by Clare Druce
Enriched cages – a gaping loophole
Despite years of sustained campaigning against any form of cage by all serious animal protection organisations, the ‘enriched’ version of the battery cage for laying hens is, as stated earlier, not included in the 2012 ban on the barren battery cage.
In 2012 the RSPCA launched its new campaign opposing the enriched cage. February 2012’s issue of Poultry World quotes the Society’s senior scientific officer as saying: ‘The message we want to drive home is that, despite the new welfare law, hens will still be kept in cruel cages.’
But what exactly is an enriched cage?
Basically it’s still a battery cage, the birds living behind bars on metal or plastic grid flooring, the cages stacked up in tiers, many thousands of hens to a building. Compared to the old-style cage, there’s mandatory additional floor space per hen measuring roughly the size of a postcard (CIWF’s graphic comparison), bringing the entire minimum space per hen to 750 sq. cm (116 sq. inches), little more than the area of a sheet of A4 paper.
According to the EU Directive, enriched cages must include a perch, a nesting box and a claw shortening device, plus precise provisions for food and water supplies – all necessary to a hen, but wildly inadequate as supplied in an enriched cage, especially in the case of the nesting box. The very term ‘nesting box’ sounds comforting – cosy almost. But in the enriched cage context it’s simply a curtained area, behind which the hen finds the same sloping cage floor, the grid now covered in matting of some kind. Not a wisp of straw, no soft material with which to arrange her nest.
Back in April 2001 Poultry World published an article entitled Practical Experience of Furnished Cages (for ‘furnished’ read enriched). Accompanying it was a photo of ADAS international poultry consultant Arnold Elson crouching in a back-breaking stance, peering into the bottom tier of enriched cages at ADAS’s experimental farm, Gleadthorpe. As in the barren battery cage, effective inspection of hens in the bottom cages is unlikely to happen. To make matters worse, in the enriched cage the very presence of nesting boxes must render thorough inspections, as demanded by law, virtually impossible. Even if a poultry worker does attempt to carry out his work properly, engaging in the painful feat of kneeling, crouching etc. for substantial stretches of time, how are effective inspections to be achieved where nesting areas exist? How will the worker judge what the hen behind the plastic curtain (which he or she may or may not pull aside, in order to get a proper view) is up to? Might that hen not in fact be laying an egg, but instead seeking refuge from the stress of cage life? On the other hand she may be severely injured, or simply dying of Cage Layer Fatigue, having finally given up the struggle. With built-in obscured areas, admittedly of vital importance to the laying hen, the prospect of thorough daily inspections of the individual birds is virtually nil, rendering the whole system illegal per se.
*
Now take a moment to imagine a free-ranging hen’s day: she’ll be walking, running, perhaps indulging in a little low flying, laying an egg, hopefully with straw available so she can construct her nest, searching around for herbs, worms and insects. Under natural conditions, a large proportion of a hen’s day is spent foraging and research has proved that she definitely prefers to work for her food rather than eating from a ‘given’ supply (1).
She’ll be feeling the grass under her feet, maybe sunbathing, certainly dustbathing, freely spreading her wings, grooming with space around her, choosing her companions, planning her next activity, and deciding when it’s time to roost for the night. It is no wonder the welfare movement is in general agreement that the enriched cage fails utterly to provide a suitable environment for creatures capable of such a wide range of activities.
Back in February 1994, Keith Pullman, then editor of the United Kingdom Egg Producers’ Retail Association, foresaw this scenario: ‘Any thoughts that… the enriched cage will satisfy the anti-intensive farming brigade is really clutching at straws. I am told that the Farm Animal Welfare Network (incorporating Chickens’ Lib) now employs 13 full time staff between their various groupings and, on top of that, add the RSPCA’s vast wealth, and you can see that the welfare issue is going to run and run.’ Well, Mr Pullman was seriously wrong about our thirteen-strong staff, but certainly right on the first point – that enriched cages will never satisfy the ‘anti-intensive farming brigade’.
