Last month I wrote about our decision to switch to organic meat after seeing the horrors of intensive pig farming. Of course, it’s not just the pigs that are farmed intensively in order to provide the cheap meat and BOGOF’s but any animal which can be sold cheaply in order to increase the supermarkets profits.

 Tonight shows the final part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s three part instalment entitled “Hugh’s Chicken Run” which follows his attempts at bringing the truth about how cheap chicken and the conditions the birds are reared out into the open. The supermarkets refused to talk with Hugh regarding their selling of intensively farmed chicken, and the farmers producing the birds wouldn’t allow him in to see the conditions their lives are lived first hand. This led to Hugh’s decision to create his own intensive farm, a world away from the River Cottage life, alongside a second free-range farm in order to show the differences between the two.

Intensively farmed chickens are packed tightly into each square metre of space with no room to stretch their wings or even to walk, with no natural daylight and only one hour of darkness in each period of 24 hours in order to rest. They are fed constantly so that they can gain weight rapidly in order to be slaughtered approximately 39 days after hatching. They are left in their own faeces and urine, causing burns from the ammonia and any birds which are ill, lame or simply not gaining weight quickly enough and therefore not likely to be profitable are culled prematurely. The chickens don’t even look like chickens, but like an experiment gone drastically wrong. Is it right that every day, millions of chickens are  denied the basics of being able to stretch their wings, feel the sun on their backs, the wind in their faces or the opportunity to run and forage? And how good can the meat provided by them actually be for us to eat? OK, so a free-range hen does cost more, but like I wrote before, we as a family are happy to substitute an extra meal a week as meat free in order to be able to afford the difference in cost between the normal meat and the free-range or organic alternative. If everyone did that the supermarkets would no longer dictate to the farmer how many cheap chickens it needed to ensure their profits were up and to get one up on their competitors and the farmers, who would be happier to de-intensify their farming methods and still earn their living, could provide us with good, fresh meat with animals and birds that lived healthily and happily.

There are a number of things we can do to support Hugh’s “Chicken Out” campaign which you can find on the Chicken Out website.  The RSPCA has a petition on it’s Support Chicken Now site challenging all supermarkets to become the first to pledge to only sell 100% welfare-friendly chicken by 2010, and the Battery Hen Welfare Trust is always looking for new homes for ex battery hens (which will be covered on “Fowl Dinners” with Jamie Oliver on Friday”) for anyone interested in rehoming or making a donation to them for their work.

Meanwhile, we’d like to give a huge pat on the back to Rhug Estate for the Christmas Turkey which was lovely, as was the beef and we can wholeheartedly recommend them and we’re also awaiting this weeks delivery of minced beef and sausages from Luddesdown Organic Farm which is just a few miles away from us and also very, very patient in their replies to my endless emails of questions and queries!