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Celebrity chefs are helping to put chicken welfare in the spotlight as the RSPCA launches a campaign encouraging people to buy only ethically raised chickens.The campaign coincides with a television programme from Westcountry chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which will bring free-range chickens into the public focus.
In September, the chef launched Chicken Out in Axminster, an initiative which aims to make the East Devon town a national example by urging residents to stop buying intensively reared poultry.
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall, who lives in the town, will be promoting free-range birds in his new show, Chicken Run, for Channel Four's Food Season which begins next Monday.
In the same series, fellow chef Jamie Oliver will also be focusing on chickens in Jamie's Fowl Dinners.
As part of the RSPCA campaign, shoppers are being urged to upgrade to higher-welfare chicken and sign a new online petition calling for retailers to ditch "standard" chickens.
The RSPCA believes that the majority of the 855 million meat chickens reared in the UK every year suffer unacceptable conditions.
The charity wants shoppers to make it their New Year's resolution to spend a little more money on chickens labelled Freedom Food, free-range or organic, which will have led a better life than battery chickens.
Dr Marc Cooper, RSPCA farm animal scientist, said: "If people knew how the average chicken was treated before it ended up as their Sunday roast, they would probably be disgusted.
"Currently, some supermarkets are selling chicken meat for as little as £2 per kilo - this can be less than it costs to produce the bird.
"Selling chicken so cheaply doesn't provide farmers with enough money to enable or encourage them to rear their birds to standards the RSPCA finds acceptable."
Only about five per cent of chickens reared in the UK for meat are kept in higher-welfare conditions.
The RSPCA wants to see all chickens raised to its own welfare standards, used by Freedom Food members.
By 2010, the RSPCA wants all retailers to stop stocking chickens raised in poor conditions. It has created a special website, - www.supportchickennow.co.uk - with a petition to support its campaign.
Westcountry poultry producers Lloyd Maunder farm Freedom Food chickens and filmed with both Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall and Mr Oliver for the show.
Commercial director Andrew Maunder said: "We would love to see more people buying on a welfare basis rather than on price.
"A lot of people have very little knowledge of how chickens are reared and all too often consumers are seduced by cheap prices and special offers.
"We want people to take more responsibility in the choices they make and we hope to see a big shift in the market as a result of campaigns like this."