to feel sorry that chickens' happiness isn't worth 60p to most people?

[oohdaddypig]

So - in my local Sainsburies you can buy pre-cooked whole chickens. Free range cost 60p more than the battery farmed variety.

Girl behind the counter told me almost no one buys the free range ones.

Now, I know things are very very tight these days for many families. But this is Sainburies where the average shopper is probably slightly better off.

Doesn't anyone care about where their food comes from now at all? Is the only thing that matters now the cost?

I'm not vegetarian - but I try to shop reasonably thoughtfully, locally when I can etc,

poor chooks!

YADDDDNBU. I don't eat meat and i BEG all my family to but free range eggs. Can i beg mumsnetters to only buy good quality chickens? I know you can't trust the companies but we can at least try.

To the person who said a vegetarian diet wasn't suitable for everyone - why not?

I am genuinely interested.

I only buy free range chooks and eggs. If I can't afford it, we go without that week.

we usually eat the chicken that irritated me the most the week before.

Cripes that's a bit sick. I don't particulalry care about their welfare, but I couldn't actively target a particular victim!

I care. Enough to have quit eating meat for the last couple of months so far. I do eat fish though. I have also cut out most dairy - bar the odd bit of cheese (for DS packed lunch).

Ihave always bought free range eggs - although I do wonder exactly how 'free range' the hens are?

However, I totally understand that if a family has a limited budget then they will want to buy cheap meats no matter how it has been reared.

Not everyone cares. Or if they do then other factors override their ability to do anything about it.

I do my bit, and in fact the rest of the family only get meat products once or twice per week - and noone has particularly complained? That is as much as one person can do IME.

This is a complex question actually! I have been on a bit of a life's journey on this and would share my experience with you for what it is worth!

At uni I did a thesis about the moral status of animals and how we humans choose to treat them and as a result became a vegetarian! Years later I moved to a hill farm and had animals of my own and experienced how the different species are. My hill breed sheep have a lovely life, lamb small lambs without interference and mother them with strict attention when they are small! Going to market or local abbatoir they are together and that calms them - years ago we had a local retired slaughterman come to the farm to kill and butcher them and later sold them irect to local abbattoirs to make sure that they never got put on a lorry to the continent.

Cattle are, well, bovine and most are painfully dim and suckler beef reared in the UK is a lovely system - so now I eat beef with no qualms! Pigs are too intelligent and sensitive to keep intensively and go to an abbatoir so I would only have a home pig - but we don't despite DH wanting one. Chickens though are delightful! Such characters - we raise ours from incubated eggs and handle them as day-olds so they are not afraid to be picked up but tend to cluster round hoping for goodies (or come out with us to the fields to hunt for worms safe in our ambit). The cockerel keeps them in line and we only keep one who is a gentleman (a cockerel who is rough on his hens is not acceptable!) So we would never buy battery eggs full stop - btw ex-batt hens are delightful to rehome but our streetwise fowl would have them for breakfast!

Chicken kept for meat in barn systems are on the ground and do not know anything different from hatching and we do buy meat from supermarkets - we only keep ours for eggs you see; I believe that if we think of ourselves as civilised kind human beings it is our responsibility to find out the relevant information and decide who we want to be - and what messages we give our children. With the internet infomration is readily and cheaply available so choosing to ignore it when making decisions is a definite choice...
Hope that is helpful (cue fans of cattle complaining - I was not talking about house cows or dairy cows but beef cows and youngsters btw) People who work with animals all have their species preferences- it must be our characters or genes rather as some people like dogs and others cats! Must go and feed my menagerie...

I haven't read the whole thread but I am shocked at some of the statements on here regarding free range chickens not really being free range. What tosh. My dad is an organic, free range chicken farmer who supplies Sainsbury's. His chickens are let out early every morning unless it is pouring with rain or knee deep in snow. The sides of the shed are left open and the chickens are free to to go in and out. In the evening, they are herded back in - they definitely go outside!

Cripes that's a bit sick. I don't particulalry care about their welfare, but I couldn't actively target a particular victim!

Exactly how else would you manage your livestock then?

A bird that awkward and pecks the other birds is usually the best to cull, for the good of the flock.

If I ate the good ones then I would be left with the trouble makers.

Just to clarify - I was joking!

Ok

It depresses me too, I know many people who could afford to buy free range chicken but don't want to spend the extra money. We've cut back a lot on how much meat we eat as we only want to buy the (relatively) kinder meat and it's expensive, so we use lentils, beans etc and try to make the meat we do eat stretch.

Great post all4u - i am

quoteunquote - i care deeply about animal wellfare, but i have to say your comment made me .

There are different levels of "free range" if you look at the tesco website they have descriptions of what their terms mean, pertaining to tesco suppliers only i would imagine. I think the highest level of welfare is afforded to organic animals - so that fits with what you say tooimmature as your dad is an organic farmer. I was very and about what tesco described as free range and did feel a bit short changed if im honest.

What bugs me is seeing people buy battery farmed eggs, alongside walkers crisps, hovis bread, cadburys chocolate etc. If your really broke I completely get buying what you can to feed your family, but surely buy own brand confectionary and use the difference on free range eggs???
Just seems nuts to me

YANBU

I care deeply too, but one of them has to be dinner.

I have to say that i find it hard not to make a comment when i see people buying battery farm eggs. I can't believe it is still allowed :(

I think thats fair enough actually quote, its far more honest than buying battery chicken in tesco with a lalalala fingers in my ear, im not listening to the fact that this poor bastard suffered a crap life just to end up on my plate attitude, which i am ashamed to say i often take.

What nobody has mentioned so far, these chickens are pre-cooked. So at least a couple of quid more than a raw one.

If you were so skint, you would cook it yourself, not pay an extra couple of quid for them to stick it on a spit roast.

If it were always 60p difference then fine but it's usually many pounds more. I don't think the responsibility should be with the shopper though, offering free range at a much greater price isn't going to change battery farming, it just means many people will get ripped off. Legislative change is the only thing that would make a real difference and be fair for everyone.

YANBU, if you can't afford it, just eat meat less often - its not a god given right to eat meat & it pisses me off when people think it is. There...are my judge pants hoisted high enough?

Yanbu. My judgy pants go up very high when I think about this too. I bought free range when I was a student paying my own way through college with part time work, also when I was on the dole. It's about priorities. I chose to go without a tv licence, alcohol, I got the bus not the train etc. so I could eat local and ethically produced food. I delayed having a family until I was in a position to feed them without causing undue suffering... It's actually not so much that I judge others, it's more that I don't understand why people don't care.

When people fall on hard times, we should be offering our help and support, not judgement.

When mum left dad when I was 3, her, DB and I spent awhile in a women's shelter. Didn't understand this as a three year old, but I'll never forget how she stayed awake all night, every night over our beds and meager belongings with a small weapon.

My aunt eventually bought us a house. We shopped to survive. AKA beans, beans, and more beans.

17 years later, we avoid certain brands, always buy our meat from a butcher and slaughterhouse guy friend, eggs come from one of mum's co-workers chickens. We both only use Etsy vegan skin and hair care. (Stealth boast...My skin is starting to look like Snow White instead of someone in a hospital! And whilst in her mid fifties, most people think mum is early forties! )

I haven't read the entirety of the thread but sometimes your personal ethics have to be put aside for your family..Your survival

thanks to everyone who replied. had thought twice about posting this