by Clare Druce
So much for the cage system.
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With no delay, we alerted the RSPCA to Angela’s farm, and this time a prosecution did get underway. Violet and I were called as witnesses; Frank Milner, who I believe was head of the Society’s Special Investigations Unit at that time, was well pleased with us. As he put it, the lawyer for the defence ‘took a step back’ when Violet and I entered the witness box.
Incredibly, Angela’s condition was not considered proof of neglect. The post mortem report had included the fatal phrase: ‘The bird was in bright condition’. This short sentence was apparently enough to dismiss the suffering Angela endured unnoticed while her body became increasingly blocked with rotting eggs, egg peritonitis only a step away.
However, the farmer was found guilty of failing to inspect his hens properly, since at the time of the RSPCA’s visit several birds had been found dead in their cages, some displaying evidence of starvation.
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March 13th 1984: ‘ David Kemp, 49, of Springfield Farm, Horsforth, Leeds was fined £100 on March 13th, for causing unnecessary suffering and for failing to inspect his hens…Mr Kemp’s farm had been the target for investigators from a group called “Chickens’ Lib”, which campaigns against battery farming, the court was told.’ Poultry World, March 22nd 1984.
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Of course we welcomed this case, but with serious reservations. At the RSPCA’s 1982 AGM a Chickens’ Lib’s motion that a battery farmer be prosecuted on the grounds of the cruelty of the battery system per se had received wide support. Yet nearly two years later, the Society was still no nearer to achieving this goal. As with the Surrey case, the Springfield Farm prosecution was taken under the Welfare of Livestock (Intensive Units) 1978 Regulations, and limited to inadequate daily inspection.
So we remained frustrated. We wanted it proved in a court of law that the battery system, however well or badly run, is illegal. We’d continue with our efforts to expose the cruelties inherent in the system.
Our next foray into the dark world of factory farming was to be one of our most interesting ones, though dangerous, especially for Violet.
But before that, some good news: ‘Top people’ are happy to support Chickens’ Lib!
Starry patronage for Chickens’ Lib
In October 1983 we wrote to our supporters: ‘We are very pleased to be able to announce that Chickens’ Lib now has four patrons – the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev John Austin Baker, the writers Brigid Brophy and Margaret Lane (Miss Lane is the Countess of Huntingdon), and Richard Ryder, author of “Victims of Science” and a former Chairman of the RSPCA Council. We are most grateful to them all for the confidence they have shown in us by agreeing to help us – and thereby all battery hens – in this way.’
Later, peace campaigner Bruce Kent was to become a much-valued patron too.
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In the mid-1980s we issued a battery hen leaflet, its front and back covers decorated with the signatures of around thirty VIPs – a selection of authors, philosophers, politicians and others. Among them were Richard Adams, Catherine Cookson, Ken Livingstone, Joanna Lumley, Lord Peter Melchett, Mary Midgely, Patrick Moore, Desmond Morris, Iris Murdoch, Jonathon Porritt, the Bishop of Southwark and Colin Spencer.
On another occasion we invited well-known people to write to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and/or to sign our petition. Again, many supported us, including Julie Christie, Dawn French, Nigel Hawthorne, Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth, Bryan Forbes, Clare Francis, Miles Kington, Twiggy Lawson, Michael Mayne (the Dean of Westminster,) Linda McCartney, Spike Milligan, Hayley Mills and Indajit Singh (now Lord Singh), broadcaster and at that time editor of The Sikh Messenger.
I’m sure that the late Sir John Gielgud wouldn’t have minded me telling readers that he too was a keen supporter of Chickens’ Lib.
We were so grateful to them all.
Bitten but unbowed
October 24th 1983: Violet, Irene, Emily (it’s half-term) and I set out on a new battery hen quest, this time heading for Derbyshire. The manager of our chosen farm turned out not to be the type to sell off a few old hens to strangers, but obligingly he told us of a smaller place a mile or two down the road.