In 2010, in its Opinion on Osteoporosis and Bone Fractures in Laying Hens FAWC stated that bone fractures are common in hens in enriched cages, pointing out that the suffering incurred will ‘severely compromise at least four of the Five Freedoms, i.e. freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury and disease; freedom to perform normal behaviour and freedom from fear and distress.’(2) This same Opinion also states that catching birds in enriched cages is difficult and new fractures can be caused at this time (3), thus confirming our fear that when hens are grabbed and pulled from ‘enriched’ cages, the obstructions caused by perches and curtained ‘nesting boxes’ will compound their suffering.
*
I’ve seen the enriched cages at ADAS’s Experimental Husbandry Farm at Gleadthorpe in Nottinghamshire, legal as far as the EU Directive goes but grossly inadequate for hens’ needs. Designed to hold four or five hens, these looked much like the barren battery cage, while including the minimum statutory additions – the nest boxes, perches etc.
Perches were 5cms (two inches) or so off the floor, in effect taking up precious ground space. For hens stuck in what is in fact a battery cage, perches do offer a vast improvement on permanently gripping a harsh sloping grid floor, and it’s been observed that in enriched cages they spend much of their time perching. In view of this, I’d not be surprised to see ‘The adverse effects on the laying hen caused by excessive perching’ as a future research project, grasped at by some poultry scientist casting around for funding.
Perhaps the most glaringly unattainable provision in the EU Directive, and one I’ve not yet touched on, is for ‘litter such that pecking and scratching are possible’ (4). Interestingly, true dustbathing, that vital activity if a hen’s feathers and skin are to be kept clean and healthy, is not mentioned. That is surely because all those involved in drawing up the ‘provisions’ recognised the impossibility of supplying dustbathing material within the confines of cages. At Gleadthorpe, a small square of artificial grass purported to fulfil the Directive’s demand for somewhere to peck and scratch. I deemed the medium both futile and unhygienic, since droppings would surely get lodged in the plastic ‘grass’.
As mentioned earlier, hens in battery cages perform mock or ‘vacuum’ dustbathing, so compelling is the instinct to keep feathers and skin in good condition. Knowing the vigour with which hens go about this activity, it is obvious that in a unit holding thousands of birds, a large proportion of them in elevated cages, the air would become thick with particles of dust, sand or whatever material was provided, plus feathers, skin, and much else. Since hens and workers alike would suffer, it’s no wonder that the EU directive simply ignores this vital need.
*
I’ve also been able to see colony-style enriched battery cages, this time on a working farm. Colony cages can hold any number of hens, as long as the required 750 sq. cm (116 sq. inches) of floor space is allowed for each bird, plus the ‘extras’ demanded in the Directive. Cage manufacturers may multiply this space per hen as many times as the industry wants. Some of the colony cages I saw held up to sixty hens.
This farmer also kept hens in conventional battery cages, still legal at the time of my visit. I’d asked beforehand if I could see these too, but he’d refused, doubtless fearing I’d be looking for trouble (and he could have been right).
Therefore I was surprised when he showed me into what seemed at first glance to be a huge, very modern conventional battery unit. He’d had a change of heart! Gleaming metal cages stretched away into the distance, and there was that familiar unending clamour of hens’ voices. It took me a few seconds to realize that this was th
e colony house. There were of course many fewer divisions between the elongated cages. At least the hens could make their way from one end of the cage to the other for a bit of exercise, but not with ease, on the sloping grid floor. And they’d forever be jostling for space with their fellow inmates.
In this unit, the set-up boasted an ingenious idea for providing ‘litter for scratching and pecking’, as demanded in the Directive. Once or twice a day a small quantity of chicken food was automatically distributed in one corner of each cage, onto, I seem to remember, a little area of plastic ‘grass’. And no doubt the hens did attempt to scratch and peck in it, simply for something to do.
Next, we climbed a metal staircase to an upper level of cages, to view a re-run of downstairs. Now I was even more aware of the magnitude of the operation. Here were thousands more caged hens, their lives devoid of true meaning.
