Just a Quickie!

jackieglasgow

Girls feel free to merge once I get my answer!

Could anyone tell me if the M and S Oakham chickens are Free Range, please? I have only bought one once, and as part of my GC for this month I plan on buying full chicken and doing my own butchery, if they are Free Range, they look a good bargain if I do the Dine in for a tenner deal, and put the wine away for Ch*******!

Thanks a bunch! X

freakyogre

Just found this. I've only skimmed it, but it looks like some are, but some aren't so you'd probably need to [STRIKE]chick[/STRIKE] check them.

jackieglasgow

Thanks very much for that, I had a look and couldn't find anything specific on my own. I think then I must have bought a F/R one, as I can't really envision myself having bought anything else. I'll have a tootle up tomorrow and see if the ones in the Dine In are F/R or not.

angeltreats

They're not. The free range chickens specifically say free range on the packaging, you can't miss it.

The Oakham chickens are treated a hell of a lot better than your bogstandard Tesco non free range chicken though. I seem to remember Jamie Oliver's program about battery chickens approving of them.

jackieglasgow

Thanks angeltreats. TBH I am veggie and don't want to eat any chicken at all, but my compromise on it for OH and the boys is that it will always be Free Range, and possibly organic too if I can get it. I only buy organic free range eggs and my conscience wouldn't let me do otherwise. This is all in the interests of moneysaving and to stop them eating processed non free range chicken in sandwiches!

angeltreats

I'm the same Jackie, I'm not veggie but I absolutely cannot bring myself to buy any eggs or chicken that aren't free range. I can't really afford chicken breasts anymore so I buy thighs instead and either bone them or cook them slowly so they are very tender. I bawled my eyes out watching Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's programme about battery hens

I also refuse to buy any chicken products from restaurants unless it's free range (and I will ask to make sure).

Ethical issues aside, battery eggs are absolutely horrible anyway. Awful pale, watery, insipid things.

raphanius

we are in the process of going over to buying organic, free range and ethical goods rather than supermarket cr*p. i have started having my fruit and veg delivered from riverford and have just tried their free range, organic pullet eggs. i never knew an egg could taste that good and also be that yellow lol. I have an oakham chicken in the fridge which i got as part of the meal deal not realising they arent free range. dissapointed now but we will eat it and know for next time.

jackieglasgow

There is an huge difference between battery eggs and free range, and again between ordinary free range and organic. I remember having a huge argument with my father about it years ago (he regarded it as "hippy crap") and I did a blind smell/taste test on him. He was converted fairly quickly. Its that terrible fishy smell from battery eggs its so awful, I can't remember where I saw it, but they are fed on fishmeal and nothing else, or at least those particular ones were, and that made a lot of sense in my head, as for years I hadn't eaten eggs because I couldn't stnad that they smelt of fish.

gillian62

I didn't realise what rubbish eggs we ate until we got our own chickens earlier this year - the superior taste and yellow yolk are unbelievable. People remark mostly on how yellow the yolks are - it's feeding chickens corn and the extras etc and having happy hens that you will never get with battery hens & eggs.

radiohelen

Yolks are a dead giveaway of a good egg. In Italy they call the yolk il rosso - cos they should be a proper orangey red! To be fair though it really does depend what they feed the ladies on. You can have a perfectly good free range egg that's got a pale yolk cos of what the chicken ate.

Jevvers

As others have said, I think if they're not labelled FR, they're not. However, Oakham chicken does look, feel and taste better than normal supermarket chicken imo so I reckon the hens must be kept better than average.

In fact I've just found this on M&S website which says how much room they have and that they are given hay bales to hop on and off etc.