free-range/cage-free chickens

i decided earlier this week that one of the saddest things i could think of is chickens in large industrial farms spending their entire lives couped in a cage crammed with other chickens, unable to move, until they are slaughtered. essentially meat vegetables. now dont get me wrong i know chickens are bird brains and can be vicious little shits to each other, but i have a weakness for chickens because my mom is a giant hen. regardless, as i'm sure most would agree, it doesn't seem ethical. i understand why many people choose to be vegetarians and i respect and commend that but at the same time i'm very in tune with my inner carnivore and enjoy eating meat and believe on a spiritual level that the chicken lives a completely fulfilled chicken life if it gets to run around and be free and boc and cluck around for a while then become food for an appreciative family. so i was doing some research on what exactly free-range is, and turns out it's a scam (at least here in the US). basically as long as the chicken has access to the outside like five minutes a day then it can be considered free-range. and as far as cage-free goes, here's a picture of that:

(related article from the times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/us/12eggs.html?_r=1

so what's the answer? i dont know really. so far it seems if you want to eat a happy chicken it should be organic. but i need to research further on that. some friends of mine here have their own chickens and sometimes i go over there and feed them bananas. they love bananas. i might try raising my own chickens for the eggs, obviously i would grow attached to them and feel weird about eating them. but you can order a box of chicks for like, a couple of bucks, and build a coop in you backyard. something i might have to look into. i wonder if chickens get along with ducks.

chickens make some pretty fucking awesome noises too.

chickens

I've started buying duck eggs. Duck eggs are amazing. The yolk is really big and dark yellow and supremely delicious. They only cost about 25% more than chicken eggs but they are at least twice as good. The shells are harder too and they never shatter and get in your food when you break the egg. Ducks make amazing noises too. Ducks.

where do you get them? god i hope they dont keep ducks cooped up for that. ducks need to swim around a lot and quack contentedly most of the day.

if you don't want to give up chicken for the reasons outlined above, then consider the crap that is pumped into them throughout their entirely unatural lives. antibiotics... hormones to speed up their growth.... animal waste diet.... thousands of chickens die in the sheds, their prematurely bloated chicken bodies too heavy for their little chicken leggys to carry them, they cant walk. chicken farm workers smash them to death right there in the shed and throw their bloated, smashed up corpses away. their beaks are cut off as chicks to prevent them pecking each other to death. etc etc etc

farmers also smash the teeth out of piglets to stop them attacking each other.

enjoy your bacon chaps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbtBgLfl90

nice

Yeah the way chickens are kept is pretty fucking disgusting, and the only difference in free range chickens is exactly like you say, access to the outdoors for five minutes a day and I believe the food they are fed on is of higher quality. Other than that it's animal cruelty imo. Getting and breeding your own chickens really is the only solution, however, could you really bring yourself to kill it and eat it after you've raised? Raise a chicken and then tell me you didn't find it hard to kill it and eat it. And keep a straight face.

  On 11/14/2009 at 4:11 PM, LUDD said:

if you don't want to give up chicken for the reasons outlined above, then consider the crap that is pumped into them throughout their entirely unatural lives. antibiotics... hormones to speed up their growth.... animal waste diet.... thousands of chickens die in the sheds, their prematurely bloated chicken bodies too heavy for their little chicken leggys to carry them, they cant walk. chicken farm workers smash them to death right there in the shed and throw their bloated, smashed up corpses away. their beaks are cut off as chicks to prevent them pecking each other to death. etc etc etc

 

farmers also smash the teeth out of piglets to stop them attacking each other.

 

enjoy your bacon chaps

And this.

  On 11/14/2009 at 4:02 PM, Fred McGriff said:

where do you get them? god i hope they dont keep ducks cooped up for that. ducks need to swim around a lot and quack contentedly most of the day.

at the supermarket. I have no idea how they are kept, I had a quick google but nothing came up

hey fred I've got a book recommendation for you: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

it's not about chickens specifically but I think you'll dig it.

ducks & geese have got it just as bad, if not worse.

foie gras.

keyword: gavage

very cruel

From a carnivore's point of view they taste better too. There's much more flavour to free range chickens, they're less grey and have more tenderness to them.

did you see Food Inc too?

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/50695-how-can-i-make-some-gravy/page__view__findpost__p__1165836

RELEVANT POST

  On 11/14/2009 at 6:01 PM, Fishtank said:

did you see Food Inc too?

Only monsters.

sheep give birth to little lambs, the lambs then live in the fields with the sheep until they are in prime lamb condition.

then we kill them and eat them.

lamb is the best meat.

LAMB

you have to feel sorry for the little lamb chaps but lets be honest here, they taste fucking delicious.

if god hadnt wanted us to eat animals, why did he make them taste so damn good.

its a trap, the devil did it.

my mate ate a cat in peru recently

  On 11/14/2009 at 6:55 PM, Gump said:

 

 

 

you have to feel sorry for the little lamb chaps but lets be honest here, they taste fucking delicious.

Decided not to go with chops in the post hey?

and I've never eaten cat, but dog can be fairly tasty if prepared right.

....and a guinea pig

  On 11/14/2009 at 8:24 PM, LUDD said:

....and a guinea pig

good god, there's not much meat on those fuckers. Unless peruvian guinea pigs are substantially larger because of all the blow...

you wanna save the chickens? Eat them.

guinea pigs are especially delicious when dunked in gravy.

plus, they're very generous creatures, if you squeeze them they give you brown rice.

*eats gravy soaked brown rice*

i'm kind of into the idea of eating a guinea pig right now. garnish the dish with those little dumb floppy ears.