Anyone watch country file ?

[alldigging]

They visited a giant chicken house...

How do they clean it with all those little chicks running about?

53 days to produce an Edible size chicken is speedy !

And did thy say 40000 chickens in that shed?

[Farmer_Gyles]

yep, 40,000 chickens in that shed ... 130,000 on the farm ....
pretty sure they said they clean the shed out when the chickens are taken away for slaughter .... so not cleaned while chickens are in there ....

[alldigging]

Thanks I must have missed them sayng that!
So do they show a shed after 7 weeks of chicken poop to the public?

[Farmer_Gyles]

well they do the school visits etc .... guessing they'd time the visits to be in the first few weeks rather than the last few .... ??

[petal]

that is disgusting, no wonder they have to vaccinate heavily- imagine the coccidiosis if they didn't!

[alldigging]

Maybe we should complain to countryfile for allowing the misleading idea that the chickens live in a lovely house for their entire life.

I just can't imagine how much chicken mess is there after 7 weeks.

I assume that can put more bedding and raise the feeders as the floor level rises?

[Farmer_Gyles]

i would imagine their diet is strictly controlled and there won't be as much poop as with home / free range chickens .... but who knows .... at the end of the day, they are a commercial producer working to legal requirements .... those legal requirements will include a minimum hygiene and cleanliness standard ....

when i picked up my chicken coop from freecycle, it had about 1.5 inches of poop dried and crusted in the bottom .... i don't know if that's normal / acceptable or not .... it certainly won't get that bad when we finally get our chickens .... then again, maybe we should start a campaign to prohibit people keeping chickens at home because some won't meet the minimum standards required of commercial producers ....??

[alldigging]

Well if they'd shown a barn full of birds about to go off for table we would know !

[Madasafish]

The floor was covered in wood shavings so easy to clean up..

[francesbean]

I recently read the novel Two Caravans - by the same author who wrote that Short history of Tractors in the Ukraine book. Good read about migrant workers on strawberry farms and latter in chicken producing factory. The description of the birds living conditions would put you off buying supermarket cheap chickens for life - remember Chicken Out campaign with Hugh FW. Its horrible that in this day and age we allow animals to be kept under those conditions - and don't get me started on Brian Aldridge in the Archers and his factory farmed dairy enterprise!

francesbean

[RichmondHens]

The pig industry is even worse ................. I was sent some footage of pigs kept at an intensive rearing farm here in Norfolk. I couldn't even watch it all I was in tears.

[jessmorris]

...and don't get forget dairy cows......

[Hilary B]

...and don't get forget dairy cows......

Compared to barn-fattened chickens and intensively reared pigs, even the cows in the proposed 'indoor' system have a great life! I don't think that system is good, for a lot of reasons, but some of the hype about the negative side is very inaccurate...