HFW and His Chickens

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Ok. I have no tv. Never saw " River Cottage " and certainly won't be 'tuning into' this latest furore. But only a blind man could miss the Threads this chicken thing is generating on this forum alone. What ever.

 

Here's what's doing my head in: On a journey from B back to A, I once passed what Looked Like a typical Battery Hen House. You know; Big, dark wood sheds? I knew they were full of chickens because I could see the f*kkas in there. Loads of them! All huddling together in the semi darkness.

 

And how could I see this? I saw it through the f*cking great holes in the walls, through which those birds could obviously, freely pass into the huge padocks outside! They were FREE to Range at will. Yet the dumb f*cks were all crammed in, inside there, like it was a crime to set foot on that earth.

 

Blew me away and I've wondered ever since; " WTF?! ". Anybody who knows their chickens explain that one for me, please? I'm not out to score any points here. I just Honestly can't work out why those damn birds weren't out there scratching in the fresh air.

 

Mid afternoon this was. Might they have all been running around earlier and just building up to dash about again within the hour? Did they know I was coming by and just decide to mess with my head? " Look! Here comes that 'Ditch Shitter' c***! Everyone indoors and act like we've always been here! ".

 

If I could remember where I saw them, I'd go back with a fox. Or HFW. See what they had to say for themselves then. B*stards.

[proper job 1]

I service a "free range egg" chicken unit, 16,000 birds in one shed. I call at different times of the day all though the year, I have never seen more than a few hundred out at any one time, and thats in the middle of summer. They must have 20acres to roam over but rarely seem to move more than 50yds from the shed, I personally think that many of them never go out, just stay where theres food water and warmth. It's free range Ditch but not as we know it.

[Andrea 2]

I

Edited March 13, 2008 by Andrea

[Kay 3,709]

Well i always thought battery hens were kept in artificial light all the time to keep them laying, so if you can buy ''freerange eggs '' all year round then they must also be kept in some kind of artificial environment to enable the shops to sell them as '' freerange''

[Guest reload]

d

[proper job 1]

Well i always thought battery hens were kept in artificial light all the time to keep them laying, so if you can buy ''freerange eggs '' all year round then they must also be kept in some kind of artificial environment to enable the shops to sell them as '' freerange''

Kay, on the unit I spoke of everything is auto. At this time of year light comes on auto at 4 am, there is an alarm bell that rings 5mins before the feed belts are operational, this bell conditions the birds to get to the feed troughs when it rings, I believe this is one of the reasons they never stray to far from the shed, hatches open auto at 8. As dusk falls, when the last "dinner" bell goes the hatches will also automatically close after a set time. Lighting will go off slowly by dimmer switch. All the eggs are collected by a conveyor belt, the feeding periods and light are all delivered so the main laying period each day are between 7am and noon. As I said it's free range but not as we know it. One person looks after these 16,000 birds, 3 half dayers to grade, clean and stack eggs.

[chillitt 0]

Chickens dont like being out in the sun too long, so if the only shade is in the barn, thats where they will go.

[RatSnatcher 0]

Just a question here .......

 

If all these chickens by law will have to be free range,they will be more subsetable to an out break of a virus .....

I can see this all turning in to a fecking nightmare for these bird farms and chickens ending up at over a £5 a pop to cover resources

 

There you go Bird Flu again

 

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gSi71a...Fs7kEqg.........

 

 

I wouldn't wanabee in the poultry trade

[Guest k9wpg]

Chickens dont like being out in the sun too long, so if the only shade is in the barn, thats where they will go.

 

 

Yes and no ..depends on breeds.

[proper job 1]

At one time I used to keep a few layers and broilers. I used to hang sheeps heads up for them all through the summer months, they loved those maggots. My wife used too sell the eggs to the "trendy" mums at the school gate, they all used to say they were the best eggs they'ed ever had but she did'nt dare tell them what we fed them on. Also with the broilers I used too get 50 day olds from an intensive unit down the road, kept them on a straw covered yard with a shed at one end. Fed them on chick crumbs to start, then anything I could lay my hands on, wheat, oats, barley,potatoes. Come the day, I'd neck 'em, missus would dip 'em in the old burco boiler and pluck 'em, then I would draw and dress them, used to sell them up at the cricket club. At one time demand exceeded supply, I should have set up in business, I wonder how much HFW was selling his chickens for, he did'nt say did he

[fishfish 17]

ever heard of 'pecking order'? chickens have a social status,some hang around the doors and wont let 'lesser' birds out.this hapens at free range egg producers too.

[Neal 1,854]

I only have four chickens so my experience is hardly comparable to some of the examples mentioned above or on other threads. Mine have free range of the whole garden during the winter while there's nothing on the veg patch and are then restricted to the back of the garden, c. 25' x 25', for the rest of the year. There's a lot of shade for them due to hedges and trees but they still spend a fair bit of time sitting around, like those mentioned in the barn above. As to the question of eggs all year round, I don't know how poultry farmers engineer it but I'm currently getting two or three eggs per day even though it's so cold that their water is sometimes frozen over in the morning.

[Squirrel_Basher 17,100]

Well i always thought battery hens were kept in artificial light all the time to keep them laying, so if you can buy ''freerange eggs '' all year round then they must also be kept in some kind of artificial environment to enable the shops to sell them as '' freerange''

Kay, on the unit I spoke of everything is auto. At this time of year light comes on auto at 4 am, there is an alarm bell that rings 5mins before the feed belts are operational, this bell conditions the birds to get to the feed troughs when it rings, I believe this is one of the reasons they never stray to far from the shed, hatches open auto at 8. As dusk falls, when the last "dinner" bell goes the hatches will also automatically close after a set time. Lighting will go off slowly by dimmer switch. All the eggs are collected by a conveyor belt, the feeding periods and light are all delivered so the main laying period each day are between 7am and noon. As I said it's free range but not as we know it. One person looks after these 16,000 birds, 3 half dayers to grade, clean and stack eggs.

 

Kay -What proper job ommitted to say was that there is only ever one crop from a setting .In laymens terms this means that birds are put in the sheds at a week old ,conditioned to the timing of the belt for food and let out at roughly a month old depending on weather .Usually rhode island reds as they mature very fast .They reach a point of lay at 2 1/2 months old and lay from then on until they are all roughly 8 months old and deemed past their best .The whole crop is then outed and the cycle begins again .

Free range to a point yes ,long lived no .

[proper job 1]

I only have four chickens so my experience is hardly comparable to some of the examples mentioned above or on other threads. Mine have free range of the whole garden during the winter while there's nothing on the veg patch and are then restricted to the back of the garden, c. 25' x 25', for the rest of the year. There's a lot of shade for them due to hedges and trees but they still spend a fair bit of time sitting around, like those mentioned in the barn above. As to the question of eggs all year round, I don't know how poultry farmers engineer it but I'm currently getting two or three eggs per day even though it's so cold that their water is sometimes frozen over in the morning.

Neal, laying is all down to daylight and protein. In the winter I used to put a light in the hen house to come on at 3am in the morning, and just kept feeding layers mash, but as Foxdropper says after they moult and come back into lay they will not be quite as prolific, thats why the commercial people get rid of after 1 season. Just as an aside, the unit that I do has just changed flocks, after adding up the cull birds and what they had known to have lost over the season, they were 700+ birds down, foxes and badgers being the culprits.

[clay man 0]

hi lad`s i just had a free range one for dinner with a bottle of bulmers the best :drink: