Battery Hens Come Home to Eden

'Fighting for bigger cages and 'better' treatment of animals is contradictory and ridiculous. It will never lead to empty cages'

- Gary Yourofsky

The EU banned battery cages in the egg production industry on 1st January 2012. Some Irish farmers did not comply with the regulations despite having ten years notice of the ruling and financial aid to help them do so. The Irish Farmers Association reported that Irish farmers who had not equipped their factory farms with 'enriched' cages would kill the hens early (i.e. prior to the end of their capacity to make a profit for the farmers but NOT at the end of the hens' natural lifespans). Despite the fact that the farmers were reassured by the Alliance for Animal Rights (AFAR) that there were lifelong homes available for these hens and despite the offer of payment matching that of slaughterhouses, 80,000 to 90,000 hens were needlessly slaughtered. However, Tina at the Half Way House in Wexford managed to rescue and save 600. Some of these hens have arrived at their new home at Eden.

 

They are adjusting to their new life despite the fact that some are limping from foot injuries that are commonly sustained on the wire floors of battery cages, and others have extensive feather loss. They are all very pale and have enlarged combs typical of hens reared in cages. Upon rescue some exhibited signs of depression, preferring to tuck their heads into their wings and sleep than explore their new surroundings. It will take some time for them to recover from the social, sensory, emotional, physical, and cognitive deprivation of living in the cramped conditions of a battery cage where they had so little room that they could not walk or open their wings, and where they had nothing to engage their sharp cognitive capacities. They are exhibiting obvious pleasure in their new surroundings, avidly pecking everything new, availing of the privacy of their nest boxes, tentatively exploring the grass underfoot, and feeling the rays of the sun for the first time in their lives. It is a privilege to be a part of their liberation from human oppression, to witness their connection with the earth, and to help restore to them what was so treacherously stolen from them by human hands.

These hens have been rescued but hundreds of thousands of hens are killed in Ireland every day in the meat and egg industries. The new 'enriched' cages still do not allow the hens to walk; they still deprive them of the liberty of daylight, movement, and opportunities to engage in normal social relationships and environmental exploration. There are currently over a million caged hens in Ireland.

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. -  Plutarch

 

                            

 

 

 

Welfare?

wel·fare/ˈwelˌfe(ə)r/

Attempts at animal welfare are designed more to ease human consciences about our use and abuse of other animals than to improve the wellbeing of other animals. Paradoxically, welfare measures often increase profits for those working in animal agriculture, while the animals are left to languish for decades in appalling conditions. Lest any reader imagine that the million and more Irish hens are now happy in their new 'enriched cages', these cages still deprive hens of their right to daylight, the outside world, grass under their feet, the freedom to move and the liberty to form the social bonds they choose.  A human being confined to comparitive conditions would be described as a prisoner. Caged hens are prisoners. In fact the EU research body comissioned to study the welfare of laying hens which led to the introduction of enriched cages is called LayWell (not Hen-Well, you will note), indicating where the priorities of EU animal welfare legislators lie http://www.laywel.eu/  The video below from VIVA exposes the reality of 'happy hens' and their enriched cages.

The welfare of chickens classified as free range hens or organic is not much better (see http://www.peacefulprairie.org/freerange1.html).  Every egg laying hen had a brother who, being of no use to the egg industry, was sent to his death shortly after birth by gassing or live mincing. All egg laying hens suffer because in their natural state they would lay only two clutches of eggs a year to hatch as offspring. Hens as we know them are genetically bred to produce eggs in excess of what is in their interests and causes discomfort, illness and death from issues like prolapse, egg binding, and peritonitis. The eggs sold for human consumption have the hens' blood cleaned from them. I regularly see streaks of blood on the eggs at Eden due to the strain and tearing of laying.

Laying hens' counterparts in the meat industry are genetically bred to reach adulthood in a mere six weeks, by which time their legs and feet can hardly support their weight. They are then slaughtered.

If you want to improve the lives of other animals the most helpful thing you can do for them do is to stop eating them or their secretions. Go Vegan. http://pcrm.org/kickstarthome/