by Clare Druce
* Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, an arm of MAFF. Originally, ADAS gave free advice to farmers, but now there is a charge.
*
February 18th 1980: The Times picks up the story, with colourful references to ‘little old ladies’ and ‘swarms’ of RSPCA inspectors. The secretary of the National Egg Producers’ Association, Mr D Parnell, is quoted as warning poultry farmers up and down the land to beware of anyone wanting to buy live hens after one was approached in Yorkshire by ‘a pair of granny agents’. It could well be, wrote Mr Parnell in the Association’s magazine, that such old ladies are spies, secretly working for animal welfare organisations.
Well, there were a good few inaccuracies in both stories (for example two RSPCA inspectors hardly constituted a swarm) and we weren’t too pleased by all this talk of little old ladies. I was forty, and though Violet was seventy-one she looked years younger. Our convenient theory was that the farmer’s wife didn’t pay much attention to us at the time; later, casting her mind back, she remembered us as wanting a few old hens, cheap, for the garden (surely a sign of poverty and old age) and simply embroidered the rest.
Still, there was no getting away from it – she just might have remembered us quite clearly, and in a most unflattering light. We comforted ourselves that she was of the bold and brassy type, so perhaps anyone casually dressed and minus jewellery and heavy make-up at eleven o’clock in the morning was, in her eyes, well over the hill.
*
The incident showed up the complacency of battery farmers. The woman hadn’t thought twice about the dead birds left in their cages. She’d had no need to take us into the shed with her, and clearly had felt no anxiety that we’d report the terrible conditions. Her hens were just typical of a perfectly legal system, their shocking state of no account.
For decades, battery farmers had been encouraged by government agriculture departments to set up systems tailor-made to promote serious welfare problems. Even now, thousands of farmers in charge of livestock rarely undergo a welfare inspection of any kind, much less an unscheduled one.
In 1988, Andrew Smith (MP for Oxford East) put this Parliamentary Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, what was the number of: (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions in respect of unnecessary pain or distress caused to broiler and battery chickens in each of the last five years.
Mr Donald Thompson: The number of prosecutions undertaken and convictions obtained by the ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in respect of causing unnecessary pain or unnecessary distress to poultry in England within the last five years is as follows:
Year
Prosecutions
Convictions
1987
1
1
1986
1
1
1985
Nil
Nil
1984
Nil
Nil
1983
1
1
Taking into account the thousands upon thousands of farms holding laying hens and broiler chickens, the above numbers are staggeringly low.
*
Fast-forward twenty-two years: The following Parliamentary Question was tabled:
Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many (a) prosecutions and (b ) convictions there were for offences relating to unnecessary pain and distress caused to broiler and battery chickens in each of the last five years.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Minister of State) Minister for Food, Farming and Environment, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Poplar and Canning Town, Labour. Holding answer 4th March 2010: The information requested cannot be provided because records are not held centrally.
It seems systems were more sophisticated, back in the 1980s.
Crossing the Pond
September 11th 1980: The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page item drawing attention to a new move in Britain to return hens to the ‘barnyard’, and describing Chickens’ Lib in colourful terms. According to the Wall Street journal, we employed ‘hard-boiled’ tactics, making ‘commando-style’ raids on battery barns.
Well, not quite. Bursting in, all guns blazing, was hardly our style. But we were gathering evidence, steadily, and our next venture was an important one, destined to convince us of the downright illegality of the battery system.
Illegal systems
The National Farmers’ Union had found a battery farmer willing to open his units to supporters of Compassion in World Farming, for just one afternoon. The NFU’s stance was that farmers had nothing to hide, nothing of which to be ashamed. Their hope was that once people could see for themselves what went on down on the farm their fears would melt away, like snow in summer.
Sunday February 1st 1981: by mid-morning, on an unusually warm February day, Violet, Duncan and I, along with our daughters, were heading northwards under a clear blue sky. En route we stopped to eat sandwiches in the car and then carried on to the farm to join the CIWF group, which numbered around thirty.
After cups of tea in the farmhouse we were shown into the first unit. Selected areas had been roped off, but a few of the more bold amongst the party ducked under the ropes, later claiming that the out of bounds cages were seriously overstocked. On the ‘official’ tour, we were shown pullets of only thirteen weeks of age and already showing signs of feather loss, and we wondered about the condition this farmer’s ‘old’ hens, the ones nobody saw that day – unsurprisingly perhaps, they’d all gone for slaughter shortly before our visit.
The in-lay hens we did see were poorly feathered, and after only a minute or two our throats felt dry and scratchy. I urged our daughters to wrap scarves around their mouths and noses. Surely it wasn’t good to breathe in this dust and pollution?
We walked slowly along the aisles, stopping now and again to peer into a cage, hardly liking to look the hens in the eye, for we could do nothing to help them. One pecked at a button on my coat; anything must be of interest in this barren environment, I thought. And did battery hens ever quite give up hope that some day they would find a way out? They see there’s another world; even the rows of dim lights overhead and the hens in the opposite cages proved there’s something beyond their prison bars. But for these hens the only change of scenery would be the journey to slaughter. We left the farm deeply depressed.
