Muddy_boots' Blog

When I was a kid my parents kept chickens. I remember going with my mum to a battery farm to buy some battery hens that were obviously going to slaughted. We bought a bakers dozen (13) and took them home. These were the lucky ones the reast were just stuffed in crates, the crates were piled one on top of the other, wether the hens had their heads out the top or not.
The ones we bought were then mine and my brothers job prior to school and after, we had to pick them up off the hen house floor and sit them on the perch. We done this night and day and eventually they got the use of their legs back.
They hadn't used them in the battery farm as they had been kept in really cramped conditions.
Shocking to see as a 9/10 year old but I have never bought battery farmed eggs since.

oh thats awful Ken, any chickens or eggs i buy i make sure are free range, have to sat i am glad i didnt see that programme it would have really upset me, having said that i do hope loads of people saw it and will switch to buying free range from now on. how this practise is allowed to carry on is beyond me

Sadly its allowed to carry on Irish because many of us shop on a budget.We dont think too much when we can buy a whole roast chicken for under £3.Pigs are treated even worse pinned on their sides so the young can feed on demand and fatten quicker.Sadly free range is an expensive option often only available to the typical M and S shopper.

Well, I am not an M&S shopper. Nearest M&S to me is 18 miles away, so I will go for the free range option from the local market.

More and more of my shopping is from up there, even though I have to carry it back home.

I'm afraid my pensioners budget will just HAVE to make do. Still, before too long, I will be eating ALL my own veg again

lol me either Ken, i cant afford to do a weekly shop in M & S. isnt it strange that years ago all our chickens would have been free range, i remember going on holidays with my parents and seeing a battery farm, the smell will never leave me, anddddd i have to say it wasnt really that many yrs ago.

lol me either Ken, i cant afford to do a weekly shop in M & S. isnt it strange that years ago all our chickens would have been free range, i remember going on holidays with my parents and seeing a battery farm, the smell will never leave me, anddddd i have to say it wasnt really that many yrs ago.

Get a wiff of the batteries and pig farms here in the Fens. Especially when there is an easterly breeze. Apparently, it comes from Holland and germany - or Bernard Matthews! Not so Bootiful

oops sent that twice,,,, ah well lets just say im irish and i sent it twice to be sure to be sure lol

Are you sure?

lol aye ken im sureeeeee. yuk i can only imagine the horrible smell from pig farms

Healthy - or so they say

our free range eggs direct from our farm are cheaper than the cheap tesco eggs let alone the M&S eggs and people can see all our chickens are free range! I can't bear to see chickens mistreated or any animal for that matter! well apart from the ants I found marching across the kitchen and heading straight to the honey extractor!

well ickle i guess you could say the ants were free range lol

he he! So funny!!

Like I said, I'd love to have a couple here, but I just haven't the space and the Housing Society wouldn't let me anyway.

I'll get mine from the market, Ickle, as you are bit too far away.

When I was about 10, a lorry of live chickens on its way to the local rendering plant turned over near my school. I didn't see it, but my mum happened to be passing on her bike. She looked in her handbag and found two Tescos carrier bags. She picked up and put a chicken in each and carried them home on the handle bars of her bike! When she came to collect me from school she said there was a surprise waiting for me at home, but she wouldn't tell me what! They were, of course, not many weeks old (I think they're killed at about the 12 week stage?) Their 'combs and wattles' and legs were pure white like their feathers and at first they could not walk at all. Not sure if this was the shock of the accident or due to the conditions they were kept in Anyway, we had those chickens for many years and they were great layers! They were called Pinky and Perky!! I have fond memories of them - we had an old outdoor loo and you would go in sometimes to find the two hens sitting side by side on the rim! You would just say 'sorry ladies' and back out!!

Hey Sid! What a wonderful story. Reminded me a bit of our situation .... the outside loo and the chickens occupiying it! We had a couple of ours that were like that too. Oh memories of the good old days! And those yolks tasted so much stronger!

As a child I visited what was called an 'experimental' farm, researching the ultimate space limitations on raising penned animals for egg production and meat - all that was required was that they remained alive, basically...pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens...it was the saddest place in the world; a slaughterhouse is more humane as there is at least an end to the suffering. It made a huge impression on me then and I am willing to pay a little more for my meat and animal byproducts to this day.