I am sure that many readers will appreciate how, because of the perceived growth of people keeping chicken how much many companies are, because of the customers' complete ignorance, ripping them off with extraordinary high prices. I was reminded of this when reading an article by Jeremy Hobson in the August Fancy Fowl. While I have no intention of quoting him, more especially as I find his articles whichever magazine they appear in, are generally the only ones worth reading.
His theme within the article was that many large investor supported Garden Centres, not all I hasten to add, having found that they are successfully selling chicken houses much of which are of Chinese origin, so velly cheap, are now selling ordinary hybrid pullets to the same uneducated starters at prices varying from £25 and upwards. Such birds should be available to the very small backyard producer at no more that £10 each. But again, it is not only these large Garden Centres that are guilty of overpricing but also many what I normally refer to as 'fast buck merchants'. They then wonder why their sales are affected the following year when that particular customer finds out how much they have been overcharged.
One has only to visit poultry sales either at county shows or auctions to see how these people, new to poultry keeping, are expected to pay for the run-of-the-mill hybrids, many encouraged by exotic names.
New birds are not the only things to be overcharged, there are also dramatically increasing numbers of remedies, etc which are by and large completely untested, some however have been tested on other species but the pictures look good along with unsubstantiated claims. The reader only needs to look at the Clinical Worming Test I reported in a previous issue to understand how much profit these large companies are making from other people's ignorance.
I was quite amused to see that Tesco is demanding that all their free-range egg suppliers be requested to bolt their doors and put internal bolts on the pop-holes to prevent theft and 'illegal filming'! So what are they frightened of?
Recently a free-range egg producer with an extremely large free-range unit said that only about six birds actually came outside. I am assured that the conditions in the house were excellent, but should such a system now be called deep litter and not free range?
As we all appreciate the modern layer in general lays many more eggs these days than in the past. I say many more eggs reservedly as this is not quite true. Even in the 1940s there were hens at laying trials which were capable of laying the same number of eggs as any bird is capable of today, the only difference being that in the old days there were only a few such super layers whereas in this day and age, as the hybrid has come of age, the poorer egg producers have disappeared leaving only the best layers in any individual flock.
this article continues in the August 2011 issue of Featherd World.
