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By Rahmat Bin Haji Abdul Rahman
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A home-bred chicken.
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Chickens for sale in a wet market.
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Sell vendors wrapping up a chicken.
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"Ayam Kampung"
being sold.
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As bird flu continues to terrorise chicken lovers in Asia,
the bred-at-home "Ayam Kampong" rules
the roost.
The meaning of this term depends on its
usage. Traditionally, it is used to describe the chicken that is a hybrid
of various breeds of chickens indigenous to this part of the world.
Among the breeds that make up the "Ayam Kampung" are the
jungle fowl (gallus gallus),
the Malays, the Sumatra and the Siamese
fighting cock. "Ayam Kampung"
is not a breed. It is a term used to describe a mix-breed chicken commonly
found in villages throughout Southeast Asia.
In the Weekend Market or "Pasar Tamu" situated at Sungai Kianggeh, every Friday
and Sunday morning, if you asked the sellers, "ada
Ayam Kampung?", they would understand it.
The term "Ayam
Kampung" refers to any non-broiler chicken,
i.e. a slow growing, coloured feather chicken.
Various improved breeds and hybrids are now also sold as "Ayam Kampung".
These include the Sasso
chicken, various Hungarian Naked Neck breeds and hybrids, various crosses
such as Kabir and Isa,
etc. Along many rural roads, one can see these breeds roaming free and are
considered as "Ayam Kampung"
by villagers.
"Ayam Kampung" is usually desired by women after giving
birth. Breast feeding mothers are also given the "Ayam
Kampong" in soup form as hardly any chemicals or preservatives go into
raising these chickens.
To the consumer the term "Ayam Kampung" implies
that the chicken is free-range and fed natural food. This unfortunately is
very far from the truth. If a supplier can supply you with hundreds of
"Ayam Kampung"
per day, the only way this can be achieved is through intensive farming
methods.
Free-range implies freedom of movement and
being raised in clean soil with fresh vegetation and grass available for
the chickens. This calls for unlimited space for the chickens to roam. This
used to be the case during the old days where we see flocks of 20 or 30
chickens roaming around the "Kampung"
or village.
Nowadays free-range chickens are grown in
an enclosed space, either in houses called "reban"
or in small-enclosed "yards". If grown in "yards" the
grounds rapidly become bare, muddy and smelly.
The right word to describe this type of
operation is "yarding" from the word
"backyard". This type of operation will result in an environment
infested with pathogens. Some farmers "yard" their "Ayam Kampung" in a small
area in an oil palm estate, fenced in under the trees and sell them as
free-range.
Most "Ayam Kampung" sold today in the wet market, however, are raised in rebans and have
never seen a single blade of grass. True free-range requires unlimited
foraging space, which is not practical, where the chickens
has to be moved from fresh pasture to fresh pasture, as is done for
DQ Chickens.
A premium range chicken is the same as
Premium Chicken. It does not have anything to do with free ranging.
"No added antibiotic" implies
that the feed already has sub-therapeutic antibiotics and the farmer do not need to add further antibiotics.
Antibiotic residue-free implies those feed
with sub-therapeutic antibiotics are withdrawn prior to slaughter and
replaced with feed totally free of antibiotics. Withdrawal period can be
anything between five to 10 days. DQ Chicken has no sub-therapeutic
antibiotics in the feed and DQ do not rely on antibiotics for growth or for
disease control.
Chemical-free is taken to mean chickens
that are not fed chemicals of any kind, nor treated with chemicals to
prolong shelf life. Chemical-free does not necessarily mean that the
chickens are not disinfected with chlorine during processing, or that the
environment that they are raised is chemical-free.
Also, most chicken feed in Malaysia
contains fishmeal, which has various chemicals in it, for example a
preservative called ethoxyquin. Fishmeal has also
been found to have high levels of dioxin according to a BBC report a few
years ago. DQ Chicken are chemical free and are raised in a chemical free
environment
Fresh chicken is taken now to mean any
chicken that's not frozen. In some wet markets and smaller supermarkets,
frozen chickens are routinely thawed and sold as fresh. DQ Chicken are aged
for eight to 10 hours at 2 to 40C and then delivered to consumers chilled.
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