bucketFountain

While I was sussing out the NZ web design scene, I came across the company that designed the Tegal poultry site. Tegal is New Zealand’s best known brand of cook-at-home-chicken and turkey, and I was relieved to read that all their chickens are barn raised (scroll to the bottom of the page):

Broiler chickens are raised in large, modern, well equipped barns. They are free to move around, with access to food and water 24 hours a day.

Excellent. But then I thought, what does barn raised really mean? I had a quick look on Google and found this on the Auckland Animal Action web site.

Broiler chickens are chickens raised for their meat. They are reared in packed sheds, with up to 45,000 other chickens. This often gives each chicken a space the size of an A4 piece of paper. They live in these sheds for the whole of their 6-7 weeks lives…

and

As if the life of a broiler chicken wasn’t hellish enough, their death is even worse.

I haven’t eaten much chicken over the last few months because I suspected that most UK/European chickens lived and died in appalling conditions. I had thought that chickens in NZ would have space to roam, but being naive I underestimated the power of the profit motive.

That about wraps it up for Tegal – I think I’ll go organic from now on.