Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to watch episode 2 of Hugh’s Chicken Run, which is a BBC show that features Britain’s own Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (of River Cottage fame) exposing the realities of commercial chicken production.
I intended to write about this yesterday, when I could still feel the fire of indignation in my belly, but the more retarded of our 3 cats chewed through the power cord on my laptop charger, thus leaving me without access to the interwebs. My ranting has likely grown a little more subdued than it would have been immediately following the show, but it still raised questions nonetheless.
In the second episode, Hugh takes a group of people he’s convinced to raise chickens on a tour of a poultry-rearing facility that he’s constructed as a small-scale model of the difference between conventional and free range birds. He fills half of the giant shed with 1,600 chicks destined to have a relatively charmed existence, while the remaining 2,400 or so( of the 4,000 birds he starts with) are crammed into the same size shelter on the other side of the barn.
The free range birds obviously have a little more space because there are less of them on their side of the shed, but they also get perks like bales of hay to roost on, balls to play with, CDs to peck at and access to the great outdoors. What might seem like small concessions make a world of difference to these birds, as is evidenced by the flock of perky, upwardly mobile chickens pecking and scratching around.
By contrast, the conventional birds were much more cramped in their space, and had no “toys” to play with at all. After several weeks they could barely walk, having eaten so much (during the 23 hours a day they’re encouraged to eat) that the poor birds had grown faster than their legs could support. The carpet of bird shit was so heavy that apparently the barn stank of ammonia and many chickens were getting “hot spots” on their legs and feet (which is a pleasant way of saying they were being burned by the chemical reactions of so much shit coming into contact with their extremities). Having so many birds confined to such a tiny area also increases the chance of illness infesting a flock, so any time a sick or slow bird was found, it had to be removed.
On top of that, Fearnley Whittingstall discusses how he has to cull many chicks because they are smaller than the rest and won’t make “market weight” at the same time. Because this unfortunately represents no profit, they must be dispatched. Throughout the show you can see him becoming increasingly shaken with each cull, but on the conventional side, birds are only given 5 to 6 weeks to live and one cannot risk the safety of the flock with ideals.
Having seen movies like Food Inc. and watched Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, this isn’t a subject I’m new to, and I’m not naive about mass market food production and the steps that have to be taken to feed an industrial civilization. Unsurprisingly, when most of the participants took the tour of the 2 halves of the barn, they were distressed and disgusted, with the exception of one woman who refused to be affected by it all because cheap as chips industrial was all she could afford.
Personally I have 2 objections to all of this.
Firstly, I have a hard time listening to people complain about what food they can and can’t afford. Many people will cry afoul of food costs rising beyond 10% of their income, but will happily shell out money for big screen TVs, cell phones, video games and all manner of other things that aren’t truly necessities. They didn’t really delve too much into this woman’s situation for me to make a fair assessment of her particular lot in life, but generally speaking, if eating more ethically raised food was important to her (or anyone) priorities would be rearranged to find the money to pay for such.
That being said, my bigger issue is with the way people don’t seem to care about the inhumanity of this kind of farming operation. Let me draw a parallel to the moral outrage around veal. People are so shocked and appalled about veal being reared in a tiny little space and killed when it’s still technically a baby, but nobody cares about chickens being raised in a similar manner and killed when they are only weeks old. Why is that? Is a cow cuter? Speaking as someone who loves cows but also eats veal, I don’t think an animal’s beauty (or lack thereof) makes the manner in which it is raised any less important.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a vegetarian. I eat meat 4 or 5 nights a week, but the difference is I make sure that I know where the meat I buy comes from and how it was raised. I also don’t waste any of it, because not only does it cost me a bit more to buy organic grass-fed meat, but I know that an animal’s life is worth something, so I’m not going to just callously throw it away because I am a top of the food chain carnivore. One of the women was incredulous when Fearnley Whittingstall proceeded to make enough roasted chicken risotto for 6 with the remains of a roasted bird, explaining that she usually throws away most of the carcass and leftovers because she doesn’t know what to do with them.
Honestly though, I’m more interested in hearing what all of you think. So, have at it!
Until next time…
Tags: Food Inc., Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Hugh's Chicken Run, Jamie Oliver, Jamie's Fowl Dinners, rantings, River Cottage
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