I'm not sure about eating-chicken, but as far as egg-laying chickens go, there used to be (and probably still are) complicated definitions of what labels like "free range" technically mean -- I believe some of them are not a lot better than battery farming.
Is there still a market sometimes in Gloucester Green where local farmers sell meat? You might be able to ask the farmers/vendors there about the specific conditions on their farms if you're looking for happier ducks/pigs.
On the duck front, I read an article a while back about how duck farming is probably the most cruel of all poultry farming in the UK because barn-farmed ducks generally have no access to water in which to splash or swim, which is very distressing to an animal that evolved to live on water. It was an animal-rights-ish article (possibly from PETA or something similar), but even accounting for the huge bias, it sounded plausible (to me), though I guess they may only have been presenting facts from the worst examples of such practices.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-01-01 06:50 pm (UTC)Is there still a market sometimes in Gloucester Green where local farmers sell meat? You might be able to ask the farmers/vendors there about the specific conditions on their farms if you're looking for happier ducks/pigs.
On the duck front, I read an article a while back about how duck farming is probably the most cruel of all poultry farming in the UK because barn-farmed ducks generally have no access to water in which to splash or swim, which is very distressing to an animal that evolved to live on water. It was an animal-rights-ish article (possibly from PETA or something similar), but even accounting for the huge bias, it sounded plausible (to me), though I guess they may only have been presenting facts from the worst examples of such practices.