battery farming

[clarabeth]

why isnt it illeagal in this country to have battery hens and poultry farms? surely this a cruel way of life for these animals,
why arnt they all free range at whatever cost to the business.

[B00]

You've answered your own question there.

It's purely a business and until a cheaper alternative is found they'll continue to keep chickens this way. Sadly, not many people consider chickens worthy of a better quality of life.

[Noweia]

Battery cages were introduced in in the 1960s as they were more hygienic than traditional farming methods - the cages are easier to keep clean and the birds aren't exposed to as many bugs as when they're outside.

However, in the UK no new battery cages are allowed to be installed any more; this law came into force in January 2003. By 2012 all battery cages will be banned and enriched/furnished cages will have to be used instead - these allow the chickens more room, give them a material to scratch about in, and provide nesting areas.

What you say about farming being a business is correct - farmers have to make money or they go out of business, end of story. No other industry is expected to make a loss and survive. What interests me is that despite consumers saying they want 'healthy' meat, and that they will pay more for 'properly' raised animals, supermarket sales show that price is the final deciding factor for all too many people.

[lankeela]

There was a farmer on TV tonight who keeps chickens. They are called free range, but are in fact inside a shed, and the birds all had feathers missing and were crowding round each other. He is worried that he will not be able to sell his eggs if the bird flu scare does not go away.

The bottom line is people buy these eggs and chickens from the supermarket, thinking they are free range, but my idea of free range is having free access to outside areas as well as indoors, so are we being misled into buying free range goods when they are in fact kept like this?

Near me is a chicken farm, with large sheds, but whenever you go past there are hundreds of chickens roaming about a large field which is separated, and they are in a different part of it each day. I know they have to be farmed to provide food, but this seems to be the best way of doing it on a large scale, without the intensity of the rearing sheds.

[Noweia]

There are three main types of poultry production in the UK: cage-reared, barn/perchery systems and free range.

In cage systems birds are kept in cages all day, in large sheds. In the barn systems, many birds are kept in one large space, and there are perches and things so the birds can roosts off the ground.

In free range systems, the birds have access to outdoors - they aren't kept outside all the time. In good days most birds will be outside, but in bad weather often the hens lowest in the pecking order are forced outside by the others, while the rest of the birds shelter inside.

Note that organic may be either of these - the term organic refers to the restricted use of drugs or other chemicals.

[EDLEE]

The real answer is that the cost is not so much to the buisness as it is to us ( consumers). If we truly care about the way they are treated , raised, then we can be more particular about what we buy. If the market where we shop won't offer true free range chickens, eggs, then we can stop shopping there or stop buying that product. If we are not willing to do this on an individual basis then we should shut up. Hypocrites hurt any cause more than anything else.