Just idly listening to R4, heard the stat that 70% of ALL birds are poultry reared for human consumption. Initial reaction was that can't be right but research turned up this
Food Security Centre
Similarly, i read that the total weight of the pheasants in the uk, who are only there to be shot, is more than all the wild birds combined. Not a healthy ecosystem.
It's not that surprising when you think about it. There are about 8 billion humans and we eat a lot of chicken and eggs. Wikipedia says there are about 24 billion chickens. However, if you count how many chickens are hatched each year, it will be much higher than that because their life expectancy is pretty limited.
Estimates of the number of wild birds vary, but 50 billion seems a plausible figure:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/50-billion-total-wild-birds-inhabit-planet-study-estimates-180977753/
That would make chickens about 1/3 the total number of birds at any one time, but if their life expectancy was only 6 months, that would take it to about 70% of all birds that hatch.
Doesn't surprise me, having lived on a broiler chicken farm and worked in a battery egg farm years ago.
That would make chickens about 1/3 the total number of birds at any one time, but if their life expectancy was only 6 months, that would take it to about 70% of all birds that hatch.
Broiler chickens are slaughtered after about 6 weeks I believe. Numbers are around 1 billion per year. That's just in the UK... US produces 10 billion per year...
The odd thing I find is that chicken does not seem so popular here in Sweden. I used to eat a lot of it in the UK (it was cheap and difficult to mess up), but here it is relatively expensive, so I eat far, far less.
I miss it.
two things that should not be allowed IMO!broiler chicken farm and worked in a battery egg farm years ago.
not necessarily a good thing (also IMO)it was cheap
we've only eaten higher welfare chicken for years now, although you could say that's an expensive luxury, I don't think we spend any more on it overall... just don't eat it for every other meal now!
We got some chickens for eggs/as pets during lockdown - would 100% recommend if you have the space as they are awesome! - and quickly realised how intelligent they are (way more so than cats, probably on par with dogs IMO). The conditions of intensively farmed birds are disgraceful, absolutely miserable (and short) lives.
I used to eat a lot of it in the UK (it was cheap and difficult to mess up), but here it is relatively expensive, so I eat far, far less.
Back in the olden days when I were a lad a chicken on Sunday was a treat. It was more expensive than other roasts. But with modern factory methods it's cheap (pun not intended).
Cheap chicken is a curse. I always get accused of talking from a position of privilege when I say that, but I still believe it to be true. We buy a (free range) chicken about twice a year, and get three meals out of each one (roast, curry, stock for risotto). A rare and delicious treat, not just cheap default weekly protein.
To think that up to 65 million years ago their ancestors ruled the planet and had done for nearly 200 million years
I wonder if our descendents will end up food stock for our lizard/amphibian/insectoid/crustacean overlords/
one of the many awesome things about chickens is that if you squint they totally look like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Which is why one of ours is called Grimlock 😂To think that up to 65 million years ago their ancestors ruled the planet
there are about 24 billion chickens
If we all went vegetarian tomorrow, what would they do with them all? Fly free chickens fly free!
@kelvin Agreed. Though in our case it's generally a couple of meals, a sandwich and stock for the chicken and veg broth.
I only have chicken meat as a treat, maybe 5-10 times a year, but then a lot of my better half's family that live locally are veggies.
Scotch eggs on the other hand are a weekly staple, 4-pack from Tesco for £1.65 make a few tasty nutritious "substantial meals." 😉
Was looking at chicken prices in Tesco the other day:
Low welfare/cheapest £6/kg
Some room to move: £12/kg
Free range: £16.50/kg
Pretty shocking how intensive farming can make a meat so cheaply (although I don’t know how much of the cheap price is a loss-leader).
Similarly, i read that the total weight of the pheasants in the uk, who are only there to be shot, is more than all the wild birds combined. Not a healthy ecosystem.
On the last estate where my dad was a gamekeeper he was responsible for the planting of thousands of trees in mixed woodlands. This despite the farm manager making it as difficult as possible, ploughing up areas that were marked out for planting etc. The estate was much more diverse as a result of the shooting activities. We have more pheasant in the freezer than chicken.
the really mad thing is Tesco will sell you a whole chicken that's been raised, slaughtered, processed & trucked across the country (and still presumably make a reasonable profit for all involved) for about 20-25% the cost of a pet one from the farm on which it was born!Was looking at chicken prices in Tesco the other day:
We got some chickens for eggs/as pets during lockdown – would 100% recommend if you have the space as they are awesome! – and quickly realised how intelligent they are (way more so than cats, probably on par with dogs IMO).
i always find it interesting when an animals intelligence comes up. Somehow its ok to eat animal X as its dim compared to my pet, animal Y. A pig is more intelligent than a dog, yet people wouldn't dream of eating a dog (in this country), but almost get a boner at the thought of a bacon butty.
