Current shortages are down to the loss of several large commercial flocks to AI, plus, supermarkets are paying something like 30p less than the cost of production for a dozen eggs, because of the soaring price of feed - producers are just not re-stocking (which takes place every 18-24 months, once the commercial life of layers come to an end).
EGGS!!!
- Thread starter Vinny
- Start date
Barrymagrec
pfm Member
So chicken feed isn`t chicken feed these days?
gavreid
Pretty Words...
ah that explains why there's no guineafowl to be had.
Pass....
Apart from guineafowl available via game dealers - source unknown, the only others have always been labelled Gresham, in the supermarkets, again, source unknown. I did know a farmer/small-holder who reared them as a "cash crop", but they are right royal PITA to pluck - having reared them and tried, I can only agree whole-heartedly.
Even if the international trade in gamebirds destined for release/shooting has been effectively stopped, it absolutley has not been stopped for commercial layers and broilers - WAY too much ££££ involved. Look the numbers up online - the UK exports VAST, verging on unbelievable, numbers of day-old layers, but more especially broilers. The figure of one billion broilers reared in the UK each year seems to ring a bell, which obviously does not include exports.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
Not quite true. And I said they could, not that they did.
Whilst Brexit made it more complicated to import game bird chicks and eggs, the main thing stopping the importation of game bird chicks and eggs this year are temporary French export restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of Avian Flu. There are plenty of game dealers happy to take orders for next year and they will be free to use French supplies if the French Govt lifts the export ban.
I know several Free Range Egg producers who were happy to go along with the UK restrictions re bird flu and bring their birds indoors, but were incandescent that no corollary UK gov restrictions were placed on either the importation of game eggs and chicks or the release of (native reared and non-native reared) game bird chicks into the wild.
Fortunately, the French kiboshed the former, whilst shoots across the land were permitted to release millions of natively reared chicks into the wild in the middle of an avian flu pandemic.
And, if you're going to randomly bring animal welfare into it, which reeks of something cut from the playbook of the BASC, whilst game birds might be better off than most chickens, the native fauna killed to ensure the profitability of shoots most definitely are not.
@foxwelljsly - I have friends who shoot and even farm game.
I KNOW what I am talking about - you are just quoting received conjecture and assumption as you patently actually know nothing.
Also, completely and utterly irrelevant as the commercial import/export of domestic poultry carries-on, at many thousands of times the volume.
I KNOW what I am talking about - you are just quoting received conjecture and assumption as you patently actually know nothing.
Also, completely and utterly irrelevant as the commercial import/export of domestic poultry carries-on, at many thousands of times the volume.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
I am more than happy to be swayed by facts if you would care to offer any. Your friends sound lovely.
hifinutt
hifinutt
must be unbelievably hard having to fill skips with dead birds . no wonder many farms are considering their future
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-63743217
2.3 million birds been culled since october
mandryka
pfm Member
On a lighter note I’ve actually found some supermarket eggs which I think are exceptional, from Marks and Spencers- These - I’d never seen them before and it’s hard to find an image on the web - but if you see them, buy them
https://www.google.com/search?q=mar...g&biw=1024&bih=653&dpr=2#imgrc=r5iQOghi2Sjv6M
https://www.google.com/search?q=mar...g&biw=1024&bih=653&dpr=2#imgrc=r5iQOghi2Sjv6M
There are currently no free-range eggs in the UK - the birds were housed 2? 3? weeks back. The regulations allow them to be labelled as free-range for 3? 4? weeks after housing. They then become barn eggs.
The only difference is that the pop-holes on the sheds are closed.
If anyone is seriously curious or interested, seach BBC R4, but around 2 weeks ago they interviewed someone whose pretty much entire professional academic life has been involved with studying commercial chicken behaviour. I cannot remember the actual percentages but some small % of commercial free-range layers spend any significant time outside the shed, most make a few brief excursions outdoors and a small % never go outside.
The only difference is that the pop-holes on the sheds are closed.
If anyone is seriously curious or interested, seach BBC R4, but around 2 weeks ago they interviewed someone whose pretty much entire professional academic life has been involved with studying commercial chicken behaviour. I cannot remember the actual percentages but some small % of commercial free-range layers spend any significant time outside the shed, most make a few brief excursions outdoors and a small % never go outside.
Tigerjones
Bagpuss
Doubtful
There is one major problem in trying to answer that - anthropomorphism.
I very well remember an interview with a life-long, long-in-the-tooth, farm vet' when free range suddenly grabbed people's imagination and the flocks started to grow - probably broilers at first. That has got to be 20+ yeras ago. For the first time in his professional life, he started to see lots of diseases and parasites in chickens that he had never seen before in his entire career.
In some sections of the Severn valley, free-range has now become so intensive that it is causing major and problematic eutrophication of the river - maybe 2 years back there were moves to reduce poultry numbers and there were certainly not going to be any more permits issued for new housing for new flocks.
Chickens are actually vile creatures unless kept in small groups - just as starters they eat each other to some greater or lesser degree.
Least stressed hens - probably singletons, or 2-3-4-5 birds in large pens with lots of things to occupy them.
Nearest that will happen commercially - very probably enriched colony cages. No predators, no disease, no parasites, warm, dry, no gales, food and water ad-lib, somewhere to dust bathe, a block to keep beaks and claws in trim, perches, a secluded laying area, just small groups of hens in each cage.
99% of people want cheap food............................... and recently, a lot of those NEED cheap food.
Hazelberry
sister
Indeed. But consumers don’t like hearing it.
Sinking into anthropomorphism again - DO NOT buy milk (or any dairy product).
The VAST majority of milk is produced from cattle that have their calves removed after just a very few days from birth.
So far as I am aware, the near routine practise of culling day-old pure-bred dairy breed bull calves has declined, probably largely due to sexed semen being normal these days, although Brexit may well have screwed that to some greater or lesser degree (lots of bull calves were shipped abroad for veal production as Europe in general eats an awful lot more veal than we do in the UK). On the larger scale, you then enter into the "problem" of veal, and pink v. white veal.
mandryka
pfm Member
I don't think so. But this is probably not the place.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Gosh! Are they gold-plated? My medium common or garden S'bury's half dozen cost £1.30, and that had gone up from below a £ since August.
I understand that the French never eat two eggs as one is un oeuf