Page 4 - National Poultry Newspaper

The variety of free range eggs at supermarkets is improving all the time to match changing consumer sentiment.
Happy hens living and loving life on pasture.
Surely caged hens have had their day
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WITH eggs from caged hens likely to be phased out in Australia by 2036, despite some industry and NSW state govern- ment opposition, that’s at least good news for those hens that will be doing their thing then, but un- comfortable news for those hard at it right now.
bourg and Austria have al- ready banned the caging of hens, while bans are com- ing in Germany, Belgium, Czechia and Slovakia.
With more than $0.5 billion invested over the past 10 years to improve cage egg standards, Aus- tralia's current cage egg farms are a healthier and happier place for hens.
Page 4 – National Poultry Newspaper, December 2021
go around.
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The space each such hen endures can be less than the size of an A4 piece of paper... ouch!
According to the Hu- mane League UK, as many as 16 million chick- ens are in cages across the region, despite 76 percent of consumers considering the banning of cages to be a priority issue.
Cage egg farming be- gan about 50 years ago in response to the fast- growing demand for eggs and the need to lower the unacceptably high dis- ease and mortality rates in free range hens.
On top of that, she can’t really stretch, flap her wings or access a nesting area to lay her eggs – let alone experience the luxury of a nice natural dust bath.
things in what is nothing short of a boring barren battery cage.
All major UK food com- panies have committed to cage-free supply chains by 2025.
Unsurprisingly, animal welfare groups criticised the plan for being too slow, while the industry pushed for a longer phase-out until 2046.
University of Mel- bourne animal law and policy expert Christine Parker has said the fail- ure to get rid of battery cages was threatening Australia's trade deals with the UK and EU, which have higher animal welfare standards.
I’m thinking that 50 years on from the in- troduction of caged egg farming in Australia, it’s time to move on.
Australia has been some- thing of an outlier when it comes to hen welfare, with 30 of 36 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nations having either phased out battery cages already or are in the process of get- ting rid of them.
“Any products entering the EU have to meet the higher animal welfare standards that the EU has and in particular battery cages and the UK is do- ing the same thing,” Pro- fessor Parker said.
And I believe most con- sumers have already done so, with the obvious up- ward trending popularity of free range, barn laid and now pasture raised eggs evidence of that.
In the UK, food industry giants including Nestlé, Nando’s and Greggs have endorsed a bill to end cag- es for egg-laying hens in that country.
According to Australian Eggs, a member owned not-for-profit providing marketing and research and development services for the benefit of Austral- ian egg farmers, Austral- ians consume more than 17 million eggs daily.
In other words, there needs to be a sustainable and profitable differential between cost per egg pro- duced and price per egg received.
Their intervention marked the first time UK corporations have spoken out about the use of cages in egg production.
Here’s what their web- site has to say on the subject of cage eggs:
However, today’s savvy consumers are more than ever before aware of the welfare standards and lived experiences ‘hid- den’ behind the animal products they buy.
The bill, which passed its first reading in the House of Commons in Septem- ber, is at the heart of a campaign headed by the Humane League and the Conservative Animal Wel- fare Foundation.
Consumer demand for free range eggs has risen over the past 10 years, however cage eggs re- main an important and affordable option for many Australians.
They want disclosure and increasingly are pre- pared to pay a premium for higher declared wel- fare standards that are backed up by believable authoritative envoys and easily understood mes- sages.
Switzerland, Luxem-
Without them, there just won't be enough eggs to
Seven states in the US have phased out cage-egg production and the Euro- pean Union has resolved to end the use of cages by 2027.
Cage eggs make up 40 percent of supermarket egg purchases in Austral- ia and are produced from hens that are housed in cages inside large cli- mate-controlled sheds.
She can do none of these
The Federal Government was effectively forced to table proposed new stand- ards for poultry welfare in parliament, with the draft standards written by an in- dependent panel that rec- ommended traditional bat- tery cages be phased out between 2032 and 2036.
Moving hens indoors not only protected them from the elements and potential predators but also parasites and dis- ease-causing pathogens such as avian influenza.
“We need to have that as a minimum standard to support these trade deals, otherwise those opportu- nities could be lost.”
For the egg production industry, it understand- ably always comes down to productivity and profit and loss.