Hugh's Chicken Run (Merged Discussion)

boo81

I just wanted to make a comment about the tail docking. I come from a farming background and its one thing ive quizzed my dad about as they reared sheep. Most sheep farmers use the rubber band method, basically they tie the band around and the tail gradually loses its circulation and drops off. The lamb doesnt even notice and its exactly like the umbilical cord falling off a baby in that way.

It is a necessary procedure in southern england, any rabbit owner will tell you fly strike is common and the most horrible thing to happen to an animal. Sheep are incredibly mucky creatures and their poo does collect under their tails due to the fluffiness of them. If you are bothered by the process though few sheep in scotland and northern england are docked due to the cooler climate, it keeps their bums warm having tails!

Hope that helps people understanding a little more about that one and doesnt put the cat amongst the pigeons

Pandora123_2

TNG wrote: »

:T :T :T :T :T :T :T :T

Well done!!

Slightly OT, but I read an inteeresting article the other day giving advice on getting back to proper food (you could search the Guardian website for it - it's an extract from a book by Michael Pollan). It gave some good guidelines on decision making when buying food (don't buy anything that makes health claims, don't buy anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognise as food), but the bits about meat I found interesting. We should all eat a lot less of it. There were stats about all the RDAs of vitamins and such that I won't bother quoting, but the key phrase for me was "meat should be the condiment to the veg". i.e. not the main part, but the accompaniment.

Just thought I'd mention it.....

Here is the link for anyone interested:

How to get back to real food

:A

purpleivy

Also slightly off topic.... I couldn't believe the sheer size of those sunday dinners that were being dished up! HUGE plates full, at least that's how they seemed to me. It must have been all that energy they used up running around after the chooks!

Cazzdevil

Hayley was doing my head in on last night's show when Hugh saw her in Tesco. She's buying the 2 for £5 chickens like they're an absolute necessity in her diet and they're not.

Why doesn't she buy ONE free range chicken every OTHER week and instead of the chicken, try feeding the kids meals made with a variety of beans and lentils, it'd be better for the kids' health and she could get a whop load of lentils and dried beans for the price of her beloved cheapy chickens.

It's all down to pig headedness. She's trying to make out like she's the hard done by penniless single mother. I wonder if she smokes, or drinks, or buys unnecessary magazines... Or POSTS ON THIS FORUM!! Yikes!

Cazzdevil

As an aside, a lot of meat-eaters seem to have it stuck in their head that they need to have meat with almost every meal and it makes me chuckle. When out for lunch with some work folks a few years back one woman ordered the veggie lasagne and when she'd finished it she said "wow that was lovely, it's the first vegetarian food I've ever eaten" and I thought to myself, the poor soul, she's never eaten a potato in her life!

There's more to meals than meat and two veg... OH and I are meat eaters but had veggie spag bol last night made with a wee bit of veggie mince (I eat beef but can't stomach mince) and loads of veg. I put a sprinkling of pumpkin and sunflower seeds in too. Mmmm.

TNG

Pandora123 wrote: »

Here is the link for anyone interested:

How to get back to real food

:A

I should have done that, shouldn't I.....

Thanks Pandora

Cazz - :T :T :T :T :T :T well said. (and I'm pretty sure Hayley ISN'T OS :rotfl: )

margaretclare

Pandora123 wrote: »

Here is the link for anyone interested:

How to get back to real food

Thanks for this. I read it with interest, given that I am probably one of the great-grandmothers he writes about - well, a grandmother anyway.

If you're interested, I could describe the way I ate as a child - and the generation now in their 70s have been said to be the healthiest we've ever had. We had very little meat of any kind - a few ounces a week, it was on ration! We had little sweets - 3 or 4 ounces a week, as I remember. When we ate chicken, it wasn't a chicken, it was a hen, and we only had one either as a special occasion like Christmas, or an 'old hen' which had outlived her egg-laying years and there were special ways of cooking to tenderise the meat and combine it with veg into a nice stew. Irrelevant now, as hens are just not allowed to grow old!

We did eat veg, and potatoes - no chips. Chips were found in towns, the industrial landscape, and I grew up in the countryside. We hadn't heard of cutting potatoes into little bits and frying them in hot fat or oil - not where I lived anyway. Winter vegetables were turnips, swedes, parsnips, cabbage, cauliflower.

Baking was done at home - bread, cakes, pies etc. We'd never heard of 'ready-meals' or take-aways. I can still live without any of these! We buy our bread at a small local baker's where they bake fresh every night, and a wholemeal loaf is £1.13. I wouldn't buy industrially-produced bread that has been trucked around the country and sold for 35p. I'd rather buy better and eat less of it.

The book extract talks about the problem of people not knowing when they are full. The stomach is the size of your clenched fist. Once you've filled it, there is an 'off' switch in the brain which says 'Stop eating - stomach full'. I think some people are so used to eating non-stop that they have managed to over-ride this 'off' switch. I worry about the children that I see coming out of school and needing to have sweet drinks or packets of crisps to sustain them until they get home and can raid the fridge. I really wonder how I survived - I had breakfast before a 2 mile walk to school, a third of a pint of milk at break-time, school dinners, and a 2 mile walk back for my tea. Could you ask a modern child to walk 2 miles having had nothing to eat since midday? Yet I don't remember ever feeling hungry in my childhood - never, at all. In fact, although we were poor, we had the necessities of life and I was always warm, well-clothed and well-fed - and well-loved.

Margaret

TNG

Thanks for that, margaret :T :T

Cazzdevil

I just thought of another thing to add to the Hayley argument (can you tell she wound me up?), considering her kids were very upset at seeing the intensive chickens, what message is it giving to them that she's still feeding them the cheapy chickens? The fact that Hugh had to point out to her that a lot of them had had their hocks cut off due to burns shows that she obviously doesn't care, and her kids will eventually pick up on that.

TNG

Cazzdevil wrote: »

....she obviously doesn't care.....

I think that just about sums it up.......