Do you REALLY buy ethically-raised chicken?

[morningpaper]

After reading the Emkana-eating-nuggets thread I was very surprised at how many of you claim to buy ethically raised chicken.

I DO buy is occasionally but it usually costs me between £10-13.

I don't BELIEVE that you all buy ethically raised chickens. Not for one minute.

Please justify yourselves.

do i look like an effin chicken farmer? how the feck would i know

if one presuposes the other thens why is there a difference?

from the smidgeon I sawof you on the edge of the photo with vvvq I can categorically confirm you look nothing like a chicken farmer

My understanding was that free range chickens actually have very limited access to the outdoors, something like the barn door has to be open for so many hours even though the chickens might not be able to make their way to the door.

Organic means they must get outdoors - organic does not just mean feeding them non gm foods or something "wacky" like that. It is much more than that. It covers much broader aspects of the animal's life.

That's why I'd always buy organic eggs and not free range. It's to do with the life of the feggin' chicken, not to do with eating non-chemically treated eggs or whatever.

Moondog - next time you get to a supermarket check out the petfood aisle - they really do sell organic catfood - about £1 more than 'normal' catfood - madness! Are the mice and birds that cats catch organically reared? I think not!

Custardo - got me worried about organic food now! I assumed that organic meant that they weren't feed crap and antibiotics etc willynilly and the animals had 'happy' lives - free range but better!

Please someone let me know my assumption is right - or I meant have seriously to think about going veggie again.

....why have i just read teh whole thread when I'm vegetarian....

have you mamaG? can you summarise for me, i dont have time...

To qualify as free-range, maximum stocking density for chickens is 27.5 kg per square metre. To qualify as organic maximum stocking density is 25 kg per square metre. Source, Hugh F-W. So organic chickens are never reared intensively, in fact HF-W says, "Even though there are degrees of organic compliance, what we can safely say is that there is no such thing as an intensively farmed organic chicken."

We do - but it means we eat chicken less frequently. In fact, we eat all meat less frequently now as we'll only buy it from the butchers. The free-range chickens from the butcher cost £7 upwards. We've usually paid around £7-£8 and got 2 meals out of it.

Free-range chicken breasts are extremely overpriced IMO so if we've tended to buy a whole chicken, boned-it and frozen/used the separate bits. Well, when I say we I mean DH

The Sainsbury's organic chicken we just roasted two days ago had a LOT of meat. Was £7.45.

So far have gotten two dinners for two adults and two young children, chicken broth and enough chicken nuggets to make 2 lunches for the DDs.

Excellent value, IMO.

some useful info here re organic poultry

Reporting back: I bought an organic chicken in Morrisons yesterday for £5.82.

Yes Cal,I get those (no organic chickens in butchers around here)
It will do four of us for at least two meals (and then make soup/stock) so I really can't see how even someone on the tightest budget could consider that expensive.

I think a lot of people are afraid of a whole raw chicken so buy cuts,which of course works out to be very expensive.

Golden rule is that processing anything (even if that processing only involves slicing and dicing) means it is waay more expensive or shit.

Often both.

Have shuddered over the bags of diced chicken in Iceland.