Chicken out.. tonight 9pm channel 4

[Rowndan]

this is something very close to my heart and i hope hughs campain will help stop intensively farmed broiler chickens

i for one im backing him 100% and passing the message on as much as i can.

im sure it will make hard viewing but this is the reality of where cheap chiicken (no pun intended!) comes from and we all should be aware of this, instead of ignoring it and just eating it.

www.chickenout.tv/

if you havent signed this please do

[leannwithconnie]

Signed Row. x

[harveydales]

Yes, I also back Hugh 100% on this. I've already signed up. This is a subject I've been boring people about for years and I just hope this TV programme will have some impact. I will try and watch but will probaly find it too upsetting.

[Rowndan]

getting nervous now, hope its not to upseting, but hoping it will open peoples eyes

[taffydales]

I think this is the series that we took part in on our trip to River cottage HQ last spring, I also back Hugh on his campaign and I,m looking forward to watching the series.

[bevbob]

Iv already signed up too, I am vowing never to buy farmed chicken again, I watched the series tonight and even at this early stage it was upseting but I think it needs to be shown to make people aware of what happens to these chickens.

[leannwithconnie]

I just couldn't face watching the programme I'm afraid.....I get sick watching wild life programmes. I really hope plenty people who are ignorant or unaware where thier food comes from and how watched and sit back and think how they could make a difference to these poor animal.

[valerie n scout]

yes have just signed too wont watch this prog as i saw one a few years back and was really upset x since then when i buy meat at all which isnt that often now mostly chicken its always free range, eggs too xxx

[greydales]

I also watched the program The Lie of the Land which was about the state of farming today ...

It's so hypocritical the way that the public are outraged by hunting/shooting etc but they are perfectly happy to buy food products from intensively raised livestock

[harveydales]

I agree Gill! When ever some one starts at me with the anti hunting/shooting thing, I immediately launch into my intensive farming speach. It makes me so mad!

I haven't seen the HFW prgramme yet - we've taped it but I'm not sure I will be able to sit through it without getting too upset. I hope it got the message across but I somehow doubt it. People have short memories and when they go to the supermarket, they don't associate meat in packages with live animals. It did work for laying hens to some extent but people seem to think they are entitled to cheap meat. Then there are all the fast food outlets like KFC and all the restaurants where people don't think to ask where the meat came from.............

[Debbie]

Ummm...yes, like the packages at the grocers where you buy all drumsticks or all breasts, etc. I was warned by a bloke was massively not fussy about food in the slightest not to eat the packages that came like that. He said it was because the chickens used were "tainted". As in, the bits of the chicken that couldn't be utilized for a whole chicken for sale where usually rotted. That's why they were utilized for 'breasts' only or drumsticks only etc.

We live in an area that has these intensive farms all over. I was disgusted when I first brought my peeps home and was trying to locate non medicated chick starter. I was told by a feed store manager that you couldn't raise a chick without the medications. Actually mine did exceedingly well without the medicated feed thank you, and that simply means your raising methods are revolting, and certainly not hygenic.

The pathetic part is a lot of people will go off the deep end, and just want to be a vegetarian (and after the mold on the crops I've seen, don't believe those are clean either!). When all that's needed is to reverse the trends, and get the animals back out of the factory farms and back onto a smaller farm operation. One that can better tend to the needs of the animals. But there's so much pressure with so many people in the world. I just hope one little bit at a time can change this around.

[jec248]

I have signed it and sent in on to others to sign. I try to buy meat from the village butcher or the farm shop just up the road . Will never buy supermarket meat or farmed chickens ever again.

Looking forward to watching part two tonight and part 3 tomorrow.

[Rowndan]

i cried at the start when it showed what the 3 programs are about.. i just think about my 2 beloved girls, margaret and easter, and think of the S%&t life they had.

i think hugh is very brave to do this as it could really back fire in his face, good on him though.

jamie oliver is on on friday night doing "fowl meals" i think this will be an even more powerful program as it shows, battery hens, broiler and even gassing day old chicks. il be interested to see that as we feed day old chicks at work!!

just thinking about work and the day old chicks.. does that make me a hypacrit (sp) for going on about chickens and welfare?? i trundle round at work with my bucket full of 250+ chicks to feed the falcons, owls and eagles i also feed some with quail

[harveydales]

We watched the first episode last night (Andy is taping them all). Yes, I think Hugh is being very brave and so, I suppose in a way, is Channel 4. I also got very upset when they showed experts of the whole series. I hope the message finally gets across to people but I really think the first action has to come from the Supermarkets.

I rarely buy meat from Supermarkets (never non-free range) and I will not knowingly order anything in a restaurant with chicken in unless I know it is properly free range reared. I'm not even that happy about so-called free range chicken farms as they are still very cramped and it isn't a natural existence by any stretch of the imagination. But at least it is a big improvement on the intensively reared animals. One step at a time...........

A pity we can't go back to the days when people would rear a pig in their back garden and all kept chickens. I can remember my Aunt in Germany doing just that when I was a child. I don't think it is co-incidence that people from the WW2 generation, who ate a very different diet and never had the food excesses and intensively reared meat, are living to such a ripe old age. Mind you, in some ways it was those times of leanness that lead to all this intensive farming.

Edited to say, Row I do sympathise with your dilemma over the day old chicks. But there is no cruelty involved and those chicks are being saved from a dreadful existence cramped in broiler houses for weeks before a horrific end. In the wild, your birds would be taking chicks from nests to feed themselves.............

[Debbie]

At least the day olds are being given a quick kill. Really all we can aim for is a quality of life and as painless/quick a kill as possible.

As Pam says, the birds would have been taking similar food in nature. It does get tricky as I'm not sure you could source day old chicks from the smaller farmers year round. You could possibly utilize rabbit that's been cut up. Or some people use ratties that have been frozen then thawed. These are basically what the raptor would have been eating, so its still very much within their natural diet. And it might make you feel better to source other foods for them?