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Our grandchildren should be able to eat and enjoy their scrambled eggs knowing they’ve come from laying hens living in high-welfare environments. We should expect and demand nothing less for them.
Shockingly cruel scenes such as this, in a very hot Bali, would not and should not ever be tolerated in Australia.
HEADLINES can be odd things.
“Excitingly, all Ing- ham’s meat chicken sheds are certified to our indoor requirements, and we’re continuing to work with their free range farms to get them certified to our outdoor requirements.
Chickens destined for the table should lead a good life and we should read all about it.
Animal welfare making headlines
Cant
Comment
by BRENDON CANT
They can be informa- tive.
They can be provoca- tive.
They can be misleading. They can be clever. They can be stupid.
I’ve written plenty over
“It’s not an easy job, so well done Ingham’s.”
my 40-plus year commu- nications career, so be- lieve me, I get it.
Ingham’s general man- ager of veterinary health and welfare Dr Andrew Walsh said, “It’s been great to partner with the RSPCA Approved Farm- ing Scheme team in im- proving animal welfare outcomes on 100 percent of our meat chicken farms across Australia for al- most 10 years.”
But I must say that occa- sionally some story head- lines can still make me wonder why, or even how, they came to pass.
Go see for yourself at inghams.com.au/our- company/farming/
and safe shelter,” the company’s website article states.
Such was the case when I recently read this head- line on the RSPCA Ap- proved Farming website, ‘Ingham’s committed to meat chicken welfare’.
So, what I’m intimating is that in this day and age, when high quality animal welfare standards are a ‘no-brainer’ and their advocacy and trans- parent implementation are simply a necessary part of doing business for all involved in the meat protein production sector, surely headlines stating the obvious are no longer necessary?
“Animal welfare also means providing them with the freedom to com- fortably move, perch, ex- ercise and mingle with other chickens.
“As a veterinarian, I am a passionate advocate for ensuring our birds are cared for to a higher standard of welfare, and I believe that the RSP- CA Approved Farming Scheme has helped our business to drive continu- ous improvement of the welfare of our birds.”
My instant and perhaps inappropriate reaction was along the lines of ‘What the pluck?’.
“We take the health and nutrition of our animals seriously.”
By this exclamation I questioned how Aus- tralia’s biggest chicken meat producer, which has been in business for 100 years with a sharp chicken-processing focus for more than 50 years, could not be committed to the welfare of the ani- mals it grows and then kills and sells for human consumption?
Surely consumers must have reached the point where they can confident- ly expect all meat protein producers to not only en- dorse good animal wel- fare practices but actively practice them.
I’m impressed so far and also somewhat reassured that they put things into practice, under the aus- pices and watchful eye of the RSPCA, via their RSPCA Approved Farm- ing Accreditation.
I believe we have surely reached a point where we can, in good faith, expect that the animal proteins we consume have been produced under the high- est possible welfare con- ditions.
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Please stay with me, if you’re beginning to won- der what I’m banging on about.
Is that too much to ex- pect in 2022?
As RSPCA Approved manager Talulah Gaunt said, “Here at the RSP- CA Approved Farming Scheme, we’ve worked with Ingham’s for nearly a decade on improving meat chicken welfare.”
Let me preface the next few paragraphs by stating, as regular readers of this publication’s commentar- ies would know, I support almost all of the work the RSPCA does, especially on animal welfare and its production certification fronts.
Therefore, let’s see what Ingham’s has to say on the animal welfare front...
“In that time, we’ve al- ways been impressed with the company’s profession- alism to animal welfare and dedication of their team to evolving the busi- ness.
I think not.
Future headlines featur- ing animal welfare would then only reflect the al- ways disturbing outliers of animal welfare neglect.
“To us, animal welfare means more than nurtur- ing our chickens with good food, clean water
And let’s hope such events always make head- lines!
Page 4 – National Poultry Newspaper, September 2022
For example, I’ve dis- covered that Ingham’s publish an annual animal welfare report – well, they did in 2021 on their website – and they have 2022 versions of animal welfare and animal stew- ardship policies also up- loaded.
If not gold standard, maybe at least minimum standard, for egg production.
www.poultrynews.com.au
Similarly, I must con- cede that my hasty desk website research in- formed me Ingham’s are quite impressive when it comes to how much em- phasis they dedicate to chicken welfare.