On the way home, we stopped off at a smart hotel for a cup of tea. Why were people looking oddly at us, we wondered? Then we tumbled to it – the terrible smell from the batteries must be clinging to our clothing.
It’s the stink of ‘farm fresh’ eggs, we should have told them.
*
Eight years on, and I knew I’d been right to urge my daughters to wrap scarves around their faces. In Chickens’ Lib’s Fact Sheet 22 we were able to quote part of a letter to us, dated January 5th 1989, from Professor John Webster, at the Department of Animal Husbandry, University of Bristol: ‘Thank you for your letter concerning the airborne transmission of salmonella and other potentially harmful matter from intensive poultry houses. Poultry house dust contains a wide range of material which may provoke asthma and other allergies…Workers in poultry and pig houses can suffer from severe respiratory problems and its is probable that some living downwind of intensive poultry units may be affected to a lesser degree.’
Then, much later, Poultry World of June 2009 reported on new Health and Safety Executive guidelines, for the poultry industry. (1-3) Referring to all types of poultry, the article reminded readers: ‘Workers on poultry farms are exposed to an airborne cocktail of particles, including feathers from the birds and dust from dry bedding and droppings. In addition there are mites, bacteria, fungal spores, endotoxins (toxic chemicals released from dead bacteria) and even pesticide and fertiliser residues.’
The PW article detailed the various symptoms suffered by workers, including irritation of breathing passages, an
d ended on an ominous note: ‘Workers may become allergic or sensitised to specific agents and suffer severe reactions if then exposed to even low levels for short periods. Severe asthmatic attacks can be fatal.’
*
But to return to that NFU trip, back in February 1981: For a day or two we felt helpless. To us, the battery system was so obviously cruel. Hens need to be busy from dawn to dusk, foraging for food, enjoying sunshine, walking, running, nest-building, dustbathing, not incarcerated behind bars. Surely there had to be something in existing law, something we could use to prove the battery system illegal. I decided to go through all the relevant legislation we’d collected.
Eventually I lit upon The Welfare of Livestock (Intensive Units) Regulations 1978. These regulations demanded that the hens should be thoroughly inspected not less than once a day, to check they were in a state of well-being.
Laboriously, I did some sums.
*
Rather grandly, we called the result of our calculations Chickens’ Lib’s February the 4th 1981 Statement. Our conclusion was that if each hen were to be inspected adequately, the battery system for egg production, as now practised, would be rendered instantly uneconomic.
We took a forty-thousand-bird unit as our example, and worked out that, allowing just one second’s glance per bird, one member of staff would have to work seven days a week, putting in a twelve-hour day. Then we added in the time needed for all the miscellaneous events that would crop up on a daily basis – the removal of dead hens, the mending of a broken cage, shoe laces to tie, toilet and meal breaks, the blowing of noses – and the fact that nobody in normal employment works a twelve hour day, or a seven day week, with no holidays.
Then we considered the logistics of the inspection itself. Cages on the bottom tier, being almost at floor level, are notoriously difficult to see into. Lighting is at its dimmest in these cages, and anyone inspecting the hens properly would need to squat down, kneel, or bend almost double, and proceed in one of those positions along the concrete shed floor. We pointed out that in a four-tier forty-thousand-hen unit ten thousand of the hens would be caged at ground level. Imagine the discomfort of peering into these low cages! No wonder dead birds linger, unnoticed, sometimes for weeks.
In the 1980s most battery cages were stacked three or four tiers high. (Later, we were to see systems of eight tiers, on display at the Royal Show at Stoneleigh.) Even in three or four-tier cages, hens in the topmost cages are impossible to see into without the stock man or woman being elevated, as is now required by law, but wasn’t then. From ground level, only the feet and heads of hens in top cages are readily visible. Anything could be going on in those cages.
From our calculations it became clear that, for the law to be adhered to, the workforce in any typical battery farm would have to be multiplied several times over, thereby forcing the price of eggs up dramatically. In addition, spending whole days in the stifling and unhealthy atmosphere that prevails in battery units would routinely endanger workers’ health.
The battery system exists on the premise that it can keep going on the absolute minimum of labour, yet the authorities have chosen to turn a blind eye on the fact that effective inspection is demanded by law, while being impossible to achieve.
The Welfare of Livestock (Intensive Units) Regulations 1978 seemed the ideal vehicle for proving what Chickens’ Lib believed: that just about every battery farmer in the land was operating illegally. Here was the chance for a wealthy organisation, able to risk a potentially costly court case, to take action. Surely the fact that the battery system was inherently illegal could be exposed, in court? Naturally, we sent our February 4th Statement to the RSPCA, the only animal protection organisation in a position to take on the task of challenging the legality of the battery system.
