Chickens and battery farming

A discussion in the car this morning as Heath drove me home from Macarthur ( I was too tired to make it all the way home, so he came to rescue me. Isn't that sweet!??) was about the local chicken farms. We pass a hatchery and today for some reason I pointed it out.
There are several in my area, the Maldon hatchery, Picton/Maldon new chicken farm at the round about and a few near Menangle.
All quarantine areas. I am well aware than, not being a vegan or vegetarian is part of the spawn of these factories but this is not the point of my post. There are ways of raising animals for food and still giving quality of life. My mother had cows, meat cows and we gave them the best life a cow could want. The best vet care and the safest environment a cow would enjoy. The same for our sheep.

I loved my chickens, I am a closet chicken aficionado and fully believe all animals should get the best life they can for the time they are here.

Following from this, Heath was telling me about a documentary on raising meat chickens. This was deeply upsetting, as chickens raised in a factory are not given outside time of any description. They cant dust bath,  hunt for bugs and be chickens. This is deeply upsetting. I THINK this is the video below. (**Trigger warning**)

Same for egg factories. SOO I do follow some free range farms who do have web cams so you can watch chickens be chickens.  Have a look :)

Battery farms are simply evil and to rarely buy eggs, when I do its free range from a real free range farm, not one that just puts that on the pack (From Real cost of eggs - " Australian Egg Corporation Ltd (AECL), the Australian egg industry body, is planning changes to egg farming standards that would turn free range into another form of factory farming.

Current (voluntary) standards allow free range egg farmers to keep up to 1,500 chickens per hectare, but for AECL this is not enough. AECL wants to increase this to allow a staggering 20,000 laying hens per hectare and to call eggs produced under these intense conditions 'free range', to attract a premium price.")Battery hens (Warning **UPSETTING VIDEO**)

Free range farm  web cams

Manning Valley  
Eco eggs. 
Gorge Creek Orchard

There are a heap more but happy chicken make me smile.


Oh and in writing this I went down the rabbit hole of breeds of chickens and have plotted my 1/4 acre to have chickens.. now to quit my job so I can be home to put them to bed at night to keep them safe....One day I will have my beloved birds again.

XOXO

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