WSPA Farm Animal Welfare Programme
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Egg-laying hens Battery cages Three quarters of the world's 5.6 billion egg-laying hens are confined in battery cages. These cages, stacked one on top of each other in sheds containing up to 90,000 birds, allow for little movement. In this system, hens are unable to scratch or dust-bathe. They do not have access to a nest for egg-laying. They cannot stretch nor turn around freely. These behaviours have an innate basis, and have evolved with the species for thousands of generations. When denied, it often manifests itself in aggression, feather-pecking and cannibalism. Being so restricted also causes the birds' bones to become brittle and snap through lack of exercise. Scientists stress that modern farmed chickens still have a strong desire to perform the behaviours of their wild ancestors. However, battery cages are so small and barren that hens cannot lay their eggs in a nest, scratch around for food, roost on a high perch at night or dust-bathe. The inability to perform these strong instinctive behaviours causes the hens great frustration and stress. One author writes: "If released from their caged existence they will dustbathe, spread their wings and enjoy the warmth of the sun. I have watched a hen that had spent two years in cages build a nest within twenty-four hours of her release. Carefully gathering wisps of straw in her beak she built the nest higher and higher…seemingly revelling in the experience which had been denied her for so long.” Wild jungle fowl lay about 60 eggs a year, whereas today’s farmed hens have been bred to produce about 280 eggs a year. This high level of egg production means that hens have to use the calcium reserves in their bones to produce egg shells. This leads to hens having weak bones. However, it is their inability to properly exercise in the cage that is the main cause of brittle bones in battery hens. Indeed, battery hens’ bones are so fragile that many have broken bones by the time they come to be slaughtered. In the European Union, which produces more eggs than any single country except the USA , conventional battery cages will be banned from 2012. However, they remain the main egg production system in many parts of the world. Beak trimming With 5-11 birds per barren cage, the frustrated hens often display unnaturally damaging behaviour. Their inability to forage leads to feather-pecking and, as in other systems, crowding may lead to cannibalism. To prevent this, part of their beak is sliced off using a red-hot blade. A hen’s beak is a complex sensory organ which she uses when building her nest and searching for and picking up food, and beak trimming is a severe mutilation that can cause prolonged pain. The humane way to prevent feather-pecking is not to trim beaks, but to keep the hens in good conditions. Forced moulting After one year of production, hens will naturally stop laying whilst undergoing an annual moult. In the USA and Asia , laying hens caged for a second year are often force-moulted in order to be returned to production as soon as possible. This involves shocking the hens into shedding their feathers unnaturally quickly by starving them for up to 14 days. This stressful process causes a dramatic increase in mortality. Very short lives Industrial farming’s drive for high productivity has led to both the cattle and chicken industries becoming highly specialised. In the old days, the same chickens would have produced both eggs and meat. Now, however, two separate chicken flocks have been developed: some birds have been bred to lay huge quantities of eggs, others to grow very quickly to produce meat. Male chicks hatched in egg-laying flocks are of no commercial use. As males they do not lay eggs and they do not grow quickly enough for the modern meat industry. Being of no value, they are all killed soon after birth. In the UK, about 30 million male chicks a year are killed; the annual figure for the EU is 280 million. They are gassed with carbon dioxide, shredded by a mascerator (masceration is the standard method in the UK and Europe) or, in some countries, simply thrown out with the rubbish. To find out about another animal, click on the links in the Read More section of this page >> |
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