We soon found the range of shabby battery sheds alongside some old stone farm buildings, near to the farmhouse itself. All was quiet, so in the yard we practised our ‘Is anybody there?’ technique. If someone did appear, we’d trot out our piece about wanting a few old hens. If not, we’d have a little look around. We noticed a large Alsatian, but he was securely chained up, so we wandered towards the sheds.
The door of the first one stood open; a mask hung near the doorway, the kind people wear when engaged in hazardous work. We ventured a little nearer, until we could make out the cages, stacked high and crammed with hens, many almost featherless. The stench was overpowering. On the floor lay the remains of past inmates, mostly skulls and a few bones picked clean, probably by rats. We hung back, afraid to pass the threshold. Then, in a nearby stone barn we discovered thousands more caged hens, surviving in semi darkness.
We drove away, found a phone box and phoned the police. The police suggested we contact the RSPCA, whose phone was permanently engaged. We phoned MAFF at their Derby office, where a woman vet showed a deep level of unconcern. Having met our usual solid brick walls, we had a snack in the car and discussed what to do next. Simply going home was not an option.
We decided to return to this nightmare of a ‘farm’ in the afternoon.
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At two o’clock we went through our routine once more.
‘Hello! Anyone there?’
Suddenly the Alsatian, no longer chained, charged across the yard. Snarling, he headed straight for Violet, sank his teeth into the back of her leg then, almost as suddenly, was gone. Had he been set on us and then called off? Never had a Chickens’ Lib team moved so fast. Within seconds, we were slamming car doors and backing out of the yard.
I remembered some homeopathic ‘shock’ tablets in my bag, and at a safe distance we stopped to dose Violet before making for Chesterfield hospital’s A&E department, where we spent a couple of hours hanging around for the necessary tetanus jab and stitches.
Though literally scarred for life, Violet weathered the incident remarkably well, especially for someone who’d always feared being bitten by an Alsatian.
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Following our complaint, MAFF did visit the farm the next day. On November 24th MAFF wrote to Chickens’ Lib insisting that no warning was given to the farmer, when it came to investigating our complaint. Apparently, we were told, a woman vet accompanied by an RSPCA inspector had carried out the inspection. Interestingly, this same RSPCA Inspector later let slip to us that the MAFF vet hadn’t ventured more than a few feet into any of the units. Had she, like us, felt afraid?
In emphasising the absence of forewarning for the farmer, MAFF had tacitly admitted that the vet and the RSPCA inspector almost certainly saw precisely what we had seen, yet MAFF had found no evidence of unnecessary pain or unnecessary distress. A recurring phrase, this unnecessary pain or unnecessary distress.
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Things were soon to take an encouraging turn. The local RSPCA inspector was, according to the Society’s Assistant Executive Director (Designate), not fully satisfied with his visit. The Assistant ED(D) explained, in a letter dated November 11th, that he awaited the MAFF veterinary report before possibly taking things further.
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Two weeks later, and still determined to make headway, we asked friends in the animal rights movement to try their luck at the farm, having duly warned them about the dog. Regardless of danger, they agreed to help. They’d go the following Sunday morning with a trailer, spinning a tale about an uncle with an allotment wanting a few hens.
They must have looked the part, for they came away with an impressive twenty-four hens.
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Sunday afternoon: We’d arranged temporary accommodation for our expected guests in the baseme
nt of our house, in an old wardrobe sporting several small partitions. With the wardrobe laid on its side, these cubby-holes had rather the look of open-plan battery cages, from which the hens could emerge and enjoy a straw-filled area.
We saw a car draw up, a shabby tarpaulin-covered trailer attached, and rushed out to congratulate our helpers. As we began the task of transferring twenty-four hens to the basement we realised these were no ordinary victims of the cage system. Panic-stricken, they were also remarkably strong and unusually vocal. In the midst of the frantic operation, our ears ringing with their desperate squawks, something unfortunate occurred.
