UK chickens are still caged - and they need our help
UK chickens are still caged - and they need our help
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The UK likes to bill itself as a leader when it comes to animal welfare, but we’re still failing egg-laying hens by allowing millions of them to spend their lives confined to cages.
Despite a 2012 UK ban on battery cages, nothing has been done to stop producers from using so-called ‘enriched cages’ to house the mother birds. Enriched cages only provide a marginal relief to the suffering of layer hens. Still, the birds have only roughly a sheet of paper’s amount of personal space, and as a result, can’t so much as fully stretch out.
Let’s take a look at the state of legal cages for hens in the UK.
When it comes to the UK and cage farming, there’s always both good and bad news. The good: traditional battery cages for egg-laying hens are banned. The bad: they have been largely replaced by so-called enriched cages, which provide only the barest improvement for hen welfare.
On pig farms, gestation crates have been outlawed for decades; while they’re pregnant, mother pigs must be able to stand and turn around. However, the story changes once they’re ready to give birth - they’re moved into a farrowing crate where they are largely unable to move while they nurse their young.
Raising egg-laying hens in traditional battery cages – the ones that provide less space than a standard sheet of paper – has been banned in the UK since 2012. However, this doesn’t mean that all eggs in the UK are cage-free. Instead, there are two ways that eggs from caged hens make it onto grocery store shelves.
The eggs could come from hens who spend their lives in enriched cages, which give birds about as much space as a standard sheet of paper. Instead of being completely barren, they’re close to barren, typically offering only a perch and a little scratching pad. In short, they represent only the barest welfare improvement over traditional battery cages.
In July 2023, the UK signed onto The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership which, among other lengthy trade standards, allows powdered and liquid eggs from chickens in battery cages raised in other countries to be sold in Great Britain.
The UK’s battery cage ban exempts enriched cages, which are slightly larger but only slightly better from a welfare perspective.
Eggs from hens housed in cages are still prevalent in the UK, despite the ban. This is because importers don’t have to follow the same laws as local producers.
It’s not just their inability to behave naturally that stresses caged hens out, it’s also the broadly deplorable conditions.
A recent investigation of a farm (that at the time was linked to Lidl) found cages in which hens were living alongside the carcasses of other birds. Footage also documented workers brutally killing chickens without any form of pain management.
Keeping birds in cages does not mean that they’ll have access to water and food. In fact, many of the carcasses documented in the investigation above apparently died from starvation and water deprivation.
An enriched cage, or furnished cage, is basically a fancy battery cage. They provide slightly more space per bird and offer litter, a scratch pad, and a perch for the birds. However, they provide only minimal welfare improvements and still prevent the hens from expressing natural behaviours, such as stretching out their wings.
Like other countries, the UK doesn’t mandate that cages be a certain size. Instead, they mandate that each bird be provided with 750 cm2 of space.
The UK prides itself on having high standards for animal welfare compared to the rest of the world. However, with other countries completely failing on the issue of hen welfare, this doesn’t in itself mean that the UK is doing enough.
A total ban on cages – including the import of products from birds in cages – is necessary before the UK can honestly claim to be a leader on hen welfare.
When it comes to cage requirements, the UK is considered a world leader. Both the UK and the EU require that hens have 750 cm2 of space per bird. Of the two, only the UK specifies that 600cm2 must be usable.
Over in the United States, there are no countrywide space requirements for hens. Instead, individual states can implement welfare standards - something most states don’t choose to do.
Across the globe, New Zealand enacted a ban on traditional battery cages that took effect in 2022. However, like the UK, the ban still allows producers to use enriched cages, referred to there as ‘colony cages’. Producers can opt for one of two ways of measuring density; either they can provide 750cm2 of space per bird or they can confine up to 13 birds per m2.
Animals aren’t meant to be caged. Keeping hens in cages leads to severe welfare concerns which are ‘solved’ by mutilating the chickens so they don’t hurt themselves or each other.
In cages, whether enriched or battery, hens are unable to express several natural behaviours. Frustration and stress can lead to pecking, feather plucking, and other destructive tendencies.
In order to prevent birds from hurting each other, it’s standard practice to trim their beaks, a procedure that involves removing a third off the tip. That part of their beak is extremely sensitive; the mutilation is not only painful and traumatic, but leads to lifelong sensory deprivation and potentially chronic pain. Birds whose beaks have been trimmed eat less, grow more slowly, and peck less.
One of the main drivers behind why cages are still allowed is because they’re profitable, and change is expensive. But in the face of consumers demanding cage-free eggs, more and more companies are making commitments to eliminating cages in their supply chains.
Though millions of chickens still suffer in cages across the UK, the future is not without hope. Together with a coalition of other organisations, we’re fighting for these animals’ freedom.
Total prohibitions on keeping egg-laying hens in cages have been proposed in the past, but unfortunately, they’ve all failed. We’re working hard to finally push a ban on cages through.
We Brits don’t want hens in cages. In fact, a survey of participants across 14 studies found that consumers in the UK were among those who valued animal welfare the highest and preferred cage-free eggs.
The strong consumer preference for cage-free eggs is having an impact. The most recent Open Wing Alliance report on cage-free commitments found that a whopping 89% of companies that had made cage-free commitments with a deadline of 2022 or before are now completely cage-free.
Along with a coalition of concerned citizens and other animal rights organisations, we’re working to improve the lives of hens by eliminating cages altogether from the UK.
Right now, chickens are unable to so much as stretch their wings. We think they deserve better, and we think you’ll agree.
We are a charity ending the abuse of animals raised for food.
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