Almost all of the animal welfare organizations are praising the move from battery cages to colony cages for egg laying hens both here and in Europe. It’s a victory for hens, these organizations would have us believe. It’s a sign that the animal welfare movement is gaining more influence over the poultry industry and progress is being made on behalf of these animals.
Most of these organization remain silent however on what lies ahead for egg laying hens. Upon closer inspection, what we’ll find is that the phase out of the battery cage is really just a transition to another form of caged confinement called the colony cage which is arguably in some ways more dangerous and deleterious to hens.
In this video clip from a news report aired on New Zealand television, we get a closer look at the colony cage system which the poultry industry has been far too cagey about permitting us to see. The footage here was recorded using undercover camera by an animal activist organization in New Zealand. Repeated attempts by the media to get a tour of colony cage facilities have been flatly rejected, as the reporter indicates.
If you really want to help hens, don’t buy eggs and educate others why it is wrong to exploit hens for their eggs, regardless of the conditions under which they are raised, whether cage free, free range, organic, pasture raised or any other superfluous marketing claim that they get labeled under.
