Battery hens......

[bearded bloke]

Hi Alison My apologies yours was also a valid point,I failed to recognize it in my post above due to cross over posting

[Alison]

Hi Alison My apologies yours was also a valid point,I failed to recognize it in my post above due to cross over posting

No need to apologise but thanks anyway

[bearded bloke]

And there I go doing it again Doh !!!!!!

With regard to moving it,I think we should wait for a response from OP

[Floyd]

This question was posed by a friend in my local last weekend as a humorous quip when my daughter brought some of our eggs in for him. Once everyone had finished groaning at his pun, the conversation actually turned to a debate on the ethics of battery farming versus free range and went on for quite some time drawing in more opinions from people with and without experience of keeping chickens.
Some of the issues brought up included questions as to the truth behind supermarket 'free range' products (ie the amount of extra space allotted per chicken to qualify it as free range); the difference between battery eggs and those from home reared hens; do the costs of keeping your own hens for eggs outweigh the cost of buying mass produced eggs; How many eggs can a hen lay over it's natural life span (many non chicken keepers were surprised to learn that hens are born with the makings of every egg they will ever lay already in their ovaries....much like human females in fact) and many more questions and opinions.

My posting of the original quip on here seems to have evoked some similarly excellent debate notably from Scarlett and Bill(whom I know from his previous posts has a vast knowledge of large scale chicken farming), so I feel justified in posting it on a chicken related forum rather than a general chit chat page...although some may disagree.
Hope I haven't ruffled too many feathers (pun intended) with this thread.

[veggiechicken]

Maybe if you had made it clear at the outset, what your interest was, the debate might have continued. As it is, its been taken as Fowl play (pun intended).

[Floyd]

Not everything viewed in black and white should be seen as a negative though.........

[veggiechicken]

Are you going to tell us your opinions on battery hens or carry on with your paltry jokes? If you are, this is moving to the Chat thread.

[Floyd]

Shouldn't that be 'poultry' jokes?

My opinion on battery farming is that it is necessary since not everyone is as fortunate as ourselves in having the space and time to rear our own. I do feel that maybe the industry should tighten up their codes of ethics though to clamp down on any of the cowboy outfits which the media seem to seize upon thus painting every related business in the same bad light.
Personally I wouldn't buy another supermarket egg for my home consumption ever again, however as a Chef I unfortunately don't have the luxury of that choice in my workplace due to budgets and demand..... again, another debateable point which is raised, ie should I be compromising my principles on this?

[Bigmallly]

Unfortunately principles come at a price & they don't pay the bills.

[Alison]

Unfortunately principles come at a price & they don't pay the bills.

They do but you can also make compromises. I don't like eating mass produced meat so chose to eat far less than I used to so don't spend more than I did. Also if I'm out and don't know where the food has come from I'm likely to either choose a vegetarian option or a lamb dish as they're not really factory farmed. It's not perfect but it fits my conscience (although I did find things easier before I started questioning things )

[mothhawk]

How many eggs can a hen lay over it's natural life span (many non chicken keepers were surprised to learn that hens are born with the makings of every egg they will ever lay already in their ovaries....much like human females in fact)...

That's what I thought. So left to herself, a hen would probably lay 10 to 15 eggs then go broody, hatch out chicks and raise them, so not laying any more eggs for possibly 4 months or more. So perhaps, (guessing here) she would lay less than a hundred eggs a year, allowing for our long dark autumn and winter days. Battery birds have to lay, as Bill says, 250 to 300 eggs per year. That's quite a difference.

So if a hen has 1000 ova, at 300 a year in less than 4 years her eggs are exhausted, while the do-as-you-please hen at 100 p.a. has potential to keep going for 10 years.

Which raises another question - when the ova are exhausted, do physiological changes hasten the end of the bird's life?

[Nicos]

Gawd mothhawk..bit like humans????

[Scarlet]

Which raises another question - when the ova are exhausted, do physiological changes hasten the end of the bird's life?

Food for thought....

[Scarlet]

Unfortunately principles come at a price & they don't pay the bills.

Although moving on from caged birds....
We found the meat from a bird reared at home went twice as far as shop bought meat. It's not tough, though definitely harder to eat, it goes further, it's full of flavour and not so full of water than you need such huge portions. The whole bird is used too, bones for stock or soup etc. I'm amazed at what people put in the bin thinking there's nothing left....

[Moopmoop]

I don't have the luxury of my own birds but I do try and buy free range eggs wherever I can. I have seen some horrendous programmes on battery farming with both chickens and pigs, not nice viewing and I imagine that's what puts a lot of people off the idea of battery. It is difficult as I understand that some people don't have the option of not buying either any eggs or as many free range eggs to keep costs down but then when you think about all the products you may buy that contain egg, they will certainly be battery so it kind of defeats the objective of buying free range eggs. Everyone's point is valid and I can see where they're coming from, but such is life and not everyone will agree with each other. As long as we remember to respect everyone's opinions and the person behind them all is fine.