*
Under the heading ‘Colony system gets thumbs up’ Poultry World (September 2009) describes the Hy-Line/Griffiths/TECNO system installed at Oaklands Farm Eggs (director Gareth Griffiths), where each cage houses eighty birds. Studying Poultry World’s accompanying photo of Hy-Line’s TECNO system, it seems to me that those hens in the lowest tier of cages must live in deep gloom. Though superior to the non-colony cages on show at Gleadthorpe, colony-style cages nevertheless suggest nothing more than a new and chilling version of factory farming.
For further information about Oaklands Farm Eggs’ massive operation in Shropshire, visit www.oaklandsfarmeggs.co.uk where you can read how their ‘girls’, responsible for producing around 500 million eggs a year, ‘have moved house’ and are ‘sitting pretty,’ in their new cages. Oddly, it doesn’t seem possible to view these new homes, in amongst the razzmatazz about good welfare and superior eggs.
On December 8th 2011 a spokesman for Oaklands Farm told listeners to Radio 4’s ‘Farming Today’ how the hens queue up in ‘regimental’ fashion, awaiting their turn in the nesting area, suggesting to me that the provision for laying in colony cages is totally inadequate to meet the hens’ needs.
*
February 2010: Poultry World informed readers that: ‘…orders are in the pipeline for 10m enriched cage places in the UK over the next two years.’ This figure implies a significant proportion of hens (around 20% of the probable national flock) are, theoretically, destined to spend their lives trapped in cages. The photo accompanying the article clearly showed that the hens had been debeaked. From their state of the art cages they peer out, craning their necks, just like any old-style battery hen.
However, the enriched cage may prove not to be the best of investments. Poultry World (February 2012) reported the following downturn in Oaklands Farm Eggs’ profits: ‘A massive investment in enriched colonies by Oaklands Eggs has not yet seen the expected returns from the market. According to financial results presented to Companies House, pre-tax profits for the year to April 2011 came to just £2.23m on a turnover of £44.78m, compared with a profit of £3.05m in the six months to April 2010.’
*
Research in The Netherlands found that in colony cages housing twenty or more hens, feather-pecking leading to mortality all but reached a horrendous 22% in birds with intact beaks. FAWC, when investigating enriched cages, quoted research indicating that in enriched cages holding larger numbers of birds mortality in general was high, and ‘medium’ when caused by feather pecking ‘and/or cannibalism’ (5). Given these statistics, 100% partial beak amputation looks likely to be the order of the day. Little wonder that DEFRA has so often stepped back from naming a date for the abolition of this mutilation.
Another serious welfare problem exists when birds are permanently caged. Fed finely ground food unsuited to their physical and mental needs, and with no opportunity to search out alternatives, they develop oral lesions (mouth ulcers). 1986 research by Dr Michael Gentle showed that lesions start to develop at six weeks of age in chickens given such a diet. By week thirty, all the chickens he was observing displayed lesions. Oral lesions are caused when particles of food stick to the inside of the birds’ mouths, attracting bacteria and possibly blocking salivary ducts (6). In a letter to me dated May 30th 1988, Dr Gentle offered his opinion that birds with oral lesions suffer extreme discomfort or pain.
*
As long ago as 1982 we’d contacted Desmond Morris about the plight of the battery hen. Without delay he helped the cause by writing a memorable article for the Sunday Telegraph’s ‘Opinion’ column. Here’s an extract from it: ‘Anyone who has studied the social life of birds carefully will know that theirs is a subtle and complex world, where food and water are only a small part of their behavioural needs. The brain of each bird is programmed with a complicated set of drives and responses which set it on a path to a life full of special territorial, nesting, roosting, grooming, parental, aggressive and sexual activities, in addition to the simple feeding behaviour. All these other behaviours are totally denied the battery hens.’ (7)
Any form of cage fails utterly to fulfil the needs of laying hens. It’s a tragedy that the poultry industry refuses to shake off the factory farming mindset, but continues to encourage the fabrication of the next generation of hen prison cells.
