cheale meats and Jim Paice MP

[vole-woman]

That's what I meant. Something like RSPCA Freedom Foods About us - Freedom Food - rspca.org.uk Which aren't necessarily organic.

The RSPCA say: So not only do we inspect farms against the RSPCA welfare standards, but we also check the animals are handled, transported and slaughtered to the RSPCA’s standards too.

[vole-woman]

On the right hand side of this page: Farm animal welfare standards - Farm animals - Science group is a pdf file detailing specific requirements for humane slaughter of pigs.

RSPCA Freedom Food has always come from an abattoir with CCTV installed.

[JohnyWatty]

see link

The slaughterhouse is RSPCA Freedom Food approved!

Says a lot about how good (or otherwise) their Freedom Food scheme is!!

[vole-woman]

Oh my God. Time to email the RSPCA, I think.

[vole-woman]

That link's really weird because here: Video Exclusive: Footage Shows Staff At UK Abattoir Punching Pigs And Burning Them With Cigarettes | UK News | Sky News the RSPCA are calling for CCTV in that abattoir. So don't see how it can be Freedom Food. Also the press would have picked this up and had a field day with it.

Maybe it's either another abattoir with the same name, or they're making false claims.

[JohnyWatty]

It's Freedom Food alright. Google Cheale Meats and you'll see their webpage is down - but go into the 'cached' web and you can see it for yourself. The web page will be taken down deliberately to stop people seeing it's Freedom Food. The RSPCA do not let anyone know which farms are in the Freedom Food - they say this is to stop activists, but the real reason is so they can deny any link to them if conditions are found to be bad - which they often are. As for CCTV, it's already installed in the slaughterhouse but (surprise surprise) what the undercover footage showed was 'out of shot' of the CCTV!! Unbelievable, but true!

[vole-woman]

Well, I have emailed the RSPCA and I'll let you know what comes back. The Cheale Meats web page you link to seems to be a small division of their massive overall business, though you'd have to assume they all use the same slaughterhouse.

"RSPCA do not let anyone know which farms are in the Freedom Food - they say this is to stop activists, but the real reason is so they can deny any link to them if conditions are found to be bad - which they often are."

Obviously I'm very interested in this. Can you back it up with other on the record examples? What's your source?

Makes me glad I buy off my local organic farm where I can go see the pigs and talk to the farmers about my concerns any time I like.

[vole-woman]

In the meantime, this campaign's worth a look for those of you who rate pigs: Soil Association : Not in my banger

[grumpyoldman]

h
cheale meats also own a golf club, surrey downs in kingswood i was once a member there but took it on myself never to return after witnesing the grounds men striking the canadian geese with metal poles. They said there excrement damages the greens????? i reported this incident to the manager of the club peter townside who simply "shruged it off" like it was nothing new. it dosnt suprise me that cruelty is going on in cheales abbitor

we need to put a stop to all of this!

[Johnny Redgate]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

And the Soil Association, which promotes organic farming, says:


The welfare of animals is central to Soil Association organic principles. Our standards mean:

No factory farming
Lots of outdoor space and fresh air
Encouragement of normal animal behaviour
No routine use of drugs and vaccines
No genetically modified (GM) feed or growth hormones
Minimised stress in transport and slaughter

Aspects of animal welfare are central to all organic standards. Organic farming is the only farming system in the EU defined by regulation (Regulation 2092/92), which lays down minimum rules for organic animal production. Animals must have access to the outdoors and the number of animals per unit area must be limited.

Quite how preventing the routine use of vaccines promotes animal welfare escapes me. Would they apply the same philosophy to children? Perhaps you have not seen lambs die from clostridial diseases that are preventable by vaccination, but I have and I can assure you it is not pretty. A ban on routine use of antihelminthic drugs is at the least unhelpful to animal welfare and a ban on GM products in feed as nothing to do with it.