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The Aquarian,
Summer 2006
Battering Battery Cages Although the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council Recommended Codes of Practice are touted by industry and government as “science-based,” they are in reality compromise-with-industry-based. There do not appear to be any animal scientists, including the world's leading poultry specialists, who consider the battery cages permitted by the Codes to be even close to humane. Their reviews vary from disparaging to scathing: The Scientific Veterinary Committee of the European Union: “It is clear that because of its small size and its barrenness, the battery cage as used at present has inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens.”Dr. Ian Duncan, Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph: “Battery cages for laying hens have been shown (by me and others) to cause extreme frustration particularly when the hen wants to lay an egg."John Webster, Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, England: "[T]he unenriched battery cage simply does not meet the physiological and behavioural requirements of the laying hen, which makes any quibbling about minimum requirements for floor space superfluous."Bernard Rollin, Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University: “Virtually all aspects of hen behavior are thwarted by battery cages: social behavior, nesting behavior, the ability to move and flap wings, dustbathing, space requirements, scratching for food, exercise, pecking at objects on the ground....Research has confirmed what common sense already knew—animals built to move must move.”Lesley Rogers, Professor of Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour, University of New England: “In no way can these living conditions [battery cages] meet the demands of a complex nervous system designed to form a multitude of memories and make complex decisions.”Desmond Morris, renowned animal behaviourist: “Anyone who has studied the social life of birds carefully will know that theirs is a subtle and complex world, where food and water are only a small part of their behavioural needs. The brain of each bird is programmed with a complicated set of drives and responses that set it on the path to a life full of special territorial, nesting, roosting, grooming, parental, aggressive and sexual activities in addition to the simple feeding behaviour. All these are denied the battery hens.”Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate: “The worst torture to which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to retire somewhere for the laying act. For the person who knows something about animals it is truly heart-rending to watch how a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her fellow cagemates to search there in vain for cover." |
Where
to buy kinder eggs in Manitoba
The Aquarian's Ethical Food Market
EGG-FREE
Learn More The Truth About Canada's Egg Industry (Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals) Chickenout.ca (Vancouver Humane Society) Canadian Agri-Food Research Council's Recommended Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pullets, Layers and Spent Fowl > BEYOND CANADA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:"Wegmans Cruelty": an undercover investigation of the immense egg barn of a leading American grocery chain is the basis of an outstanding 27-minute documentary that lays bare the secrets of the battery egg industry (streaming video or download) Behind the Label: "Animal Care Certified" (by Peter Singer and Jim Mason) Battery Hens (United Poultry Concerns, USA) Eggindustry.com (Compassion Over Killing, USA) No Battery Eggs (Humane Society of the United States) Egg-laying
Hens (Compassion in World Farming, UK)
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