Our nearest neighbours lived in a converted barn, the front door of which was only yards from our basement door. Suddenly, bizarrely, a large family group plus friends began filing past us. Then I remembered. Their younger child’s christening! No wonder everyone was dressed so formally, so respectably, so very smartly… Mercifully, they were all too polite to stop and stare – or at least I think they were. Actually, I couldn’t bring myself to look in their direction, let alone ask how the christening had gone. Just ignore the awfulness of this situation I told myself, just go on trying to get a grip around each hen’s flailing wings. Pretend none of this is happening…
We kept up the pretence, on both sides. Nothing was ever said. Well, not to our faces. Once the procession was safely indoors and the champagne flowing, the topic of neighbours lowering the tone of the neighbourhood may well have come under discussion.
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Monday: the RSPCA sent a local veterinary surgeon, employed to act on the Society’s behalf, to examine our hens in situ. Pleasant in manner, if unforthcoming, he briskly examined each one with the help of a young veterinary nurse. We’d assumed the vet to be in sympathy with our cause, so when HQ contacted us again, quoting from his report, we were taken aback.
In his letter, the Assistant Executive Director Designate informed us that the Society had found no contravention of the law. He then invited us to ‘reflect’ on part of the examining vet’s statement, which claimed he’d found no signs of suffering. Indeed the vet had gone one (giant) step further, noting that the birds he’d examined seemed to him ‘more than happy’ and were strong and healthy; his final thrust was to suggest that we’d caused the hens more stress than they had ever previously endured, by transporting them to a completely new environment. Away, in fact, from a rat-infested hell hole (my comment, not the vet’s).
And reflect we did. Both on the anthropomorphic and illogical veterinary ‘report’ and on the odd, schoolmasterly tone from RSPCA headquarters.
Dave Clegg, professional photographer and good friend to Chickens’ Lib, called round; a photographic record of the hens was essential. We’d already named the most pitiful and naked among them Felicity, bearing in mind that she’d been deemed ‘more than happy’.
The season of goodwill was approaching. So we mounted Felicity’s photo on colourful card, added a decorative design of holly leaves and a festive greeting, and sent it to our visiting vet’s Huddersfield surgery.
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April 25th 1984: Having gained no satisfaction from MAFF, we gathered a large group of protestors (around one hundred of them, plus a few dogs for good measure) and visited the MAFF offices in Derby, where the vet who’d inspected Felicity’s farm worked. Or didn’t work.
Unchallenged, we made our way upstairs to a spacious office on the first floor where, to the surprise of assorted staff, our sit-in took place, lasting two and a half hours. Eventually we were told a small number of us could have an official meeting at a pre-arranged date, if we all left immediately.
Three weeks later, three of us met with the Divisional Veterinary Officer and two other non-veterinary officials. The DVO confirmed his whole-hearted support of the battery system and his belief that the hens we’d bought were moulting. The sop he offered us was that a (woman) vet would inspect all the thirteen battery farms in Derbyshire housing more than five thousand hens. This didn’t thrill us, since she too appeared totally dedicated to the battery system, and in the end the plan was abandoned anyway due to an outbreak of Fowl Pest.
To round off the sorry story, here’s an extract from our newsletter dated June 1984: ‘Derby MAFF expressed its gratitude for our good behaviour during the sit-in but asked us not to come again, giving as a reason the fact that there are drugs and shotguns on the premises.’ (Optimistically, we assumed these to be for veterinary use, rather than to subdue protestors.)
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We re-homed most of the hens easily, keeping half a dozen for ourselves and, after a period of sheltered rehabilitation to allow for re-growing of feathers, they thrived in our little orchard. A mere six months after she’d arrived at our house, terrified and nearly naked, Felicity was on her way to stardom.
Dave Clegg had come in the spring and once again taken Felicity’s picture. This time she was striding across the lawn, friendly, confident, and fully feathered. More than happy, one could say! Soon, Dave’s photos, featuring Felicity ‘before and after’, were to become the subject of a poster, possibly the best battery hen poster ever produced, and one that was to go all over the world.
‘This is the same hen – True or False?’ ran our heading above photos of Felicity as we’d first known her, and six months later. ‘TRUE! The battery system routinely reduces hens to this pitiful state. This little hen was lucky – the photo on the right shows her just six months after her release from a dimly-lit, stinking shed. REMEMBER! Eggs described as “Farm Fresh” etc. are often laid by cruelly-imprisoned hens – and for them it’s a life sentence. Their only change of scenery will be the terrifying journey to slaughter.