Its a shame all chickens aren't treated to a 'free range' life. Yes the price goes up, but hey, if you cant afford to pay for the murder, enjoy some yummy veg instead. It will make you and the world a better place.
Low welfare/cheapest £6/kg
Some room to move: £12/kg
Free range: £16.50/kg
The big difference between the first two is feed and rearing time.
Both will probably be reared in similar conditions.
The cheapest meat is raised very quickly through feeding that maximises growth/weight gain. There have been numerous documentaries, as it can be pushed that far the chickens grow faster than their skeletons develop.
I don't think we push it as far as the good old USA with their hormone fed animals, where quantity is the only goal, and quality something you just think about.
Free range is often debateable as well.
Given the bird flu issues over the past few years, there will be a lot of 'free range' chickens that have never seen daylight.
Not just chicken, but there’s so much meat in everything at the supermarket, that it’s put me right off.
I think the meat lobby in the uk exerts too much sway over the supermarkets.
Under its aegis, you’ve got everything from grass-fed highland cattle to cut price bangers, and everything in-between.
Just as with the drinks lobby, or car parks, you’ll have a cadre of ex-cops pursuing their own narrow interests, deep within the organisation.
So when Scotland moved to increase the cost of floor-polish/ booze, the mass market producers hid behind the value-added distilleries and shouted ‘unfair’.
We could do without the mass of ham that finds its way onto our pizzas.
It has all the taste and consistency of inner tube.
I just cook with veggie chorizo instead of the real thing nowadays.
It’s just that smell of cooking meat, yuk.
And it’s the sheer quantity of chicken in supermarket curries.
I’d prefer quality over quantity.
Chicken satay is kind of a step in the right direction. But, as with all meats, it stinks when being cooked.
More veg in the mix?
A big chunk of the poultry producers could be farming hemp.
It’s about the most nutritious thing on the planet.
I guess that were still (sci3ntifically) malnourished here in the uk.
the really mad thing is Tesco will sell you a whole chicken that’s been raised, slaughtered, processed & trucked across the country (and still presumably make a reasonable profit for all involved) for about 20-25% the cost of a pet one from the farm on which it was born!
A laying hen, is different from a broiler chicken.
You won't get much meat of a laying hen, as the only thing they're good for is the stock pot, as they have very little meat on them. If you ever pluck one, you're pretty much just left with a skeleton with some skin on.
The cheapest slaughter chicken will likely be reared in under 8 weeks.
A point of lay pullet (what you buy for laying hens) is around 16 weeks old.
Food suppliers will buy chickens as day old chicks, and they'll never leave the property until they're slaughtered, so there is very little handling of the birds involved. They'll also likely use a deep litter approach with the houses only being cleaned between batches.
Laying hens will usually be reared by the breeder for 16weeks, then moved to a laying house, and require much more interaction for their typical 18-24month expected laying life.
Was looking at chicken prices in Tesco the other day:
Low welfare/cheapest £6/kg
Some room to move: £12/kg
Free range: £16.50/kg
Sure that's right?
Aldi Freerange RSPCA assured is only £4.79/kg
I'd happily eat dog as long as it was treated humanly. 😂 Don't think you'd get a lot of meat off one so probably not worth it! I think all intelligent animals should be farmed humanely as they can, and do, experience suffering otherwise.i always find it interesting when an animals intelligence comes up. Somehow its ok to eat animal X as its dim compared to my pet, animal Y. A pig is more intelligent than a dog, yet people wouldn’t dream of eating a dog (in this country)
I'm sure it's way better than factory farming but if you think that means they have the run of the farmyard - they don't. It means they must have "continuous daytime access to open-air runs, for half their lifetime" and have no more than 13 birds per square metre. Which is still not a lot of space. My pet chickens have about 3½ sq m [I]each[/I] in their aviary & I still feel guilty that they're cramped as we can't let them out at the moment due to bird flu!Aldi Freerange RSPCA assured is only £4.79/kg
Octopus widely acknowledged to be quite clever little chaps...yet lots of people tuck into calamari
I’m sure it’s way better than factory farming but if you think that means they have the run of the farmyard – they don’t.
I was checking the pricing quoted, not the process for production.
I think you're right, even M&S free-range chicken is only £8/kilo so unlikely Tesco would be more! (couldn't actually see a current price though with a quick google). My point though was that Aldi free-range is very much the minimum standard possible to get that accreditation. Don't know if Tesco standard is higher, don't shop there!! I believe M&S standard is higher, so you'd expect to pay more.I was checking the pricing quoted, not the process for production.
Pretty shocking how intensive farming can make a meat so cheaply (although I don’t know how much of the cheap price is a loss-leader).
I dont know why free range is so much more expensive. We have battery farms round our way and 'free range' The only difference I can see is that the chickens can choose to leave the same size shed and wander it to a same sized bit of land and potentially get eaten by a fox. Not that many choose to be outside.
Other than that I really cant see the difference.
