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Yes Ina you're right about Organic standards. Before we got our own hens we only bought Woodland free range eggs from S@insburys, where hens are able to forage & shelter under trees.

Remember soil association organic certification has many more stringent rules (alot of them are about animal welfare) than regular organic rules. There are also rules about free range, you can't just go calling things organic and free range, there are rules. From what I understand 'barn' doesn't really mean anything - infact you can get more birds crammed onto the floor of the barn than you can with caged birds.

Annpan wrote:Remember soil association organic certification has many more stringent rules (alot of them are about animal welfare) than regular organic rules.

And that goes in particular for poultry production, which is why most organic poultry producers in the UK are with other certifiers... At least that's how it was a few years ago.

DominicJ wrote:Why do you assume free range is better than barn?
I realise when someone says free range you think Eglu in the garden, but the reality is quite different.
Chickens DONT range very far

I quite disagree with this. 20+ years of rearing chooks, and I know they range far and wide, somewhat dependent on breed (some are quite lazy, and poor foragers) and age (some of my older roosters and hens that I keep on don't go more than 100 feet or so from their night roost). Most of the poultry we have now has access to 15 acres, and depending on time of year, many of the birds will make the most of all of it.

As far as free ranging tainting the meat as one person paraphrased their butcher as saying, I think that's just bollocks.... free ranged older meat (we don't process our roosters till they are at least 8 months old, mostly full-grown) has a REAL taste, which store bought chicken, even free ranged (killed at just a couple of months old) chicken doesn't have, and which over the years we have come to prefer. We kill more than 50 roosters a year for home consumption.

Andrea
NZ

Annpan wrote:Remember soil association organic certification has many more stringent rules (alot of them are about animal welfare) than regular organic rules. There are also rules about free range, you can't just go calling things organic and free range, there are rules. From what I understand 'barn' doesn't really mean anything - infact you can get more birds crammed onto the floor of the barn than you can with caged birds.

There are a lot of rules and some not for the good. I looked into keeping 20 chickens for eggs and meat and hopefully to sell a few to my neighbours.... bad idea. You can't even knock your own chickens now.... Also to call a bird organic you only need to feed it food that contains 85% organically grown food. WHY??? I liken it to running a car on 15% diesel and 85% petrol.. you just wouldn't do it. Also you have to have a floor area of 1.5sq ft per bird but this has seen an increase in pests and disease. If you extend that floor space to 2sq ft per bird they don't get many problems at all if any.
They also have to spend at least 50% of their life outside. As I said I was going to have 20 chickens in a coup with a floor area of 50sq ft and feed 100% organic food. I was going to let them roam free in my garden that has an area of trees and bushes and only knock them down after 85 days but what really stopped me was that i had to have an organic certification from Defra and that would cost over £5500 to aquire and then £1700 a year to renew.

I'm going to look at this again in the new year but only do it for my family and not sell anything.