Rural Focus
Welfare of battery chickens comes under the spotlight
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| More people are shunning eggs from hens kept in battery cages. |
CHICKENS will move into the spotlight this month when the RSPCA starts a new campaign
urging shoppers to make a New Year's resolution to upgrade to higher welfare chicken.
The society believes most of the 855 million meat chickens reared in the UK every year suffer
unacceptable conditions and public attention is expected to focus on these birds this month when celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall present programmes about these often-ignored farm animals.
To coincide with the programmes, the RSPCA is launching its campaign for better farming standards for the chickens we eat which will include a special website with a petition calling on retailers to stock only higher welfare chicken such as those labelled Freedom Food, free range or organic.
Dr Marc Cooper, RSPCA farm animal scientist, said: "If people knew how the average chicken was treated before it ended up as their Sunday roast, they would probably be disgusted.
"Currently, some supermarkets are selling chicken meat for as little as £2 per kilo - this can be less than it costs to produce the bird.
"Selling chicken so cheaply doesn't provide farmers with enough money to enable or
encourage them to rear their birds to standards the RSPCA finds acceptable. "Everyone has a responsibility to ensure chickens are reared to high standards - the retailer, shopper and farmer. We are asking supermarkets to stop selling standard chicken and shoppers to stop buying it.
"Chicken labelled Freedom Food, free-range or organic is a better welfare alternative.
"We are asking shoppers to demonstrate to supermarkets that there is a demand for higher
welfare chicken by signing our petition and by showing they are willing to pay a little bit more money for a bird that's had a better life."
The RSPCA hopes shoppers will insist on higher welfare chicken in the same way that more people are shunning eggs from hens kept in battery cages.
According to DEFRA statistics almost 38 per cent of eggs sold in the UK are now from non-caged hens, yet only five per cent of meat chickens reared in the UK are kept in higher welfare conditions.
12:06pm Thursday 10th January 2008
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