Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

roddydogs

Why did they put "Kill it Cook it",Whittingstall, and Jamies "Fowl Dinners" on within a few days It would have been better to spread these over a few months. the impact was lost as im sure a lot of people had had enough by the end

Lotus-eater

roddydogs wrote: »

Why did they put "Kill it Cook it",Whittingstall, and Jamies "Fowl Dinners" on within a few days It would have been better to spread these over a few months. the impact was lost as im sure a lot of people had had enough by the end

I'm guessing its the Blitzkrieg effect, one huge push at once.

~Chameleon~

roddydogs wrote: »

Why did they put "Kill it Cook it",Whittingstall, and Jamies "Fowl Dinners" on within a few days It would have been better to spread these over a few months. the impact was lost as im sure a lot of people had had enough by the end

It certainly was a bit much and I personally felt completely overwhelmed with it all by the end of the week. It's not as though I didn't already know what goes on in intensive farming and was buying free range chicken and eggs beforehand, but seeing the conditions they suffer in and animals being killed on tv every night, some times over 2-3 programmes an evening (I also watched The Lie of the Land) was really hard going.

geordie_joe

I watched HFW's program, then watched some of the repeat to check something.

He set out to persuade the people of Axminster to eat organic meat, starting with chickens. In the program he asked peole where they shopped and they all said Tesco's. One woman said "We used to have a butcher but it closed down".

On a TV program on Saturday someone mentioned that HFW owns an organic meat shop is Axminster. On the radio yesterday someone said it was the only organic meat shop in Axminster.

So, he starts this campaign to get the people of Axminster to eat free range chickens. In the process of this campaign he ends up with thousands of chickens, even got the 1,500 that were used in Jammies program. He owns the only organic meat shop in town.

That is some marketing campaign for his shop.

Lotus-eater

geordie_joe wrote: »

I watched HFW's program, then watched some of the repeat to check something.

He set out to persuade the people of Axminster to eat organic meat, starting with chickens. In the program he asked peole where they shopped and they all said Tesco's. One woman said "We used to have a butcher but it closed down".

On a TV program on Saturday someone mentioned that HFW owns an organic meat shop is Axminster. On the radio yesterday someone said it was the only organic meat shop in Axminster.

So, he starts this campaign to get the people of Axminster to eat free range chickens. In the process of this campaign he ends up with thousands of chickens, even got the 1,500 that were used in Jammies program. He owns the only organic meat shop in town.

That is some marketing campaign for his shop.

Well not quite, he wanted people to buy free range chickens not organic. He freely said he sells free range organic chickens in his shop for about £20 if I remember rightly. But what he wanted people to do was buy free range no matter where from, he wanted Tescos to put more on their shelves.
Saying that, you do have to wonder. He's gone a bit too commercial for me, I know he has to make a living, but if I hear "the river cottage headquarters" many more times.........
I know he really does care about the animals and about what people eat, I just prefered it when he wasn't this huge business.

~Chameleon~

Lotus-eater wrote: »

He's gone a bit too commercial for me, I know he has to make a living, but if I hear "the river cottage headquarters" many more times.........
I know he really does care about the animals and about what people eat, I just prefered it when he wasn't this huge business.

Isn't that how most of them start out though? I'm thinking Jimmy Doherty of Jimmy's Farm fame here, although I'm not aware of any campaigns he's been involved in other than setting up his farm with animal and environmental welfare in mind, but he is a very close friend of Jamie Oliver so watch this space

geordie_joe

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Well not quite, he wanted people to buy free range chickens not organic. He freely said he sells free range organic chickens in his shop for about £20 if I remember rightly. But what he wanted people to do was buy free range no matter where from, he wanted Tescos to put more on their shelves.

Most people think free range and organic are the same thing when it comes to chickens.

I make me wonder, although the program was shown on national TV, he did state several times that he was trying to get the people of Axminster to eat more organic/free range meat. And from what I gather, there's only him and Tesco's sell it in Axminster.

He could have used the words "Great Britain" instead of Axminster and the program would have still been the same. Surely if he cares about animals he would want everyone to eat free range chickens and not just the people who live near his shop.

I too think he is too much into business now. I believe his campaign was right, but think he is making a large amount of money out of it too.

free-range

I have 8 chucks in my garden (all called Mavis), they get fed proper chuck food (good for shells and encourages them to lay) as much grass / weeds / whatever else they find in the garden and fairly much all kitchen leftovers (except onion as this can taint eggs apparently).

The egg yolks are the most fabulous colour, which just goes to show that Mother Nature does a great job if not messed around with!

I have had to start selling the eggs (each Mavis lays 1 per day at the mo) as Hubby can't eat eggs so had far too many to use... I only charge £1 per doz as all I hoped for was to cover the cost of the food but getting to stage now where I can't keep up with demand now as people keep coming back for more eggs and I am actually starting to make a small (but useful) profit. So my dilema is... Do I buy some more Mavises?

Any ideas really appreciated

NemoToad

We don't have a television (saves money on the lisence and means we do more in the evening) so I haven't watched these programmes. Since converting back from veganism to vegetarianism I've made an effort to only eat free range (and where possible organic) eggs. If I'm out I'll ask if a product contains free-range eggs and if they're not I won't eat them.

What I find annoying is that although it's very easy to buy free-range eggs (and even eat them when out for a meal) it's very difficult to find products which use them. e.g. biscuits, mayonaise, cakes... all can contain them but it's much trickier finding food which contains them. It just involves a lot of label reading (which I'm used to from when I was a vegan) as I've found that if companies do use free-range eggs they'll say as a selling point. If a product only says 'egg' on the ingredients list (without the free-range tag) I'll ignore it.

There should be more pressure to make more products use free-range eggs as ingredients, but hopefully that will change with the legeslation that comes in to play by 2012 (I may have the year wrong!)

kethry

NemoToad: with regard to eggs in things - one thing that came up in one of the programmes, which you wouldn't know about, obviously - Hellman's have pledged that as of June this year all their products will be made with free range eggs. a lil bit of good news at least.

in addition, the legislation is not, as many people think, going to outlaw battery hens in favour of free range hens. All that will happen is that hens will still be in cages but they will be given more space, more hens to a larger cage, they'll be given perches, nesting boxes, and things to peck at so they'll have a better life (less bored) than battery hens. They're still by no means free range however. oh. and you got the date right.

HTH

keth
xx