Posts Tagged ‘barren battery cages’

Two reasons to celebrate!

Friday, April 26th, 2013

Laying henxI am so pleased to share with you two pieces of good news.

The first is that the European Commission has decided to take legal action against Greece and Italy to enforce the ban on barren battery cages in those countries. Greece and Italy are the last countries to comply with the law, which came into force over a year ago.

It is testimony to the hard campaigning from you, our wonderful supporters, and our Big Move campaign, that over a dozen non-compliant countries a year ago has been converted into just two. It has also, no doubt, influenced the Commission to lose patience with the remaining pair of nations, serving notice that they’ll be taken to the European Court of Justice.

Many millions of laying hens will be better off as a result of this action.

The second cause to celebrate is over signs of real progress for our RAW campaign to see an end to factory farming altogether. As you’ll appreciate, this is a longer term goal, but one that we have been doggedly pursuing.
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Rabbit Revolution

Friday, June 8th, 2012
Our recent investigations in Europe have revealed factory farming’s best kept secret: millions of rabbits raised in barren battery cages so small they cannot hop about or sit upright. Each rabbit has the space equivalent to a standard A4 sheet of typing paper. It’s a familiar story, even if the victim is new.

Having led a successful campaign to ban barren battery cages for hens in the EU, it’s particularly galling to find yet another animal being widely forced to live in similar conditions. Our investigators looked into this appalling industry in France, Italy and Spain. This is how they described what they found: 

‘Dripping urine and rabbit faeces had built up underneath the wire mesh battery cages…mounds piled knee-high in several sections. It’s a truly filthy business.’

‘The intensive rabbit farms I saw were the dirtiest and most squalid farms I’ve ever visited – one was literally ramshackle, falling apart at the seams, exposing tiers of caged rabbits to the elements.’

This is why Compassion is calling for an end to factory farming for rabbits. It’s estimated that over 300 million rabbits are farmed in the EU, the vast majority of them in cages. Despite this incredible number of rabbits – in fact they are the second most farmed species in Europe, second only to chickens – we cannot find one single piece of EU legislation that specifically protects them from cruelty, injury or pain. Rabbits have even been left out of the new EU slaughter regulations for 2013.

That is why we’re looking for a Rabbit Revolution! We want an urgent end to caged rabbit farming in favour of group housing and free range farming. We also want to see rabbit meat labelled according to method of production so that consumers can know whether the meat is produced humanely or not. If we can get chickens and pigs out of cages, then, we must also free rabbits from factory farms. Please join with me today to make rabbits in factory farms illegal.

Rabbits

© istockphoto

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Europe’s shameful offenders

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

January 1st 2012 was a landmark day for animal welfare in the EU. The arrival of the ban on barren battery cages was a long time coming and we all took a moment, quite rightly, to celebrate and appreciate the difference this would make to the lives of hundreds of millions of hens. We knew at the time, though, that we still had work to do if the EU was to be completely free of cruel barren battery cages. Despite the generous 13 years the egg industry across Europe was given to get rid of the cages, many producers still left it too late to make the change. So now, more than four months later, the lack of progress some EU countries seem to be making in implementing a ban that should already be in place is both frustrating and astounding.

The latest reports are that farmers in 12 EU countries are still profiting from keeping hens crammed in these tiny cages. Their disregard for the new rules means millions of hens are still living in miserable conditions in the EU. It also leaves the majority of farmers, who invested significant amounts of time and money into getting rid of the cages, at a disadvantage. The longer it takes for the 12 rogue states to clean up their act, the greater the disadvantage to those farmers using legal systems and the more hens still in cramped cages will suffer. The Commission will now move to the second stage of its infringement procedure, eventually getting the European Court of Justice involved. But progress through the EU machine will be slow and national governments have a duty both to the hens stuck in barren battery cages and to EU tax payers not to burden the Union with further costs.

It’s encouraging to see that Romania has dropped off the list of rogue states yet to release their hens from illegal systems, and the European Commission’s swift response to non-compliance is welcome. But the governments of those countries still shamefully flouting the rules should never have allowed this to happen. The rest of the non-compliant states need to follow Romania’s lead and consign barren battery cages in the EU to history.

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Flickr

Caged laying hensNocton bus advertisementFace of sow in barren pen with piglets behindLabel Rouge broiler chickens of both sexSow and piglets foraging and one piglet sucklingCute lambs running and jumpingMontbeliard cows on pasturePhilip at FAIBarren veal calf pens

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