find out the real reasons why we shouldn’t be eating battery farmed chicken, and
sign the petition. Thank you.