*
Compassion in World Farming has instigated a scheme whereby Good Egg Awards are given to bodies that pledge to source eggs from barn or free ranging hens only. Companies already signed up include Cadbury’s Crème Eggs, McDonald’s Europe, Subway and many others, including supermarkets. Local authorities are taking the pledge throughout the UK too, meaning non-cage eggs are now used widely in schools, prisons etc. The hens’ best hope is that CIWF’s awards will squeeze out a good number of cage-obsessed farmers.
I’m glad to say CIWF gives a Rotten Egg Award too. A recent one went to Tesco, a company apparently wedded to the stocking of (then still legal) eggs from hens in barren battery cages. In 2010, 1.3 million hens could have been spared the misery of cage life annually, if Tesco had pledged to ban these eggs (8).
Since ‘battery cage-free’ surely must include ‘enriched-battery-cage-free’, it’s just possible that the boast for those orders in the pipeline for 10 million enriched-cage hen places may backfire, the cage enthusiasts finding themselves the proud owners of thousands of empty cages.
*
In the spring of 2012 Hillside Animal Sanctuary carried out an investigation of an enriched cage unit. The People subsequently published a photo of the trapped hens, an image that told the whole squalid story of suffering. Apparently almost as closely stocked as in the old ‘barren’ battery cages, feathers in poor condition, some perching on uncomfortable, badly designed perches, a glimpse of that ludicrous patch of imitation grass...(9).
As a result of the EU’s token cage ban, the outlook for millions of laying hens in Europe remains grim.
*
Equally tragic for the hens is the enriched cage scene in the USA. In United Poultry Concerns’ Spring-Summer 2012 issue of Poultry Press, its president Dr Karen Davis explains that legislation entitled Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012 will assure the future of the ‘enriched’ cage, while giving the barren cage an unspecified but, in the words of the Humane Society of the United States, ‘ample phase-in period’ before any ban is put in place (10). I’m not qualified to explain the complexities of US legislation, but here are some facts:
On their website, United Egg Producers describe themselves as a co-operative of egg farmers from across the United States, owning approximately 95% of all the nation’s egg-laying hens. In 2011 the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and United Egg Producers (UEP), formerly bitter opponents over the caged hen issue, agreed to work together for federal legislation to ban the barren battery cage at some unspecified future date. (Karen Davis tells me that originally the date of January 2030 was proposed.) But, as in the EU, the so-called enriched or colony cage would not be included in any ban.
Presumably HSUS saw this as an overall improvement to a shocking scene, but Karen Davis
disagrees strongly with HSUS’s capitulation, quite rightly I believe. In Karen’s words:
‘Until 2011, the HSUS campaign for cage-free egg production had the U.S. egg industry scared. Fear of HSUS led UEP to “reach out to HSUS in March 2011,” Gregory told Feedstuffs. Would HSUS president Wayne Pacelle be receptive to “a transition to enriched colony cages as an option to ending our conflict?”
The rest is “history”. HSUS and UEP now both say that abandonment of cage-free ballot campaigns is the only solution. Both sides stress that their pact is a financial solution.
Under the new dispensation, battery cages, albeit “enriched” with new plastic furniture that will soon be filthy, will be enshrined. Once the U.S. egg industry invests $4 billion-plus dollars into converting to “enriched” cages with their zillions of “welfare” devices, the system will be in place. Ditto in the European Union.’ (11).
The dilemma as to whether it’s better to fight on for significant improvements or to accept something that’s only marginally better, while hoping to push things further at some future date, is familiar to everyone concerned with animal welfare. After all, it is the animals who are suffering. Is not a small slice of the cake better than the spectre of none at all?
In the case of ‘enriched’ cages, I think the picture is crystal clear. Allowing battery cage units (euphemistically called ‘colony barns’ in the States) to seal the fates of countless millions of hens for the foreseeable future is as useless, in terms of welfare, as it is wrong.
United Egg Producers has a website (12). It shows hens in barren battery cages. To the untutored eye, the hens, though crowded, look pretty good, heads down, enjoying their food, food they don’t even have to search around for! But look closer.
To anyone familiar with the ‘cycle’ of the battery hen it appears these hens have not been long in their cages, perhaps a mere week or two, for their feathers are still in good condition. And the feed troughs have just been filled, so at the moment of filming the hens are busy.