Speaking of chickens
In the Netherlands, Wakker Dier has made great efforts to keep the so-called floppy chickens out of supermarkets. This well-bred chicken breed 'lives' with 20 chickens per square metre, sees no daylight and reaches 6 kilograms of slaughter weight within 2 weeks.
Dutch TV shows a Wakker Dier commercial with a certain regularity, in which Albert Heijn in particular is having a hard time because this large grotter is one of the few that still sells the plofkip. You would hardly want to believe it, but in the Netherlands alone, more than 300 million chickens are bred for slaughter every year, 2/3 of which are of a fast-growing breed that includes the so-called Plofkip and Supermarktkip.
Group division
To start with the most animal-unfriendly rearing method, the Plofkip, followed by the Supermarket chicken, the chickens with the Beter Leven Keurmerk with one, two or those stars respectively, and the most animal-friendly bred Organic chicken.
The graph shows the population in weight per square meter and the minimum age at slaughter of the chickens.
It can clearly be deduced that it cannot be said of the Supermarket chicken that it is bred so much more animal-friendly than the maligned Plofkip.
Flocking chickens suffer most in the fifth and sixth week of their lives. In the closed barn, each chicken has less space than one A4. They often have difficulty walking and stand cramped with spread legs trying to find balance. The animals spend their lives in their own poop. The combination of a damp, acidic floor and too little exercise leads to painful ulcers on the soles of their feet. Their normal foraging behavior has become impossible. Actually a shame that we in a prosperous country still allow this to happen. For a few cents more you can buy a more animal-friendly bred chicken that also tastes a lot better than the watery Plof and Supermarket chickens.
Source: NRC
The situation worldwide
Worldwide - don't be alarmed - 60 billion chickens are bred for consumption and all of them are definitely not under animal-friendly conditions. You could say that the Netherlands is even very animal-friendly compared to Asian countries in particular.
Walking through a market in Phnom Penh, I couldn't believe how cruel people can be to animals.
The slaughtered chickens were lying at a stall and to demonstrate the freshness, a number of gasping chickens were lying next to the same market stall. All the animals lay more dead than alive with their legs tied together on and over each other on the ground.
When you see something like this, you lose the desire to eat chicken and the question remains what kind of people treat animals in such a cruel way. Not to mention the anti self-advertising. After this sight, I have resolved to buy chicken with the Beter Leven Keurmerk from now on and to avoid floppy and supermarket chickens.
If you want to know more about the plofkip phenomenon, google under plofkip or read the article from the NRC www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/08/19/hoe-plofkip-uit-nederland-verdween-a1613545
If D66's plans go ahead, we will find many more floppy chickens in the supermarket.
Only then is it a chicken bred far from my bed and then no cock crows at it.
The same will apply to pigs, etc.
Can still remember from many years ago that the pig stables in NL were too small for the pigs, they needed more space. Many stables were demolished and shipped to Asia to be rebuilt.
so sad 🙁
Maybe pictures on the packaging would be an idea? On meat products, vegetables and fruit, representative images of the conditions in which the contents lived. I think that makes more of an impression than the price tag or whether or not there are 'better life' stars.
Why are you worrying, don't eat chicken, you don't eat a dog either.
Yes Ruud, you can think so, what are all those action groups supposed to do?
It is true that all those action groups want to rule the roost, it does not matter what anyone else thinks of it, personally I also think that everyone should do what he wants, but every time such a group says what I have to think I can decide that myself? If you don't want something, don't just buy it, right?
We will soon be able to switch to cultured meat (industrially grown, real meat without the use of animals). Then you no longer have to slaughter animals or eat that vegetarian fake junk. Delicious real meat without animals.
Here are the latest figures from Wakker Dier: https://www.wakkerdier.nl/campagnes/plofkip/plofkip-vrij/
The famous chicken or egg story. Which came first? The normal free-range chicken that is more expensive or the cheap chicken that has to be as cheap as possible at the consumer's request. The holy kilo bangers!
Our taste buds are in the wallet these days. We, the consumers, are to blame.
I read Phnom Penh but in Thailand it happens just as well, and there are more animals than just chickens that are abused. Leaving all meat and fish is the only way to enforce change, but I don't feel like it either………
I vividly remember the images of a slow-moving mass of skinned alive frogs in a large wicker basket at a market in Isaan. Disgusting.
Via the trade agreements concluded with Ukraine, to which the EU was cheering, millions of cheap floppy chickens are once again entering the Netherlands - where we have actually banned the forking of them in the Netherlands.
Incidentally, in Thailand 99% of the chickens and pigs from the same extremely intensive livestock farms have been preventively sprayed with antibiotics.
Apart from the animal suffering, it is also unhealthy to eat.
You would become a vegetarian!!