Are You Going to Chicken Out?

I haven't felt this much of an excited buzz, since I parked my bottom the the kitchen worktop just as my washing machine hit the spin cycle...

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has just finished presenting to the world (via Channel 4) the best piece of work he's ever produced.

The 'Chicken Out' campaign is his brainchild and it centers around raising public awareness of the dreadful plight of factory farmed chicken.

Hugh says, "Roast chicken is an iconic dish in British culture.  It probably ranks close to the top of most people's list of favourite foods.  It may be affordable for the masses, but it is also fit for a king. 

But how many of you know about the life your fresh supermarket chickens lead before they reach your table?  That their short, intensively farmed indoor existence is managed like a factory production line, to ensure the big retailers can sell them to you for as little as £2 a bird?  Is that all the life an animal, born and raised to feed us, is worth?"

The 3 documentaries featuring celebrity chef and food provenance activist, Hugh,  were shown earlier this week and were absolutely compelling, shocking and necessary viewing in my opinion, regardless of whether you eat chicken or not. 

If you missed them, be sure to watch or record the repeat - there's bound to be one.

As a liberator of 10 ex-battery hens (here's one poorly creature stood behind one of my ducks) I am all too aware of the conditions these poor creatures have to endure and the price their delicate bodies pay, to provide us, the almighty consumer, with 'cheap' eggs, but this is a different strand in the case for better poultry welfare that I will address fully another time.

Hugh raised the plight of the 39 day broiler.  The chicken reared so super-intensively, they were often barely able to carry their own body weight two weeks before their slaughter date.

I believe Hugh put more than his career and reputation at stake to produce these programmes.  He was clearly driven by passion, strong emotion and an urgent want to change the phyche of the great British buying public - not a want to plug his shop in Axminster, as some have intimated.

But it seemed he was up against a succession of brick walls before he'd even got out of the starting blocks.

He received virtually non-existent support from the poultry industry (no surprises there) as he remained a driven and determined soul, wanting to show 'us' the usual conditions the 39 dayers were reared in - he was left with no alternative but to mock up his own rearing shed, which I suspect was an emotionally  draining and torturous project.

1/2 the chickens were intensively reared in the 'usual' way.  The other 1/2 were free rangers, given environmental stimuli and the God given outdoors to forage around and exercise in, with the chance to take in the wind, the sun, the rain and simple liberty.

The difference between the two sides of Hugh's shed was startling and my heart thumped hard in my chest as he walked the intensive side, weedling out the weak, disabled, ill or sometimes, simply 'underweight' birds; then they met their untimely death at his hands. 

The tears we saw him break into were not manufactured.  They came from an inner bellyaching disgust for what he felt he had to go through (and put those birds through), to 'enlighten' us and more importantly to enforce change.

He played God and I suspect the guilt of those meaningless deaths will haunt him whatever the eventual outcome of the 'Chicken Out' experiment.

Today, the BBC reports that Battery farm eggs will be banned by 2012 and this adds a delighted weight to Hugh's argument for urgent attention to be paid to the poultry industry.

I wish Hugh every success in making this campaign a cornerstone in the change of animal husbandry history in this country and take my hat off to the brave man in doing so.

You can lend your important support to this campaign by signing the Chicken Out Campaign Petition.  Visit the website and add your details.

At the time of writing this piece, the supporters ring in a total of 57,772 - I wonder what it will be in a week...?

I'll track this story and report back with more news as I find it.

Let's make Hugh's intensively reared chickens really count for something.

TS x x