hughs chickens and tesco`s

chaliepud

Couldn't believe the costs of FR chicken in Sainsburys today, £12.49 for breasts! And a just about decent size whole FR chicken for just under a tenner. Loads of all types on shelf and lots of people like me trying to decide between value and ethical (I chose ethical so spent £20 on chicken that will prob only last 3 meals!)

ubamother

went to morrisons yesterday - pleasant surprise as normally they're not great at providing FR chicken. I got a decent size fr chicken for under £6. They also stock packs of fr chicken thighs/drumsticks at a reasonable price

geordie_joe

My local Somerfield are selling two chickens for £4.50. I wonder if Mr T knows?

Penelope_Penguin

chaliepud wrote: »

Couldn't believe the costs of FR chicken in Sainsburys today, £12.49 for breasts! And a just about decent size whole FR chicken for just under a tenner. Loads of all types on shelf and lots of people like me trying to decide between value and ethical (I chose ethical so spent £20 on chicken that will prob only last 3 meals!)

How many are you feeding? If you'd bought whle chickens, your £20 would feed my family of 4, four meals, and 2 vats of soup (8 servings per pot) That would be 32 servings; 8 meals for a family of 4 :j

Penny. x

thriftmonster

Also did you buy organic FR or plain FR as our local Sainsburys does the plain FR for about £6 a bird - the organic can be about £9. Try looking for the label Devonshire Red FR - quite reasonable prices - for example I got a pack of FR wings for £1.69.

grimerking

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

My two penn'th

2. Free Range - are kept in a barn with continuous day time outside access, there can be 2500 birds per hectare - not a lot of space per bird - which means that nervous and timid birds may not be able to leave the barn at all.

Actually, that is quite a lot of space per bird. A hectare is 10,000 square metres. Therefore, each bird has four square metres. When you consider the 'footprint' of a chicken is probably less than 0.125 square metres, they have plenty of room - at least 32 times as much floorspace as they themselves actually occupy. I'm really not sure how you came to the conclusion that "nervous and timid birds may not be able to leave the barn at all." - unless they're agoraphobic?

baileysbattlebus

grimerking wrote: »

Actually, that is quite a lot of space per bird. A hectare is 10,000 square metres. Therefore, each bird has four square metres. When you consider the 'footprint' of a chicken is probably less than 0.125 square metres, they have plenty of room - at least 32 times as much floorspace as they themselves actually occupy. I'm really not sure how you came to the conclusion that "nervous and timid birds may not be able to leave the barn at all." - unless they're agoraphobic?

I didn't explain that very well - outside recommended space is 4 square metres - that is the Soil Association recommended standard, with an indoor density of 10 birds per square metre. Flock size recommended 500 can have up to a 1000

Free range can be 1 square metre of outside space with an indoor density of 13 birds per square metre. Flock size - no limit - typically several thousand

Organic: 4 square metres of outside space and inside density of up to 16 birds per square metre. Flock size 5000 - upto 10,000.

It was the inside density of some of the flocks - and the size of some of the flocks

With some producers the barns are so large the some of birds probably don't even know there is an outside. Not all outside areas are provided with shelter and for free range birds this is not a requirement. Birds are wary of predators and like to have some sort of shelter so birds tend to congregate around the exits of the barn/house- stopping more timid birds from going out side.

These standards are for chickens used for meat - egg layers have different standards - with lower inside stocking density - but generally the same outside space.

I think the point I wanted to make really was that although your chicken may be "free range" it can still be semi - intensively reared and may not as free range as people might think.