Normally I am pretty introspective here about stuff, but there was a report today on the BBC website about a planned end to battery farmed eggs by 2012 - YES!
Sadly a lot of the report was about how this would be impossible to implement, but for once something being right rather than economically easy seems to be winning the day.
In a battery egg unit, a chicken has about the space of an A4 sheet of paper living space if she is lucky - look at a piece of A4 paper then look at the photo of one of my sets of hens. They do have a size roughly equivalent to an A4 piece of paper - so how do they move, find food, preen and so forth? Actually my girls, although designed for a battery unit, were raised in a much larger space (in excess of Soil Association regulations) so they did actually get rather bigger than an A4 piece of paper.
I could add some fairly disgusting detail about the problems of the hybrid race that populates the battery houses, but I won't though I have hinted about it earlier.
Of course, eggs are just one product of battery systems - boycott battery eggs, but also battery chickens raised for food (Ross Cobb and Sunvalley Hybrid breeds in particular), and then the most difficult step of all, if you have cats, particularly elderly cats, chicken and rice cat food. Well what do you think happens to the battery egg hens after a year?
The trouble with decent eggs is that once you get used to them there really is no going back, whatever the price.
Taking your view of the end of battery farming to it's logical conclusion, in 4 years time most households with gardens will/should have their own chickens. Then perhaps people will start to see what viscous, unthinking, brutally bloodthirsty killers foxes really are. They aren't cute, they are mangy predators. And the people who feed them should be deeply ashamed for aiding this useless parasite to prosper.
Posted by: Roger | 10 January 2008 at 04:17 PM
Thanks Roger - it is as well to remember that while free range is best, you do have to watch out for predators. Luckily round us there is absolute vigilance on foxes and also on pine martins which are just as much of a problem. Urban chicken keepers should be thinking about mink, particularly if they are near a river or canal.
The Soil Association has pitched into the arguement, applauding Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver for their work in waking people up to chicken abuse - see here for more detail http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/362c8013f3000f91802573cb00383027!OpenDocument
Posted by: Jane Holland | 15 January 2008 at 01:37 PM