Best Place to Buy Happy Chicken

MinBlack

Hi Guys,

I'm a bit of a newbie and loving this place.:j

I try and only buy happy chickens that have had a good life, I buy them from Marks (the Oakham Chickens) they are fab when they are on offer but can be pricy the rest of the time. Does anyone else know of a place where we can get reasonably priced 'happy' meat?

I am happy to buy meat that is more expensive than the standard supermarket fare as I am trying to reduce the amount of meat that we eat and having a better balance of other foods and pulses but I am still trying to do it on a budget! I've already swapped TVP for half the mince in a lasagne, I kept quiet and they wolfed it down as usual telling me it was lovely! :T I want to do this for our health, animal health and th environment.

Also, does anyone know if it is cheaper to purchase a whole chicken and portion it to breasts etc myself or is it cheaper to purchase breasts etc on their own? If no-one knows I will do an experiment and post the results!

Thank you,

Min

thriftlady_2

I'm not sure how happy you want your chickens to have been -deliriously happy, or just not in abject misery -free-range comes in a variety of shades doesn't it?

I buy free-range chicken once or twice a month. I used to get them from my butcher who charged me about £11, then I realised that a supermarket free-range bird was about half that. We've just eaten a Tesco corn-fed free-range bird that weighed just over 4lb and cost £6 something.

I am sure it is cheaper to buy whole chickens and joint them yourself but only if you eat every bit of the whole chicken. If you throw away the backs and the wings I'm not sure you'd make much saving.It would be interesting to cost it out though;) My chicken has done one meal for 5 roast, tomorrow we will have the other breast thinly sliced in a cheese sauce and on Monday I'll make risotto with the rest. I will also boil the bones for stock and that will contribute to several soup meals.

I too like to eat less meat that has been reared responsibly and more pulses. I've not tried TVP but I'm guessing as it is a processed product it is more expensive than straight pulses. Try adding lentils to mince

Riq

Work for a chicken farm and tell the chickens jokes all day. I'm sure they would appreciate it & be very happy.

BBC

Saw a programme about the chicken at Marks and Marks picked the name Oakham because it makes people think of the country and farms but when they investigated it, it wasn't even from UK. I even noticed on some of the ham in Marks that it came from Europe

Channel 4 did a programme about hock burns on chicken when they get burns on the skin (i.e. not healthy chickens dieased or crippled) and they showed all these chickens that have these burns on them I went into Tesco and saw Organic Free Range chickens with the Hock burns on the skin, never bought meat from supermarket again.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I managed to find a local Organic butchers they are out there
I know that not everyone has one but we should start a tread for it

lil_me

Find a farm shop which does free range where you can actually see their produce running around when you visit, only way IMO of getting really good free range food. Got to be able to trust the producer in my opinion if you want good quality food without lies, I tried using a different butcher recently who lied out of his **** even lies which were blatent like 'oh we only do free range eggs so they are £1 half dozen' hmm not according to the code stamped on them they aren't.

My local (well the one I use and trust) farm shop it's about £4 a kilo for whole chicken, £8 for breast fillets I think, price list is in the kitchen but I tend to just order what I need and ignore that bit .

Inactive

A dead chicken is never going to be a " Happy Chicken ";)

odds-n-sods

from a butcher is the best way to get a free range chicken, Label Anglais (raised in Essex, you can google them) are a good breed/brand, that's what I buy from my butcher. It's cheaper to buy the whole bird, as long as you use all of it.

Penny-Pincher!!

I normally stock up on the M&S chickens when they are half price, or buy FR reduced at the end of the day in Asda.

Saying that I have bought cheaper chickens before but know where your coming from.

PP
xx