I would encourage everyone to refrain from consuming animal products as far as possible. For some of us, this will mean becoming a vegan. For others, it will merely mean cutting down on meat consumption. The important thing to remember is that every time you choose not to purchase meat, eggs, milk, or other animal products, you are reducing animal suffering.

I agree that we must do everything possible to reduce the suffering of all animals. Each one of us can start demanding food animal products that have been raised humanely as a way to start pushing the industry to change. However a law banning the farming of battery chickens would be the ultimate solution. I am a vegetarian (although not vegan) and you could give it a try, it really isn't that bad!

Once again the media is waking up to this appalling issue. British Poultry Council's Peter Bradnock is correct when he says "The people who are producing these chickens are producing them to what the market wants." The "market" clearly wants cheap meat so that's what the market gets but at a very high price for the bird. Answer? - let's try and change the "market".
If you buy chicken please buy an organic one if you can afford it - the meat tastes better as well. If we all try to do that the price will fall and this despicable practice will eventually disappear.
A chicken in its natural habitat enjoys space, light and grass - 3 things clearly low in priority for the mass producers. This government acted swiftly on behalf of a few thousand foxes so why won't they clean up this shameful industry where numbers are much higher?

Finally we have a film on an English chicken meat producer. If people really want to see the situation in England and in some other countries they should view the Austrian produced film "We feed the world" which looks at the situation with regard to "meat" production - not only the conditions of the animals but also what happens to them on their way to the table. It is not so brutally shocking as the the French film called, if I remember rightly, "La Vie des Bêtes" (The life of Animals) shown by the British Film Institute in London in the 1950s. About one-third of the viewers left within 20 minutes. It seems to take a long time for the penny to drop, it always does when its money, money, money. But it is not only chickens: what about other animals, including fish? Is it not time that meat, including fish, gave on the packet an indication of the levels of man-made chemicals in the flesh.............. and, why not, how much profit is made by each link in the chain to the consumer?

"Organic birds are allowed to roam free and have perches and other chances to exhibit natural behaviour. However they are three times more expensive than standard chickens."

Well isn't THAT noble of us? Dave I completely agree with you. I believe there will never be peace in the world while we continue to slaughter and treat animals this way.

If you you wish to eat meat, go to a slaughter house, take your children there.. make it a school trip.. it's just where your 'food' comes from.. Why not go?

We do not need it, I have never eaten meat or fish and I am healthy, attractive and fit. We do not need it, so why cause so much fear, brutality and death?

These conditions are appalling, adn not unique, as they always have been, just like those endured by the hapless animals involved in experimentation. If the doors to these companies were open to objective and unexpected inspection, things might change. Gandhi always said that a nation can be judged by the way it treats its animals. Our way is very little different from the horrors of abbatoirs and breeding stations in so many other countries. It is generally agreed that those humans who torture and murder other humans often begin with doing so to animals.

The cruelty on the production of meat products is one of the best examples of the bad effects of the marketing doctrine of give the consumers what they want, sometimes called consumer choice. The assertions of the Poultry Industry spokespeople that they care about welfare illustrates just how much the Industry is purblind about this.
I have been vegan for 25 years and many friends speak to me about this choice, especially when I treat them to my Chocolate Sponge Cake. Three things are universal in their comments. Their lack of knowledge about the production of meat, their justification for eating meat being they like it and their great blindness to the variety, colour and taste of vegan food. Less friendly comments come about "rabbit" food, not "Gorilla or Elephant" food I notice. Universal is the wonderment about cooking a vegan, or vegetarian meal, its assumed expense (its is usually cheaper), and the illinformed question|: where do you get your protein.
Satisfying a consumer that is ignorant of the product, lacking simple culinary skills and with an habitual propensity for a product is one of the successes and the failures of Marketing in the modern world. Helping the producers of meat see the failure, the wrongness, is probably harder than helping consumers of meat see the error of their ways.
I hope that the fact that meat production is now seen as one of the major causes of climate change will give a large stimulus to the change in consumers' knowledge and choices that is needed.