SAY NO TO BATTERY EGGS.’
And there was more. In April 1985 issue of Harpers and Queen ran an article on Chickens’ Lib, written by Violet and myself (and representing virtually our only financial gain during the entire campaign). Under the heading ‘Free as a Bird’ was a photo of Violet and me with – who else? – Felicity.
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Post script: Felicity lived with us for two more years, in comfort and contentment, the friendliest of hens, a special hen. She died peacefully, and we buried her under a flowering cherry tree.
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Post post script
Eight years on, a headline in the local paper caught my eye: Vet guilty of disgraceful conduct. And goodness! The vet turned out to be our vet of the ‘more than happy’ diagnosis. His surgery had been deemed by a former president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to be: ‘…filthy and blood-spattered with bird droppings and cigarette ends on the floor and the body of a dog in a warm chest freezer…in the room there were syringes full of blood and a blood-stained drape. Medicine bottles were covered in horse dung and encrusted with dust…’ and so the charges went on. (1)
Nor was it the first time the RCVS had had cause to check on this vet. There’d been an earlier occasion, in 1988, when his registration had been suspended. Then, he’d been found guilty of illicitly selling EC certificates to a meat company (2).
It seemed the RSPCA had sent along the wrong person if they wanted an honest and professional opinion on our abused battery hens. To be fair, we knew that vets willing to stand out against intensive farming were truly hard to find. Indeed they could probably have been numbered on the fingers of one hand. But should not the Society have questioned that strange report instead of allowing Chickens’ Lib to be vilified? Should they not have enquired into their chosen vet’s history, so avoiding wasting an opportunity, along with RSPCA funds?
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It would be hard to imagine a worse example of a battery farm than Felicity’s. Face masks to protect workers, rat-eaten hen remains littering the shed floors, thousands of near-featherless hens crammed into a dimly-lit barn, an RSPCA inspector ‘not fully satisfied’ with what he’d seen.
And yet no pressure was exerted by the Society to challenge MAFF’s protection of an establishment where the law was being broken at every turn. Surely this was a golden opp
ortunity to prosecute, not merely on the grounds of lack of inspection, but on the system per se. On many occasions the Society was to point out that there was nothing to stop us, or any other organisation, from mounting a prosecution.
But of course there was. In the past, certainly, the RSPCA alone had the funds and the necessary legal know-how at their disposal.
A cruel ‘solution’
The practice of de-beaking poultry has developed hand in hand with intensive systems. It’s a mutilation intended to minimise injury and death due to birds pecking at each other in their frustration. The industry freely uses the terms ‘aggression’, ‘cannibalism’ and even ‘vice’ to cover abnormal behaviour induced by the severe deprivations imposed on most commercially kept poultry. Battery hens were the first to suffer from widespread de-beaking but now un-caged poultry endure the mutilation too, when severe overcrowding can lead to outbreaks of feather pecking that can end in high mortality.
Once seen as a handy method for the control of ‘aggression’, the practice of de-beaking is now widely regarded as unacceptable, in terms of animal welfare. Yet the mutilation of de-beaking seems destined to hang like a millstone around the necks of ministers attempting to take heed of welfarists, for the solution to feather-pecking remains elusive. Small flocks could be the answer – an unpopular one in today’s harsh commercial climate – while selecting birds of a different, more docile, strain is under consideration.
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Following the House of Commons’ Agriculture Committee’s scrutiny of intensive agriculture, its 1980-81 Report was published. Despite serious reservations put forward by welfarists, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) remained stoutly in favour of de-beaking, stating: ‘It is considered that the provisions of the Veterinary Surgeons (Exemptions) Order 1962 and the guidelines on beak-trimming laid down in the welfare code for domestic fowls are, taken together, adequate to safeguard the welfare of all domestic fowls, including those kept in battery cages. FAWC may make recommendations on this subject as part of its review of the welfare codes.’ (1)