25/08/2026
Next week is our amazing Spent/Soup Chicken Boxes Pick Up on Friday the 5th and Saturday, the 6th of September.
With the cost of living going up, a lot of people and families have changed their buying habits. In the last few months, chicken meat sales have skyrocketed across supermarkets, while sales of beef and lamb have dropped.
I understand that chickens are a cheaper protein, but the chicken sold in big supermarkets shouldn’t be consumed on a weekly basis (in my opinion, of course, but this is my area of concern. I’ve spent many years researching).
These supermarket chickens are kept in crowded barns where the air quality is horrendous; the smell of pneumonia burns your lungs when you enter. These chickens can barely walk because they grow so fast that their legs can’t hold their body weight, so they sit in their own f***s. And I haven’t even mentioned what they are fed, and we all know that what they eat is what we eat. Oh, and these chickens are only 35 to 42 days old! I’ll say it again: 35 to 42 days old!
I have a replacement for these supermarket chickens. They’re called spent hens or souping chickens. I know, I know, you can’t roast them, and you don’t get that crispy chicken. But you can boil them for six hours, strip the meat, and fry it up in a frying pan with butter and salt, and have it on soft tacos, in a sandwich, or wrap, and more. After this meat has been boiled for a minimum of six hours, it’s stringy and tender, much like a beautiful piece of beef brisket. If you can’t be bothered doing this, just boil for 6 to 8 hours, and my gosh, you’ll have an epic chicken soup or chicken curry!
Some of the best things about these chickens are:
- They are 600 days old!
- They are fed certified organic feed.
- They have had access to pasture, sunlight, and green grass.
- They’ve had the ability to run, flap, and fly, which helps build strong bones.
- They’ve lived a great life laying eggs.
Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that with H5 bird flu, there is a bit of a biosecurity hazard to rehome chickens at the end of their laying life. So processing them for human consumption takes away this risk and produces an ethical, affordable food for families!
I sell 6 organic chickens for $100. That’s $16.66 per chicken, roughly $15 a kilo for certified organic chicken!
I also understand that it’s slightly inconvenient to come to the farm to pick up 6 chickens. This is where I feel big supermarkets have taken advantage of the lack of time we all have now. They’ve made their shops so convenient that it’s hard to break the cycle and change our buying habits. But people have changed and are buying more chicken than ever because of the price savings compared to lamb, beef, and fish. This is not quite the change that I’m proposing!
I want a better farming system, a better environment, and better health for humans and animals. So team up with your neighbors, friends, and family, and buy as a group, maybe?
Here is the link to order: https://madelaineseggs.com.au/product/organic-spent-hen-boxes/
It would be awesome if more farms could offer souping chickens, but they can’t until consumers want this product. It may be a waste product for the egg industry, but it still takes a lot of time to get the sales. Take the chickens to the abattoir, get them packaged and boxed, so it’s gotta be viable; hence the price I’ve given above. Any less than that wouldn’t be worth the time and effort.
I think retired egg-laying hens and retired dairy cows are much more ethical meat options to consume than animals raised solely for meat, don’t you? Thanks for reading my rant/thoughts at 4:30 AM.
