to ask MEAT EATERS if you buy free range or standard chicken?

[Granllanog]

I got attacked on my last thread for saying I buy standard supermarket chicken. Considering only 4% of all of the chicken produced in the UK is free-range and only 1% is organic I don't think I am unusual in doing this?

YABU = I'm a meat eater and only ever eat/buy free-range chicken.
YANBU = I buy standard chicken.

I think I buy both. I've definitely bought organic free range chickens before for like 3 times the price and DH rolls his eyes at me. 😇

@AuntieMarys

Always free range. Would do with out otherwise

Me too

Free range only, but we eat a lot less meat than we used to. I will only buy U.K. origin meat - def. no Danish bacon, or other origin cheap pork, e.g. German or Dutch - cheap is bound to mean the worst sort of factory farming.
We use every scrap of a chicken - including the carcass for stock. I freeze all the last bits in small packets - just enough to add a little to e.g. a stir fry, egg fried rice, or a largely-veg main meal soup.

Free range from the local butcher. We've been trying to eat less meat and making sure the meat we do eat is good quality and as ethical as possible.
We're not very strict with it though and don't check when we're eating out etc.

I only ever buy free range chicken directly from the local butcher. I cannot remember the last time I bought chicken (or any other uncooked meat) from the supermarket

Yep I buy free range. They also taste better

Organic free range from local butcher. Don't buy chicken often, it's a treat. We have roast, I do a pie and sandwiches, then stew, so get a good 3 or 4 meals out of it.

I don’t buy much meat but I always buy free range or go without.

These threads are very much like the 'how much do you drink?' threads where all the tee-totallers rush to say that they never touch a drop.

It changes depending how flush I'm feeling, but the majority of the time I buy standard supermarket chickens. Mainly because I want the really big ones and the pricy ones are quite small

Yes, I always buy free range and/or organic chicken because it tastes better.

@TheKeatingFive

Yep I buy free range. They also taste better

Yes, they definitely do.

It’s clear that you’re not going to get a representative answer on MN. If only 4% of chicken sold is free range and yet over half the replies here are in favour of it, you can see that the “knit your own lentils” brigade are out in force on this thread. Given that any kids lunchbox thread ends up with pages of outrage that anyone could feed their kids a white bread sandwich and a packet of crisps instead of sending them with a quinoa salad and a red pepper as a snack, you’re not going to get a sample of normal eating habits with this question on here. Plus the title itself is a dog whistle to all the free range buyers to come and tell us how much better they are.

As a single mum on a low income I buy whatever is quick easy and cheap to give my kids and myself a decent nutritious meal. I use every part of the chicken (not the famous MN 5 meals, but certainly 2 and some stock!) to make the most of the animals sacrifice and I don’t feel like the welfare of the animals is actually my responsibility - if the conditions that these chickens are reared in is so unacceptable why aren’t the farmers themselves, the supermarket and indeed government demanding better conditions for them? It’s ok for the people who spend all day every day in contact with these chickens to watch them suffer in order to make money, but for those of us down the line wanting a cheap meal for our family have to shell out 3 times as much for one who has been able to wander freely. Fuck that.

I will try and buy the best free range chicken, or get to the butchers if I can. But unfortunately our budget often dictates differently. In those cases I will try and plan for more veggie/pulse based meals!

Standard, usually. I also buy caged eggs but have noticed recently that at least 50% of the time, the ones labelled as caged eggs in Lidl are actually free range.

Organic here because of welfare standards. Same with eggs. I eat meat only rarely anyway so buy the best when I do.. Chickens are lovely animals (we have two as pets) and to be honest, I have trouble eating even organic ones.

@Lavender24 your response to @HarrietsChariot is actually far more disgusting than what she said.

I mean, you say in your opening post exactly what percentage of chickens bought and sold in the UK is organic / free range. So what are you going to achieve with this poll of a non- representative self selected sample that you didn’t achieve by looking up the statistics? The only thing you can possibly hope to conclude is whether MN is representative or not, and we know it’s not. The answer to your question of “whether you are unusual in terms of buying chicken” is literally in your own opening post!

Only free range or organic here. Only eat meat in restaurants when they promote high welfare standards. Mass farming and 'standard meat' welfare levels is generally horrifying. If I was a better person I'd be a veggie but I like meat too much!

Standard chicken. Although we'd not had chicken for a month until yesterday as there was none in the supermarket each time I went...neither free range nor standard!

We've recently (over the last year or so) moved to eating meat much more rarely, and buying free range from a local butcher. We know which farms our meat comes from and many of them are within 20 miles of our house. Same for milk.

Before that if I bought supermarket meat I'd try to go free range but not always succeed.

If we couldn't afford this we'd go veggie I think.

I sometimes eat meat when we're out but mostly in local places who are supplied by the same butcher.

I wonder how much of this is easier for us (setting aside the question of cost) because of where we live.

The problem is most people don’t have any concept of what actually goes on in poultry farming. ‘Barn raised’ makes people feel better about themselves but chickens do best when they have a social hierarchy. It is impossible for hens to have this in barn raised settings they are generally only cleaned once the flock has been taken out for slaughter.

People also conflate organic with meaning high welfare but it also isn’t necessarily the case. It just means there hasn’t been blanket use of things like anti biotics. It’s possible the hens have still been given antibiotics if medically required though.

‘Free range’ broiler hens are killed at about 56 days old. They must have ‘access’ to the outside for at least half of that time to count as free range. So potentially half that time they won’t be outside and the rest of the time there is access but whether they actually go out is another thing.

Caged hens (not battery as this is illegal) on balance have a social hierarchy and the droppings fall through so it is generally cleaner than barn raised broilers.

I work in agriculture and did a module on poultry farming as part of my degree.

The only meat I eat is chicken but yes I buy the standard one

I buy standard chicken or meat (it's absolutely ok if it's all I can afford). Most people I know do this also and nobody should be 'attacked' for this

Is there a minimum standard that has to be met before chicken can be described as 'free range'? I've always wondered what these birds have free range of. Do they have free range of a tiny yard or a massive field?