THE sight of thousands of chickens huddled together in a coop before being grabbed in the dark by their feet, electrocuted and drained of their blood has filled television screens all week.

On Monday night Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall wept: "I really don't want to kill another bird" as a lame chick's neck was broken, and last night Jamie Oliver shocked a live audience by suffocating unwanted male chicks in an oxygen-starved chamber.

The gruesome footage was used to spearhead a campaign to improve the welfare of the 860 million table chickens reared in Britain every year.

The TV chefs hope viewers will be shocked into boycotting cheaper indoor chicken in favour of the free-range birds, which are bred slower and given more space to roam.

While giant supermarkets like Sainsbury's hit back by taking out full-page advertisements in national newspapers to defend themselves, devastated Hampshire poultry farmers contacted by the Daily Echo say there is no one speaking up for them.

One angry farmer, Jane, whose identity we have protected, said her family's livelihood had been jeopardised by the celebrity chefs and they lived in fear of attacks from animal rights activists spurred on by the campaign.

"That man Fearnley-Whittingstall has crucified the poultry industry," she said.

"A lot of farmers are under a lot of stress at the moment. There is a very high risk of suicide and for something like that to come onto the television is absolutely diabolical.

"I've got young grandchildren. How do you think it's going to affect them? The animal welfare people could come in and burn the house down. That is the fear we live with all of the time.

"We've been in the industry 46 years and we're devastated. I think all the poultry farmers are probably in the same situation. He is damaging a lot of people's livelihoods."

The crusading chefs argue, that while many shoppers now shun eggs from hens kept in battery cages, most people don't realise that the majority of indoor chickens - known as broiler chickens - are also kept in cramped conditions.

In Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Run, the River Cottage chef set up his own chicken farm near his home in Axminster, Devon, to show "what happens to chickens that are sold for less than the price of beer".

In a three-part series he divided a shed in two, rearing 1,500 free-range chickens on one side and 2,500 broiler chickens on the other.

However, Jane - who rears 200,000 chickens on her farm - said the Channel 4 production was not a true reflection of a chicken's short life on a broiler farm and said the series had portrayed farmers as cruel.

"We're not cruel to the chickens and the way he has done it, personally I think the RSPCA should have stepped in, because he doesn't know the first thing about rearing chickens.

"First of all, he was throwing those chicks out and we'd never do that. We are careful with those chicks because it could damage their legs. Plus we don't know where he got those chicks from or how far they had to travel.

"We don't overcrowd our birds. They are never without water or food, their bedding and litter is never wet, and if you could see how much it costs us and how much we actually get out of it, it really is a pittance.

"We never go away and leave them. There is somebody here constantly, 24 hours a day, seven days week."

The celebrity chefs this week attacked the supermarkets for selling chicken at bargain prices - such as Asda's infamous £2 chicken - to attract more shoppers to spend money in their store.

Jane agreed the price was a "disgrace". However, she said the campaign would only hurt the farmers who are already being short-changed.

"What right does a chef have to tell us how to do our jobs? Is he going to pay our wages each week when we can't sell our chickens? Our whole life depends on our chickens, and he is just ruining what we've got.

The Daily Echo put the farmers' concerns to the Channel 4 press office who issued a statement on behalf of Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The statement said: "Modern chickens are bred to grow fast and die young and suffer huge welfare problems as a consequence. I want to challenge both the supermarkets and consumers to change their behaviour.

"Until the supermarkets stop devaluing chicken by selling it at discount prices, British farmers won't be able to afford to produce to a higher welfare standard. If consumers are better informed about how intensive chickens are farmed, they may be prepared to pay more for a free range bird, in the same way they already do for eggs."