dismayed at a t3$c0 free range chicken

[mrsflibble]

I buy whole, free range chickens and joint them myself to freeze. the most recent one, however, upset me and worried me a lot.
1. it had massive hock burns. I know sometimes chickens have marks on the legs where they've sat in mud etc, but these were full on burns and there were marks on the meat too.
2. its hip joints showed signs of arthritis, generally a hip joint filled with blood and with very little cartillage on the ball means they've been sat aorund. it happens a lot on intensive farmed chicken.
3. there was something odd about the breast. as I pared it off the bone, the meat nearest to the bone felt slightly cooked. it was firmer and less transluscent than the rest of the boobie, it was almost as if the chicken had had an electric shock somewhere neat its breast bone and the heat had travelled down the bone. there was also a lot of raised blood vessels on one breast and it looked like a bruise would have formed, had the chicken lived. (I watch a LOT of CSI type programmes with autopsies lol)

I am really worried about this, and also very annoyed as it wasn't cheap. I pay £10 expecting the chicken to have been treated better.

what do I do? write to Mr T? I kept the label with the farm identification number stamp thing on it.

[pelmetman]

We buy most of our free range chicken from Sainsb...., they are always reasonably priced and seem OK.

Sue

[Graye]

That sounds definitely odd.

There is little point in taking it back to your local branch, they merely unpack stuff and put it on the shelves. They will refund your money and forget about it.

Do you have any photos before you froze the joints? If so I personally would head off to the local Trading Standards and ask them what they think.

[that_sarah_girl]

this sounds like the kind of thing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would love to hear about!

[trinder]

What a disgraceful state of affairs. If I read your post right it looks as though this supposed "better lifestyle" chicken had not had a better time at all. Apart from fraud it is the reputation of T ***o that should concern them. I would think that's your best bet take the packaging information and your findings to a t****o complaints dept they would be more inclined to investigate.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

What a disgraceful state of affairs. If I read your post right it looks as though this supposed "better lifestyle" chicken had not had a better time at all. Apart from fraud it is the reputation of T ***o that should concern them. I would think that's your best bet take the packaging information and your findings to a t****o complaints dept they would be more inclined to investigate.

I'd agree. Many people would not know what to look for, but if T€$co are selling battery birds as free range - even inadvertantly through that simple thing human error - it shouldn't be ignored.

[mrsflibble]

I don't have any photos which I am kicking myself for now. I'll email T***o and find out what they want to say about it.

[mrsflibble]

well i phoned the customer services, told them my concerns and they're sending me a refund and also are "going to make their suppliers aware of it" which means bugger all. if i had the whole packaging and preferably the chicken, they would do more of an investigation but as I only have the barcode bit of the bag with the farm code and red tractor on it, they can't do naaaffink.

they're sending me a refund, which is nice but it's not what I wanted. I am concerned about the chickens not about the money (although that IS a factor).

[bonniethomas06]

That's dreadful. Surely if they have the farm code, they can work out which farm it was!?

The problem with huge outfits like Tescum is that they are too big to care - chances are their customer services department is staffed with 21 year olds who couldn't care less.

We pay less than £10 for a chicken in our local farm shop - could you try somewhere else instead? Riverford Organic do meat boxes and I am sure I have paid less than £10 for a chicken, delivered (admittedly with other stuff).

[mrsflibble]

I can only get to supermarkets, we have a local farm shop but their meat isn't free range and I can't get to it without a car

[Graye]

They have basically fobbed you off, which is what they manage to get away with for probably 99% of their complaints. Their "complaints department" is not there to actually put complaints right, it's there to pay people off to get rid of the complainant as cheaply and easily as possible. You have enough to identify the chicken's source so the full packaging (and the chicken for that matter) are not needed for them to establish that the meat is produced and reared properly. I would push them a bit harder to do something constructive to check the details and insist they let you know what they discover. If they don't then I suspect Trading Standards would be more than interested. Because as sure as eggs is eggs they will NOT do anything otherwise to put things right. They think paying you to go away with a full refund is enough, which it certainly isn't. You aren't really complaining about the meat as such but potentially a lot more - if the chicken was not free range or was mistreated it needs addressing.

[eco-mick]

This reminds me of this evening shop to T***o and Sainsburys as I was looking at their birds on sale.

Yes you can see the hock burns as well - I even noticed on some attempts of removal of the burns from the skin by cut marks.

Also, certain corn feed breast meat with the skin on - some of them are so pale I have to wonder if they even free range meat at all.

Stopped buying meat lately as I feel we are being conned in a way. I want to see it running around the field now before I consider having it for tea.

[Dr.Syn]

Speaking about this with the other half she said she had seen something about this on a TV programme concerning the welfare of chickens and maybe the burns were from electric fences. In the programme the fences were very near to the feeding area.

[mrsflibble]

I've heard that too, but the partially cooked portion of the breast on this bird would have killed the animal had it been an electrocution, so unless they go to the field, scoop up dead chickens and then ready them for sale I'd be surprised!

[snapdragon]

I shall ask t'dragon - who used to work for a major chicken supplier - and get back to you