I had some tofu in a vietnamese restaurant in Santa Clara last week. It was incredible; if all tofu tasted like that, I'm not sure I would ever eat meat again.
Sadly not available here as far as I can tell.
All hens (even the ones in your garden) are supposed to be undercover at the moment, due to bird flu. Third winter running. They still let them sell eggs as free range for up to 16 weeks after they've been confined to the barn. Not sure about broilers.
Organic Soil Association approved chicken (the minimum we should legally allow IMO) - £18.
Chicken from my garden - probably more than that tbh. But it's had a better life, better food, been truly free to do what it want (including poop on the car) and gets slaughtered more humanely than anything produced in any factory ever.
I'm lucky enough to be able to look to start to raise all my own chicken / guinea fowl / geese. In a couple of years I'll never go to the supermarket for it - and it can't come too soon.
Octopus widely acknowledged to be quite clever little chaps…yet lots of people tuck into calamari
That makes about as much sense as "Pigs widely acknowledged to be quite clever little chaps…yet lots of people tuck into beef"
Anything you buy from a big supermarket has gone through a national supply chain, free range or not (ie mass produced, in large barns etc etc).
That statistic is probably right, there are literally millions of chickens reared for meat around Mid-Wales every few months. Seems stupid to me that we use vast areas of land to grow crops which are then fed to animals for humans to eat. Why not just eat the plants in the first place?
Aside from that, chicken shit is very high in Nitrogen, so can't be left to leach into watercourses.
As a result of all the chicken farming, the whole of Wales is now a 'Nitrate vulnerable zone' and it's caused a massive problem with pollution, although the govt have brought new rules in to manage this.
All hens (even the ones in your garden) are supposed to be undercover at the moment
Octopus are clever but squid are stupid and fit for nothing more than being turned into rubber bands.
Tofu doesn't taste of anything except what it's cooked with.
(ok it does have a very mild taste, except for the fermented/blue stuff)
The XKCD image from the link above. Randall Monroe is generally pretty good with his science stuff. Here's an explanation.
https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1338:_Land_Mammals
Not sure I could be part of this - as a worker, the profiter, or the consumer. It feels way way beyond reasonable, to me at least. Just not sure how a nation so besotted with its pets could have this as one of it's mainstays of sustaining itself.
The above is why I hatch, rear and eat my own chicken.
All schoolkids from the age of 7 should have to go from farm > abbatoir > butcher to see exactly where all their meat comes from.
It's not "traumatising" btw - at that age in years gone by they'd have been doing it themselves. At least this way when they grow up and become adults they'd maybe vote for better animal husbandry and more humane practice.
Right now - everybody is either lying to themselves or doesn't care.
There was a chicken farm near where I used to work, 24,000 chickens in four sheds. From day old chicks to ready for the table in twenty eight days. The smell when they cleared the sheds out for the next batch was unbelievable…
The 28 days is why when you get a rotisserie chicken from a supermarket it literally falls apart - it's not had time to grow proper ligaments.
About 4% die of heart attacks because their hearts aren't strong enough / fall apart.
Shockingly bad in this day and age.
The 28 days is why when you get a rotisserie chicken from a supermarket it literally falls apart – it’s not had time to grow proper ligaments
Hmm… dubious.
Slow cook an old laying bird and it will fall apart. We had chickens when I was a kid… nothing wasted.
Mrs DB keeps chickens - her brood are Dorothy Egglayer, Eggetha Christie and Ruth Hendall, they are hilarious to watch and are into everything - they ocassionally catch a mouse or vole and all hell breaks loose as they rip it to shreds. We only keep them for the eggs. Not sure they are cleverer than dogs or cats when one is on the outside of the polydome, whilst the others are inside and can’t understand why it can’t walk through the polythene and just bounces and flaps against it! Their recall is better, grab a handful of corn or mealworms and they come running!
Are there any stats as to what percentage of the chicken reared in the UK end up being dunked in KFC gravy?
That video from Convert is shocking but this is from the RSPCA website...
[i]Are male chicks ground up alive?
It’s upsetting to think of young chicks being killed at all, and if not carried out humanely, both ethical and welfare issues might be raised. Whilst maceration is a legally permitted method of killing in the UK at present, the majority, if not all, male laying hen chicks in Britain are killed using gas.[/i]
https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/farm-animal-welfare/egg-laying-hens/what-is-chick-maceration/
All schoolkids from the age of 7 should have to go from farm > abbatoir > butcher to see exactly where all their meat comes from.
Absolutely not, what a ridiculous suggestion.You have to be 18 to enter an abattoir(might be 16 for apprentices.) But you think young children should be traumatized. End goal there appears to turn them vegetarian or vegan.
Why leave at that, why not take them to a mortuary to see the smashed up human remains of a serious car accident so they know what happens when they get a car, or perhaps we could do pics in class of aborted fetuses, so they dont engage in promiscuous sex.
