Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

ALWAYS_POOR

nc1967 wrote: »

These seem now impossible to get from our Tesco - everytime I look the shelf is bare.
On asking a member of staff I was told 'we have sold our allocation for today!!'

Come on Tesco - don't try to bully us we want free range

I also asked at Asda on the weekend, I had the same answer, and it was only 10 am!

I am amazed at the power these TV chefs have. Jamie cooked a shoulder of lamb last week, it looked delicious so I decided to have a go using his slow cooking method last weekend. But, there was only one shoulder of lamb left at Asda at 10 am, everyone must have had the same Sunday lunch is all I can say!!!

moneypooh

My children are 13 and 10 and have now become 'free rangers'

I am currently trying to empty the freezer over the coming weeks to save some pennies (if not £'s) and all of the meat (except some direct farm-bought lamb) is the non-FR variety (but not value). I had a problem last night as my son asked if the chicken kiev was FR, oooppps no, sorry. However, I did point out that the chicken would have died for nothing if he didn't eat it...
They said that they wouldn't eat chicken at McDs, KFC or any other restaurant anymore, nice idea but it's not going to be easy eating out anymore
We've always had FR eggs so that made them feel better

Does anyone know of restaurants that are FR??

NemoToad

Wetherspoons are committed to only using free range eggs. I'm not sure if this extends to their chicken as I'm vegetarian so have never looked, but perhaps they will? You could ask them...

Generally though if it doesn't say on the menu/back of packaging it isn't as it's usually used as a selling point.

margaretclare

moneypooh wrote: »

My children are 13 and 10 and have now become 'free rangers'

I am currently trying to empty the freezer over the coming weeks to save some pennies (if not £'s) and all of the meat (except some direct farm-bought lamb) is the non-FR variety (but not value). I had a problem last night as my son asked if the chicken kiev was FR, oooppps no, sorry. However, I did point out that the chicken would have died for nothing if he didn't eat it...
They said that they wouldn't eat chicken at McDs, KFC or any other restaurant anymore, nice idea but it's not going to be easy eating out anymore
We've always had FR eggs so that made them feel better

Good for them.

Does anyone know of restaurants that are FR??

Little Chef may be - they say that all their eggs are FR but I don't know about the rest of their menu.

Margaret

geordie_joe

nc1967 wrote: »

These seem now impossible to get from our Tesco - everytime I look the shelf is bare.
On asking a member of staff I was told 'we have sold our allocation for today!!'

Come on Tesco - don't try to bully us we want free range

It's not a case of bullying, they run out of free range eggs for the same reason they run out of free range chickens, the demand has gone up a lot.

Farmers only produce enough eggs to supply the demand, now that the demand has shot up they can't produce any more eggs until the "grow" more hens.

Same with FR chickens, they can't supply the extra demand until they "grow" more chickens.

Until then the early bird will get the eggs and chickens.

miss_corerupted

on the chicken run programme hugh kept them for about 6 weeks in the intensive side can't remember how long for the free range

but it's going to be about 2 months (or more) b4 they can up the numbers of fr chickens

geordie_joe

miss_corerupted wrote: »

on the chicken run programme hugh kept them for about 6 weeks in the intensive side can't remember how long for the free range

but it's going to be about 2 months (or more) b4 they can up the numbers of fr chickens

I somewhere that the minimum for a FR chicken is 57 days, but can be as much as 90 days. Add on the 3 weeks it takes to hatch the eggs.

Don't know how old a hen has to be to start laying eggs.

I just wonder what will happen if, by the time the extra chickens and eggs are in the shops, people have forgotten all about it and gone back to "ordinary".

I know a lot won't, but I bet there are some that do.

competitionscafe

According to this article:
"The minimum age organic chickens can go to slaughter is 81 days, compared to 56 days for free-range birds, and around 42 days for intensively reared chickens."
http://www.newconsumer.com/news/item/theres_ranges_of_free_range_says_soil_association/

competitionscafe

"Sainsbury’s said yesterday that sales of free-range, organic, and chicken adhering to the RSPCA’s Freedom Food scheme had soared a record 50 per cent.

But despite disturbing images in the programmes, shoppers are refusing to ditch intensively-reared chicken completely.

“Sales of organic chicken have gone up but so have Basics, our value line,” said a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman.

Waitrose saw sales of organic chicken jump 31 per cent in the second week of January while demand for free-range meat was up 24 per cent."
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/32268/Victory-for-Jamie-and-Co

I don't read the Express by the way, link was on Google news.

deanos

Tescos Willow Farm Chickens have now got 75p off per kilo (£2.25) , its actually cheaper than the standard chicken (£2.36 kg), maybe not perfect but better than the standard birds