Not long after we’d drawn up our February 4th statement and distributed it far and wide, a senior RSPCA investigative officer generously admitted to me that it was our calculations that had drawn the Society’s attention to the potential of the 1978 legislation.
Then, in what seemed no time at all, the Society swung into action.
The RSPCA and the scapegoat
The summer of 1981: for just over a twenty-four hour period, Superintendent Donald Balfour and Inspector Mike Butcher of the RSPCA’s Special Investigations Unit kept watch on a battery egg farm in Newdigate, Surrey. As a result of their observation, a prosecution of the owner was launched, and on January 28th 1982 Poultry World covered the story in detail.
It seems the RSPCA officers had taken precautions to ensure no errors were made, using an army-issue image intensifier to enable them to see what was going on around the farm, even in complete darkness. They also laid concealed traps at the rear of each of the three sheds, putting gravel on the door catches, to make sure nobody could enter the units unnoticed.
Philip Brown, Chief Veterinary Officer of the RSPCA, told the court that the law required a thorough inspection of each bird individually to check its overall bodily condition, adding: ‘In my view, the very minimum time required to undertake such a thorough inspection in the best battery houses would be one second per bird.’
Cecil Schwartz, a private vet acting for the RSPCA, considered that the inspection guidelines in the codes of practice should be observed, and this meant that inspection must be in addition to normal management tasks. (This all seemed uncannily reminiscent of Chickens’ Lib’s February 4th Statement.)
Over the 24-hour plus period, the farmer spent nine and a half minutes in the three battery houses and two teenagers had taken just under three hours collecting eggs. The court ruled that the regulations called for a ‘thorough inspection, not a cursory glance’ and the farmer was fined £150 with a £250 contribution toward the Society’s costs. In his defence, the farmer claimed that, as an experienced poultry man, he would know instinctively when anything was wrong with his birds. Chickens’ Lib had heard similar claims before and has heard them since – tales of farmers happily blessed with a ‘sixth sense’ about the health of their flocks.
During the proceedings Humphrey Malin, prosecuting, explained that the case had been brought to test the definition of the law, and not as an allegation of cruelty. Later, a spokesman for the RSPCA expressed the hope that MAFF and the livestock industry would respond in a positive manner: ‘We are not getting at the individual farmer. The 1978 Regulations specifically state that all livestock, and that includes battery hens, must be thoroughly inspected at least once in a 24-hour period. We felt that the regulations were not being complied with by the vast majority of intensive livestock farmers.’
Sadly, neither the livestock industry nor MAFF responded in the hoped-for spirit. Peter Jones, head of the NFU’s intensive livestock division, said the court decision would worry many poultry farmers, and spoke of the union’s concern that the RSPCA was prepared to trespass to gain evidence, warning poultry farmers to look out for any suspicious activity around their units. Predictably, MAFF carried on as before, unperturbed.
*
February 4th 1982: Precisely one year after our February 4th Statement, the editor of Poultry World was fuming: ‘To make their point about inspection of poultry in intensive units RSPCA men have suffered considerable discomfort, trespassed on a Surrey farmer’s land and made the whole process of looking after the well-being of stock utterly ridiculous. There can be few better examples of the law being an ass through man’s attempts to define legislation that is beyond him. It seems safe to assume Mr Constable’s layers were kept at a comfortable temperature and ventilation rate and that they had adequate feed and water, since he was not accused of cruelty…So I am wondering what he did wrong in a mass management system that depends on catering for flocks not individual birds. Quite rightly he was concerned about flock health and maintaining the best environment for the flock. When we fail to do that we deserve all the RSPCA can throw at us, but not for failing to look every bird in the eye every day.”
It’s clear from the above that the ind
ustry interprets laws at its convenience. The legislation specified ‘thorough’ inspection, not a quick glance around the thousands of hens, including those living in semi-darkness on the bottom tiers, or largely hidden from sight in topmost cages.
*
The failure of the RSPCA to take further, similar, cases has been of lasting regret to Chickens’ Lib. The spokesman quoted above emphasised that the Society wasn’t looking for a scapegoat. He also said the RSPCA suspected ‘the vast majority’ of battery farmers of breaking the law. And even the NFU wasn’t arguing. ‘The NFU said that following this test case at Dorking, brought by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, most poultry farmers in Britain were breaking the law.’ (1) Yet in effect this Surrey farmer became just that – a scapegoat. He must often have pondered on his bad luck.
Surely, our contention that the battery system would crumble if staffed at an appropriate ratio of hens to stock men and women should have been used to hit intensive systems hard, and not only the battery system. The RSPCA could have taken case after case, and maybe won them all on the maths alone, exposing the inherent cruelty and illegality of intensive poultry systems in courts up and down the land.
We believed that RSPCA supporters would have been glad to know their donations were helping to stamp out widespread cruelty. We felt certain there would have been no question of a serious loss of revenue for the Society, following such a progressive course of action.
Charities are not allowed to attempt to change laws. We were not asking for laws to be changed, but for existing legislation to be adhered to.