The British Poultry Council's comments are almost laughable.
This is by no means the only film evidence that shows that intensive farming IS dark brutal and uncaring!

It's interesting to note though that they themselves say that birds are not necessarily better off in free range or organic systems!

I watched a program at University in 1992 about this very issue and its even worse for turkeys and some cattle. Back then it was 550 million broilers, now it is 850 million of them. Just the same old same old at the end of the day. Nothing changes and nothing will because the vast majority of people do not read the Independent for one, do not care for another and wabt food as cheap as possible because capatalism dictates it because wages are skewed and winners (company owners) take all.

this seems tobe an issue that re-surfaces every now and then however i question the importance of this issue.broiler chickens serve a common market.the majority of people cannot afford organic goods.broiler chickens are meaty and cheap i think that is near genius.this is animal welfare surely going too far.the conditions that these chickens are bred in maybe they are not perfect but people are being infected with any type of food poisoning so i ask what is the problem?

I agree with many of the comments already posted and am astonished that the industry actually thinks that people condone this kind of activity because they are more concerned about the price of chicken than the conditions of its production. If industry was more transparent about the conditions of its production, and consumers paid more attnetion, then consumers would have a more informed choice about what chickens to buy and from whom. I just hope that those who would then buy chicken do so considering the conditions in which they are raised, sending a strong market signal to the industry farms that animal abuse doesn't pay, which I unfortunately think is the only way to make changes in businesses given the current market structure. So when you buy something, realise that you are also making ethical and political choices that send signals to those who produce those products. Maybe if more of us buy ethically (whether buying 'happy chickens' or no meat at all) we will start to see a change in how those animals (or land for that matter) are treated. And maybe this type of behaviour will encourage governments to improve legislation protecting animals from abuse and suffering.

Broiler growers are making up to 4p per bird profit.This is the same amount they were getting 20 years ago.In that time look at how much the cost of production has risen, water gas and electricity all up, shavings up, labour up, chick prices up and feed up 50% in the last 6 months alone. Until the supermarkets raise the retail price significantly so that the gap between these birds and free range is reduced to the point where free range becomes an attractive option, then the consumer will continue to buy broilers.Producers cannot invest in free range or organic systems or reduce stocking densities in their current broiler flocks until they get the money back to into them. In a recent survey a quarter of poultry farmers said they were quitting the industry in the next 5 years.These are small family businesses who will be replaced by the large producers in this country, and by imports from abroad whose welfare standards British consumers have no control over whatsoever.Instead of kicking the farmer why don't you go kick the supermarket buyers for a change, they are the ONLY people who can influence what consumers buy in their stores.

The majority of comments posted are in support of improving conditions for broiler chickens and the general public are clearly aware of the abusive practices of this industry. So why do so many turn a blind eye at the point of sale in the supermarket? Perhaps viewing the footage will drive the message home to consumers.

As other people have commented, if animal suffering appalls you, then don't eat meat. Yes, it really is that simple.

The British media is not usally helpful when it comes to educating the public on animal welfare and healthy eating so well done The Independent. As a vegetarian i am sick to death of the daily meat eating chef recipe programs on the major TV channels as there are few vegetarian cooking recipes .We are told weekly about the country's obesity problem but little education about remedy, one suspects the meat industry is behind all the adverts which we have to endure over the christmas period .Untill humans move away from capitalisms greed and exploitation for profit people and animals will continue to suffer.

Although these conditions are worse than awful, even seeing the video will not change the majority of the populations eating habits. Most of us could not afford the cost of organic chicken and for those people who'd like to see everyone stop eating meat, that's never going to happen (and I'll gladly take my child to an abattoir, I'd even let them kill the chicken themselves).

The issue of "Cost" for organic meats is, for most of the middle class, less of an issue than the realize. The real "cost" applies to time and effort in lifestyles. Meat dishes are easier to cook and more common, so we have been demanding more of them.

