Darragh McCullough

That's just one example.

Absolutely.

So if you leave your birds out overnight, there's a risk that predators will start trying to hop the fence or the birds escape or that the weather changes suddenly and a storm blows in.

So you want to get the birds into safety.

And the birds also, if finally dawns and when it does get dark enough, that they want to be inside and roosting in a safe place.

Well, I mean, Rebecca would be closer to what's happening on a national level.

What I'm hearing is that the free-range producers are really unhappy at the moment because they haven't got a pro rata increase the same as the producers of the barn eggs.

And they're kind of saying, look, lads, if you're not prepared to pay us a pro rata increase...

then why are we at this?

Why are we running a higher cost system to supply you a higher quality or higher welfare egg?

It's heartbreaking.

You know, you've a lovely field outside the door.

The hens want to be out in general if the weather is half decent at all.

And you're stopping them going out and

I mean, everything Rebecca said is true, but I think there is a risk that the consumer is buying into something that they don't have a full awareness of the reality on the ground.

It was six months of a lock-up in the last 12 months, it was three months the previous 12 months and no lock-up the year before that, but five months the year before.

That's an average of three and a half months a year the so-called free-range birds have been locked up every year for the last four years.

That's a quarter of the year, over a quarter of every year the birds are confined.

So are the eggs still free range from those birds during that quarter of a year?

I mean, it's a question