A leading animal charity has welcomed the fact the British Government yesterday launched a consultation into a ban on the use of cages for laying hens.
The Humane League UK has spent years campaigning for hens to be let out of cages and warned that the previous, Conservative, government also promised a consultation – but it came to nothing.
Sean Gifford, the managing director at The Humane League UK, said: “This consultation launch is great news, and kudos to the government for moving so quickly.
Dust-bathing
“But we urge them to remember that warm words won’t free hens. Hens are suffering in cramped cages in their millions, and every single one of them needs to be freed as soon as possible. The government can be reassured this compassionate act would have the full support of the general public.”
Polling has found that an overwhelming 94 per cent of the British public oppose the use of cages for laying hens.
Not only will the consultation cover proposals to phase out the use of enriched ‘colony’ cages for laying hens, pullets and breeder layers, where the majority of the 7.3 million caged-hens live, but it will also ban the remaining use of conventional ‘battery’ cages for keepers with fewer than 350 birds.
Hens in cages suffer lives of extreme pain, and have little more room to move than an A4 sheet of paper per animal. The cramped conditions make a bird’s natural behaviours, like dust-bathing, perching, roosting and even stretching their wings difficult or impossible.
Protesting
This frustration results in higher rates of aggressive pecking among the birds, and higher rates of brittle bones due to lack of exercise.
Supermarkets including Aldi, Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, M&S and Waitrose, are already 100 per cent cage-free for store bought eggs, and places like California, Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark have also banned cages for hens, with a potential EU-wide ban on the way.
Banning cages for laying hens has been part of The Humane League UK’s mission since it was founded in 2016. The charity has been central to arranging Beatrice’s Bill, which proposed banning cages, to be debated in parliament, and also engaged in hosting parliamentary receptions and protesting outside the House of Commons.
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Brendan Montague is an editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from The Humane League UK.