Here is a solution: grow your own veggies or at least some and can them, or buy from a CSA. Then spend the excess cash you saved on organic meats. They cost about twice as much now, but as we have seen with other organic products, the more demand their is, the more pressure we all put on the global market to change their view of how food can be raised.

Firstly, please let us not turn against each other in a veggie-v-meat eater fight. I have been Vegetarian for 14 years now and whilst I have never looked back, I appreciate some people will never give up their love of meat.

For me, the *only* thing I liked about meat (or fish) was the taste. Aside from that, everything else about the two industries were appalling, so I gave them up.

An Italian friend of ours, a prominent food critic over there, tells us that one of the problems in Britain is that we eat cheap poor quality meat every day i.e. processed sausages, bacon etc. According to him it is far better to eat better quality meat, but less often (i.e. 3-4 times a week). Walking past my local McDonald's this morning shows that this 'aint happening any time soon in the UK.

Not withstanding the detrimental long term health implications of a red-meat and cholestrol rich diet, the devastating environmental impact of the meat and fishing industries surely mean that if you care about the planet or it's ecosystem you would give up (non-Organic) meat and fish immediately. (Even better, become a Vegetarian but that's just my opinion!)

If you claim to care about the planet and sustainability but are happy buying mass produced meat or fish down the local supermarket, then you my friend have a contradictory attitude.

If you own a decent car would you consider filling up with the wrong grade or with inferior fuel? So why consider eating cheap low grade food lacking in taste texture and nourishment?

The sheer pleasure of eating decent food (not nessesarily the most expensive) round the Family table is Communion in the truest sense, good for Hugh F.W. in championing the cause.

We don't own the Earth, being only rather second rate custodians,lack of care and respect for animals,plants and the environment will surely come back to haunt us.

Of the 95% of consumers who eat 850 million chickens per annum none of them could reasonably be concerned whether the 850 million chickens are allowed to run around any farmyard or flap their wings or pick grass during their very brief six week lifespan knowing that they are provided with water and feed round the clock; that the health, weight and saleability of every chicken is vital to the farmer's finance and therefore he would not knowingly cause any chicken to physically suffer; that the chickens are reared exclusively to produce meat over a six week lifespan specifically for the table; that like people who were born blind and have no experience of the beauty of nature, the chickens have no experience of life on a farmyard and not being sentient they could not know or care about what they are missing out on; that there are one and a half million children who live in poverty but many of whom at least are able to eat cheap broiler chickens; such children would not be able to eat the vastly expensive chickens grown organically whose meat could not have been enhanced in quantity or quality and which are reared only for the benefit of the chosen lifestyle of paranoid and affluent people and especially and ultimately for the benefit of birds which have more pests and insects and weeds to feed on.

That's capitalism!

Ok, fine. So you posted this article about the appaling lives of chickens.
But what will you do about it?
Go home tonight and have a roast dinner?
Or will you actually HELP to end this suffering, rather than just making people see this and think, oh that's terrible, and skip ahead to other articles?!

Activism - It's not just for hippies anymore.

Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall condemn the welfare conditions for battery chickens but both laud shot game birds as healthy and ethical food. Pheasants and partridge in the UK are not wild, free range and natural but artificially fed and bred before a short release in similarly despicable battery-cage conditions.

Capitalism is the system of production of commodities for profit.

Intensive factory farming methods represent the 'logical' purest expression of the production of food for profit.

Large scale food production distribution and retail, currently in the hands of monopoly capitalism should be taken into public ownership with democratic workers' control and management.

This would ensure that wholesome and healthy food is produced through the utilisation of husbandry methods and techniques that ordinary working people would not regard as completely repugnant. www.socialistparty.org.uk

Meat should be a luxury, not a staple food.

Animal welfare standards suffer because farmers are paid so little for their produce by supermarkets. Supermarkets pay so little because their customers are so eager to buy cheap meat.

This is an emotive issue - images of suffering are easy to understand, if uncomfortable to watch. If consumers were to think about the consequences of their choices, rather than look for the cheapest meal, surely they would spend differently, and supermarket buying would follow suit.

Thank you for making this front page news.