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Steanbow Farm – SomersetFinalist – Dairy Farmer of the Year 2012 (Neil and Michael Christensen)FootageAnimal Aid’s footage wastaken in July 2012 in one ofthe broiler sheds.In the shed, conditions wereextremely crowded withthousands of fully-grown or nearfully-grown chickens standingwing-to-wing. There was littleroom for the birds to movearound and some were observedrunning over the backs of othersdue to the crowding. Others haddifficulty walking. Modern‘commercial’ broiler chickens areselectively bred to grow at anextremely rapid rate. Their legsare often unable to bear theweight of their fast growingbodies.BackgroundFinn Christensen, Farmers Weekly, 15th June 2009Dead chickens were foundduring the course of filming –the first next to a feeding tray.She had been there so long, shehad become partially buried,presumably by trampling. Onthe opposite side of the samefeeding tray another chicken waslying on his back, unable to getup. His eyes were closed and hewas breathing heavily.Steanbow Farm covers 607Ha in Somerset. It is owned by Finn Christensen, butnow largely run by his sons Neil and Michael. They have a dairy herd of 517Holsteins, who are confined to sheds all-year-round and milked three times aday. The bedding provided for the cows is sand and ash. The milk is sold onDairy Crest’s Sainsbury’s contract. 13The farm also produces around 2,400,000 broiler chickens per year in severallarge sheds, and is part of the Assured Chicken Production scheme (farm number1747). They also grow maize, winter wheat and grass for silage and generatefurther income by leasing 200Ha of land to nearby Worthy Farm for campingduring the Glastonbury Festival. 14Finn Christensen, originally from Denmark, was president of the 2012 Mid-Somerset Show. He has also been chairman of the local branch of the NationalFarmers Union (NFU), of the Somerset NFU and of the NFU South West region.He was a regional representative of the Milk Marketing Board and of MilkMarque. 15Another dying chicken wasfound sitting on the floor, hereyes half closed, barely able tomove her head. In total, fivedead or seriously ill birds werefound in the short time spentfilming in one just corner of theshed.After leaving the shed, a bin wasdiscovered full of dead chickens.Filming inside the cowsheds wasnot possible.Neil Christensen is currently a director of Dairy Crest Direct, representing dairyfarmers in Somerset and Devon who supply milk to Dairy Crest. 16Award Winning Farmers Exposed: The Best of the Best? 4
Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs, Detchant Farm – NorthumberlandFinalist – Poultry Farmer of the Year 2011 (Catherine Armstrong)BackgroundDetchant Farm is a 165Ha family-run tenant farm in Northumberland, mostlycovered by arable land. The tenant farmer is John Robert Jackson. His daughter,Catherine Armstrong, runs Sunny Hill Eggs. They began farming poultry in 2005,putting up two sheds for 16,000 birds, but now have 57,000 ‘free-range’ hens infive sheds. (‘Free range’ can still spend the majority of their lives in sheds.) Thefarm has Higher Level Stewardship (HLS), Freedom Food and Lion Codeaccreditation. They also keep llamas, have a small B&B business, and operatea farm shop with a café, delicatessen, gift hall, butchery and adventureplayground. 17After initially selling only to wholesalers, they developed their own ‘Sunny HillEggs’ brand after hearing ASDA were looking for local suppliers in the NorthEast. In 2008, they bought rival Scottish producer and packer Oxenrig, increasingproduction by 40 per cent and prompting investment in a packing plant atDetchant Farm. The company now sells to around 450 customers, includingTesco, Morrisons and ASDA, and has a contract to supply eggs to EdinburghUniversity, as well as several hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions. 18 Itrecently underwent a merger with Lintz Hall Farm in County Durham, one ofthe North East’s biggest poultry producers. 19Footage“Production andbird welfare isour passion andkey strength...”Catherine Armstrong,Northumberland Gazette,12th September 2012Animal Aid’s footage was taken in July 2012 in three of the chicken shedsand an office.In all three sheds the chickens were tightly packed in together. In the first, therewas nowhere for the chickens to perch so they were forced to do so on anyavailable surface, includingfeeding trays, water supply hosesand machinery. In many casesthere were hens standingdirectly below where otherswere perched, which meant thatthey were vulnerable to beingcovered in excrement.The second barn had a raisedmesh floor with a slope runningup to it. There were hens rightup to the edge of the slope andseveral almost fell off duringfilming due to the crowding,causing them to flap wildly tosteady themselves. Others wereseen squeezing underneath theirneighbours in order to movearound, meaning access to foodand water must be difficult.A huge number of flies, mostlydead, were found all over thefloor of the office adjoining thechicken sheds. There were alsoseveral large trays, which webelieve to be flytraps, full of ablack material, most likely moredead flies.The third barn was much like thesecond, with a raised mesh floorand a slope leading up to it.Again, the hens were tightlypacked, using feeding troughsand water dispensers as perches.Several were seen struggling toremain at the top of the slope.Some had missing feathers and,at one point, a hen was seenrunning over the backs of others.A dead chicken was found at thebottom of the mesh slope and, aswith some of the others, featherswere missing from around herneck. Clearly visible through themesh in this shed was a huge pileof excrement, which had beenallowed to build up over aconsiderable period of time andcould account for the largenumber of flies seen earlier inthe office.Award Winning Farmers Exposed: The Best of the Best? 5
Page 1 and 2: Steanbow FarmBedfordia, Twinwood Pi
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