Free Range Chickens

Although we have cut about 90% of meat out of our diet in recent months, I'm finding I'm having difficulty with the last 10%... and most of the issue is really to do with my own laziness! Pounding out a chicken breast fillet schnitzel and pan frying it for a couple of minutes really bulks out a simple salad; the kids like it and it's quick. I realise that there must be numerous vego alternatives to this but I suppose I have to be realistic when I only have so many hours in the day to investigate these alternatives, so at this stage I will look at phasing that one or two meat meals a fortnight out over the next 6 months or so.

In the meantime, when the last of the biodynamic beef in our freezer has been used up we will be cutting out red meat completely, beef production uses a huge amount of water in our dry climate (around 16 cubic metres of water is required to produce 1kg of beef - 1kg of cheese requires 5 cubic metres and 1kg of grain requires 1-2 cubic metres).

Pork products aren't quite as bad, and chicken uses even less (but still much more than grains and pulses, with the exception of rice). I'm having trouble giving up bacon completely, I have to admit that I love the flavour :-( I'm working on it, in the meantime I am buying small amounts of organic bacon.

Chicken is probably the biggest issue for us and would make up 80% of the meat we do eat. The average conventionally grown chicken costs around $9-$12 a kilo at my local supermarket for breast fillet, whilst organic from my local organic retailer is $16.95 per 500g (i.e. $34 a kilo). That's a massive drain on our budget! So I am compromising by buying free range chicken from the local supermarket at about $16-$18 a kilo. So I've done some research to see what the biggest differences between organic and free range chickens are in Australia. Incidentally, according to the Baiada website, chickens are normally ready for processing (slaughtering) in 5-8 weeks - during that time the average batch of chickens (typically around 45,000!) consumes 200 tonnes of feed, 600,000 litres of water and produces 30 tonnes of manure.

Free range chickens in Australia are usually accredited by the Free Range Egg and Poultry Association (look for the FREPA logo). Part of this accreditation specifies that:

HOUSING
1. Chicks must be reared on deep litter from day old. Battery brooding is not allowed.
2. Pullets must have permanent access to weatherproof housing with deep litter floors and contain sufficient perches to enable normal training roosting of all birds.
3. Rearing/pullet stocking density is related to usable area in the housing. Post brooding shall not exceed 10 kg per square metre and at 16 weeks of age shall not exceed 15 kg per square metre.
FEEDING
1. The use of growth promotants and hormones are not permitted.
2. Clean dry feed comprising only natural products, grains and natural sources of vitamins and minerals must be used. If meat by-products are included in the diet they must be heat treated.
FREE RANGE RUN.
1. The maximum stocking density is 750 birds per hectare.
2. All birds when fully feathered (approx 4 weeks) must have unrestricted access to the free-range runs during the daylight hours.
3. The area where the pullets are permitted to range shall have adequate shade/wind/predator protection and be capable of long-term sustainability with adequate natural ground cover. If vegetation disappears under adverse seasonal conditions then alternative natural range should be implemented until ground cover can be re-established.
HUSBANDRY PRACTICES.
1. All bird mutilation practices are unnecessary at the above stocking densities and are prohibited. (Beak trimming etc).

The main points that I was interested in were that no beak trimming is allowed, they must have access to perches, no growth promotants or hormones are used and that they must have access to natural groundcover, and by implication, not just dirt.

I have read stories of poultry producers using artificially bred chickens that have breast tissue so heavy that they can't walk around properly for their last few weeks, so I looked up some farms to see if I could find any information on the breed/s they use - one company is the Lilydale Select Free Range Chicken farms (owned by Baiada) that have farms located mostly in the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Their website says that they use the "Cobb" breed of chickens. "Cobb" it turns out is the "Cobb 500" produced by the Cobb-Vantress poultry research and production company. If you want a good example of animals treated as "products" (their word), check out this link :-\ Anyway, it seems that this breed is pretty much universal in the poultry meat production industry around the world, and is bred for all-round consistency which includes good skeleton strength, so I suppose the free range chooks I buy are unlikely to be disabled by overly-large breast tissue...

My next question was then regarding GM feeds, and it seems that GM soy and soy products are routinely fed to them, amongst their other feeds. In fact, Lilydale (Baiada) free range chickens and some Bartter-Steggles chooks had been labelled as "GM-Free" until the Australian Consumers Association brought it to the attention of the ACCC, who then ordered them to stop in 2004.

What about the environmental record of the companies then? What are they doing with all that manure?? The brand I buy is the Lilydale one so I concentrated on them. They are owned by Baiada and their website actually has a reasonable amount of information about their environmental policies. They are a signatory to the National Packaging Covenant, and 11 of their sites have ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems certification, with the remaining sites to follow. They have a tree-planting program aligned with Greening Australia for various operating sites and have a partnership between the Sydney hatchery and the Featherdale Wildlife Park which allows them to grow eucalypts on their site to harvest to feed to their koalas. They are also a member of the "Every Drop Counts" water conservation program funded by Sydney Water. So, in the overall scheme of things, not as bad a company as some, although I still don't know what the hell they do with all that manure? I *think* some of it goes to dynamic lifter companies, but that's an investigation for another day.

My verdict? If you just can't give up meat, and like me, you just can't afford organic in your budget, Australian FREPA-accredited free range chicken seems to be a reasonable alternative in the interim.