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Millymollymandy wrote:But organic doesn't necessarily mean free range!

Really? I didn't know that.

You can have chooks running around a field but still feed them chemicals, antibiotics, you name it!

I can see that 'free range' doesn't mean 'organic', but I thought 'organic' necessarily implied 'free range'.

I don't think so - they can be reared intensively but fed organic feed and thus labelled 'organic', all the while the consumer thinks they are eating a bird that once was happily free ranging. There was a discussion about this very subject on ACountryLife. Personally I don't actually know the first thing about how poultry are raised in the UK!

I was involved in that discussion, too... As far as I know, the Soil Association standards require free range for organic chickens. I'm not so sure about the other certifying bodies - keep meaning to look it up. I'll make a note of that! I've got the SA standards at home (a massive great big volume), but not the others, so that might take a bit longer to find out.

Generally, it's not just the feed that is different in organic; the requirements for space allowed per animal are generally higher than in conventional - but as I say, this is only generally, I'll have to find out the exact standards.

This organic standard commentary fromDEFRA

8.4 Poultry
8.4.1 Poultry must be reared in open-range conditions and cannot be kept in cages.
8.4.2 Water fowl must have access to a stream, pond or lake whenever the weather
conditions permit in order to respect animal welfare requirements or hygienic conditions.
8.4.3 Buildings for all poultry must meet the following minimum conditions:

- poultry houses must be structures with their own dedicated grazing, air space,
ventilation, feed and water;

- at least one third of the floor area shall be solid, that is, not of slatted or of grid
construction, and covered with a litter material such as straw, wood shavings, sand
or turf;

- in poultry houses for laying hens, a sufficiently large part of the floor area available
to the hens must be available for the collection of bird droppings;

- they must have perches of a size and number commensurate with the size of the
group and of the birds as laid down in Annex VIII;.
- they must have exit/entry pop-holes of a size adequate for the birds, and these pop-
holes must have a combined length of at least 4 m per 100 m2 area of the house
available to the birds;
- each poultry house must not contain more than:

4800 chickens;
3000 laying hens;
5200 guinea fowl;
4000 female Muscovy or Peking ducks or 3200 male Muscovy or Peking ducks
or other ducks;
2500 geese or turkeys;
- the total usable area of poultry houses for meat production on any single production
unit, must not exceed 1,600 m2.
8.4.4 In the case of laying hens natural light may be supplemented by artificial means to
provide a maximum of 16 hours light per day with a continuous nocturnal rest period
without artificial light of at least eight hours.
8.4.5 Poultry, must have access to an open-air run whenever the weather conditions permit
and, whenever possible, must have such access for at least one third of their life. These
open-air runs must be mainly covered with vegetation, be provided with protective
facilities, and permit animals to have easy access to adequate numbers of drinking and
feeding troughs.

Thanks for that - I didn't know DEFRA had that kind of commentary, too. But they aren't a certifying body, so the rules might be different again for each of them. This is probably just the minimum standard that DEFRA will accept for organic.

All the organic chickens sold in Sainsburys are free-range - I assumed the same as Stew. (Because they are so expensive, I wait until they are reduced then stock up, although I supposed that isn't exactly supporting the suppliers).

As soon as the threat of avian flu has passed (I know, I know, I am over anxious on this topic!!) we plan to expland our egg production with some rescued battery hens. So many people say you still get lots of eggs from them and get great satisfaction from seeing them having some kind of life.

I am still not at the stage where I could kill my own chickens to eat them, though, although I understand and agree with all the arguments for producing your own meat. I think I would rather stick to my demi-veg diet!

I currently have 3 hens, only 1 of which seems to be laying now. We treat them as pets and just couldn't eat them just because they produce nothing but poo!!

Chickenlady wrote:All the organic chickens sold in Sainsburys are free-range - I assumed the same as Stew. (Because they are so expensive, I wait until they are reduced then stock up, although I supposed that isn't exactly supporting the suppliers).

Well... they'll still get paid for their birds, it's just that Mr S might stop buying them if they repeatedly don't sell.

Extract from Soil Association Organic Standards, April 2005 (updated January 2006):

20.7.14
You must not house your poultry permanently.

20.8.2
Your poultry must have:
- access to properly managed pastures which are well covered with suitable vegetation
- access to shelter at all times
- protection from predators, and
- enough cover in the free-range areas to imitate their native habitat and encourage them to range fully. This can be either natural (such as trees, shrubs and cover crops) and/or artificial (such as screens and trailers).

20.8.3
Your poultry must have continous and easy daytime access to pasture, except in adverse weather conditions, for:
- all the laying life of laying poultry
- at least two thirds of the life of table poultry.

There are further limits to housing/stocking density, rotation of pasture, daylight hours, etc.

I believe the standards are not quite as restrictive with other certifying bodies (I heard that large organic poultry producers prefer other bodies because they can get away with a bit more), but that's only hearsay at the moment - don't quote me on that. I shall try to find out. Demeter is, if anything, likely to be stricter even than the SA...

Thanks for the info. I hadn't got this impression (that organic must mean free range) from reading the discussions on the other forum but I could be wrong!

Extract from Organic Farmers and Growers Standards, July 2005:

8.8.29 (Annex IB8.4.5)
Poultry must have access to an open-air run whenever the weather conditions permit and whenever possible must have such access for at least one third of their life. These open-air runs must be mainly covered with vegetation, be provided with protective facilities, and permit animals to have easy access to adequate numbers of drinking and feeding troughs.

http://www.organicfarmers.org.uk/licens ... July05.pdf

A bit more wishy-washy than the SA standards, I think.

There are a lot of misconceptions about organic production around, unfortunately - I always try to point out what the truth is behind rumours. As always, the few "black sheep" that exist in organic farming as well as conventional make the news - but the vast majority of them stick to very strict standards, which are inspected regularly; if they didn't keep to the rules, they'd lose their certification and a lot of money (plus credibility, and customers).

Organic Food Federation has practically the same wording as Organic Farmers and Growers (Standards September 2005) http://www.orgfoodfed.com/OFF%20Standards.htm

They allow larger units than the SA - smaller units generally have a better chance of escaping serious health problems, so you are likely to get away with less need for medication etc. SOPA (Scottish Organic Producers Association) doesn't have the standards on the web (at least not for non-members). Demeter is similar to the others already mentioned: http://demeter.net/ They are international standards, the translation (from German) is a bit funny...

The Soil Association mark is fairly common in supermarkets in their organic section. Once I learned that with meat it also meant a certain quality of life as well as organic I always looked for the Soil Association marker. Interestingly, although it's on organic chicken, lamb and beef I've never seen it on the organic pork in the supermarket. Poor piggies I appreciate it's not the be all and end all, but it is a an easily identifiable handy indicator of some assurance. There are often more markers, but personally I find it difficult to rember which markers are worth the ink and which are meaningless! So it's the Soil Association one I look for.

Alcina

I think there's still a serious shortage of organic pork in Britain, but it does exist - this is the first one that came to my mind:
http://www.helenbrowningorganics.co.uk/

You might be better off ordering meat online - you usually get more information on the farms that way, too!