Cage-free

Two hundred years of animal welfare law has not been enough.

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July marked 200 years of animal welfare laws in the UK and yet hens are still locked in cages.

Hen trapped in a cage with feathers fallen out

On July 22nd 1822, two hundred years ago today, the UK passed its first ever animal welfare law. The Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act protected cows, horses, mules and sheep from beatings and abuse.

It was masterminded by Irish MP and army colonel Richard Martin, fondly nicknamed ‘Humanity Dick’ by King George IV for his defence of animals. Humanity Dick really did defend animals - he reportedly fought at least one duel over cruelty to a dog. The first animal welfare law, his own passion project, set a crucial precedent and animal welfare has been enshrined in law ever since.

However, if Dick Martin were alive today, how would he feel about modern industrial farming? Before 1822 there were no laws that protected animals from cruelty. Groups like the RSPCA, which Martin helped found, didn’t exist. Yet farming was simpler and less mechanised. Animals spent more time outside, feeling the sun on their backs and the ground under their feet. Fast forward two hundred years and farmed animals thankfully have a higher status in law, but their suffering today is far worse, more widespread, and uglier than anything Humanity Dick would have seen in his time.

The last two hundred years have seen an industrial revolution in how animals are bred, farmed, and killed. Today’s farms are more like the factories of Dick Martin’s day; with crowded, squalid conditions and full of overstressed workers and animals.

In Humanity Dick’s time hens lived uncaged and outdoors; but if someone kicked a hen like a football for a bit of fun, there would be no repercussions. Nowadays, kick a hen for fun and you could be prosecuted for cruelty to animals, but confine her to a life of suffering laying eggs in a tiny cage and you get to make a profit.

Around 14 million lively, inquisitive hens are crammed into cages in the UK every year, like so many production units. They will never get to go outside, or feel twigs and dust under their feet. Their urges to run and flap and roost, sharpened by millions of years of evolution, will be frustrated by the confines of their metal box, and the restless birds beside them. After producing twenty five times the amount of eggs as their wild ancestors, these tired, spent hens will be dragged to a slaughterhouse.

These are the horrors of the twenty-first century, horrors Martin could never have predicted. So are we a nation of animal lovers? A YouGov survey commissioned by Compassion in World Farming found that 77% of the UK public supported a complete ban of cages in farming. That is mass support, and is a far cry from the scoffs and smirks that Richard Martin was so often met with.

Yet despite public support for flagship welfare policies like banning cages for hens, politicians are frustratingly uninterested. While Parliament does occasionally churn out progressive legislation for animals, like the recent Animal Sentience Bill, some MPs inevitably react by defending the indefensible foie gras and fur trades.

Who in government will honestly look at this state of affairs, so excruciating for the animals we claim to love, and change it for the better?

Today we need lawmakers willing to take up the standard of Humanity Dick; for the sake of our collective conscience and billions of sensitive animals. Banning cages for hens would be a start - a start down a path where we can stop talking about being ‘animal lovers’ and start behaving like them.