Backyard Poultry Info Centre

Does anyone no of any brands that sell cooked chicken that has come from free range chooks.I like chicken but am always a little guilty when eating it knowing this animal has had a tough life.

Yep Homegrown. It's probably the only one i'd trust these days.

FREE range chickens is actually misleading.

Not only do they tell me I have to pay for them, in most cases they charge more.

The only chicken I'd really trust to be true free-ranging an cruelty-free chicken would be my own or a good, trusted friend's one. Unfortunately, I neither have meat chicken myself (I first have to find a place for us to live with lots of space and green grass) nor do I have friends who raise and sell their own meat chicken.

The second best I could recommend is the "Bendele Farm" in Queensland (Bendele Farm Pty Ltd, Bular Rd, Kilkivan, QLD 4600, p: (07) 5484 7157), an organic poultry farm. They sell their chicken all over Australia and they are the only producers of organic chicken that at least promised, that they truly let them free-range, raise them properly and don't have these terrible animal transports (since they have the facilities for slaughtering on their farm). They also told me, that they don't use machines for slaughtering, but that everything is done by hand.

All the other producers of so called "free-range chicken" didn't really answer any of my questions. Since Bendele's birds are quite expensive (the online-store that sells them in Qld charges $ 18.50 pp for a whole chicken!) and hard to get (in Qld you can get them via order in an online shop and at some butchers, in Melbourne I bought them either on QVM or at Renidna's butchery), me and my family are only eating one or two Bendele chicken a year (and these days are a big celebration) - I'd rather eat no chicken than chicken that had to suffer more than absolutely necessary to end on my plate.

I ate these few chicken with a good feeling in the last couple of years and they tasted absolutely fantastic. But in the current issue of "Queensland Smart Farmer", which I collected free at my produce store, there is an interesting article about the Bendele Farm. I learned, that Bendele now is processing more than 2000 chickens and 400 ducks a week. I wonder, if this still can be done by hand and still in a humane way. They house between 500 and 1000 chickens in each paddock of about 1 acre. To me this is not truly free-range, but yet, definitely better than anything else, I've heard about commercial chicken farming.

I've been buying Lilydale Free Range chicken, tastes nice and doesn't cost too much. I think it's available in most states. The label is a Baiada Poultry product, and I've recently read that they use gmo free poultry feed. That is a big plus for me. Some info at these sites if you're interested - LFR is in the products tab on the Baiada site.
http://www.baiada.com.au/aboutus/accreditation.html#
http://www.truefood.org.au/popup2b.html?productid=638

Well, Lilydale (as well as Ingham) also refused to comment any of my questions concerning animal transport, more informations about their understanding of "free ranging", methods of slaughtering etc. ...

Nostress I live just off Hawkesbury Road at Moggill, the chook trucks travel from here to the abattoir, they are Ingham trucks and cages.

Here in WA we have Mt Barker Free Range chicken at Coles on sale, for a bit extra of course...

Mt Barker being just up the road form me I hear a few things. Chook conditions not so good if all I hear is correct. But I must say it tastes pretty good!

Nels