Page 112 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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MR RATTENBURY: the market share for free-range egg sales in Australia increased from about eight per cent in 2002 to around 25 per cent in 2011. Woolworths, which just last year announced that it will phase out selling eggs sourced from caged hens, reports that that sale of caged eggs has fallen noticeably over the past four years. In 2009 eggs from caged hens made up 70 per cent of all egg sales in Woolworths, and they now make up only 50 per cent of egg sales.
Despite the encouraging consumer trend towards free-range eggs, the RSPCA estimates that 70 per cent of laying hens in Australia are still kept in cages. This means that there are still more than 11 million laying hens being kept in cages in this country. That is 11 million living, feeling creatures capable of experiencing fear, pain and distress that factory farming industry keeps in tiny cages. I personally find this statistic truly shocking.
There is overwhelming evidence that the needs of laying hens cannot be met in a cage, whether a battery cage or an enriched cage. Restrictions on bird movement by keeping them in cages often no greater than an A4 piece of paper mean that these hens suffer greatly both mentally and physically. These minimum cage sizes are smaller than the average body volume of a hen. Not so many years ago the minimum cage size was increased so it is no longer 450 centimetres squared but now 550 centimetres squared, still smaller than an A4 page.
I strongly believe that life in a cage can never address the behavioural needs of hens. These are sentient birds locked in small cages with no room to turn around, stretch their wings, scratch or pick in the dirt or jump onto a higher perch for the night. Cages for egg production are so small that birds cannot engage in their natural behaviours, like stretching and flapping their wings.
The lack of exercise for caged hens due to restricted space exacerbates bone weakness, which results in greater likelihood of fractured or deformed bones. I find the practice of keeping hens confined in cages for their entire lives completely unacceptable in a civilised society. I am relieved that caged egg farming no longer occurs in the ACT and the passage of this bill will ensure that it cannot be introduced in the future in the territory.
The amendments also go to the debeaking of hens, a practice that is common in intensive egg farming. Debeaking involves the partial trimming or removal of a hen’s beak, ostensibly to reduce incidents of feather pecking and cannibalism amongst poultry kept in close confinement. When hens are kept in smaller flocks and in low stress conditions, they do not cannibalise each other. Without the intensive factory farming of hens, there is no need to remove their beaks. Beak removal or trimming carries with it many animal welfare concerns, including acute stress and acute, possibly chronic, pain following trimming. Serious debeaking affects a bird for the rest of its life as the bird’s ability to consume feed is impaired because of the new shape of its beak.
Along with caged farming, it is now time for us to stop the cruel and painful practice of beak trimming and removal in the territory. I noted that when tail docking of dogs
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