COMMENT
My 3-year-old niece has a book about chickens. It shows fluffy little balls of yellow fur walking happily about a farm. They peck the ground, sunbathe and take dust baths.
My niece is too young for me to tell her that, unfortunately, the vast majority of New Zealand's hens do not
have such a happy life. About 92 per cent spend their entire existence crammed into tiny cages, while a further 2 per cent are barn raised.
Only about 6 per cent are free range.
Rules setting minimum standards for hens in New Zealand are being drawn up at present. Hopes had been high that the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee would recommend that battery farming of hens be gradually phased out.
However, a leaked draft report says the committee is "unable" to recommend this until it can be shown that alternative systems would "consistently provide better welfare outcomes for birds and be economically viable".
The document, instead, proposes that the current minimum space per hen be increased from 450 sq cm to 500 sq cm by 2008, and to 550 sq cm by 2014.
To put that into perspective, the page of the Herald you are reading at present measures 40cm by 60cm - a bigger area than the entire amount of space in which a battery hen will spend her life.
Hens need at least three times the 450 sq cm space to be able to carry out their natural behaviours.
Battery hens cannot stretch their wings, take dust baths or sunbathe, scratch in the ground for food, lay their eggs privately or relate naturally to other birds.
They typically suffer deformed feet, broken or brittle bones and loss of feathers from pecking injuries caused by the stress of many birds in a confined area.
Many birds have part of their beaks removed, a painful procedure which mutilates them and makes pecking difficult.
Further stress is placed on their bodies by the way they are treated as egg-producing machines, required to churn out 300 eggs a year.
Male chicks are of no use to the industry and are killed on their first day of life by being shredded at high speed by way of maceration.
Pictures of almost-bald and bleeding battery hens provide a gruesome contrast to photos of beautiful free range birds with gleaming feathers and bright eyes.
How can we allow this in New Zealand when we have an Animal Welfare Act designed to prevent the ill-treatment of animals and require those in charge of them to attend properly to their welfare?
The answer comes down to one simple word: economics.
The legislation allows exceptions to the rules requiring proper treatment of animals when it is considered this would be too expensive.
This is a disgrace and the law should be changed. Either we believe that animals should be treated properly, or we do not.
It is ridiculous to say that the law requires good treatment of animals - but only if it does not cost too much.
The basic requirements of the Animal Welfare Act for the humane treatment of animals should apply to all living creatures, with no exceptions.
Yes, it does cost more to treat humans and animals properly, but that is just the price of living in what is supposed to be a civilised society.
New Zealand is lagging well behind other countries in this regard. Switzerland banned battery farming in 1992 and Sweden in 1999. Dutch supermarkets have stopped selling eggs from caged birds this year, and battery cages will be banned in Australia from 2009.
Cages measuring 450 sq cm will be phased out in the European Union from 2012.
In Britain, supermarket chain Marks & Spencer has announced it will no longer use battery eggs in any of its products.
Germany and France are also more progressive than New Zealand.
Widespread concern in this country about the plight of battery hens was demonstrated by a 220,000-signature petition in 1995, and a 2002 Colmar Brunton survey which found that almost eight out of 10 New Zealanders would pay more for eggs if battery farming was banned.
The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee received more than 120,000 submissions opposing battery cages.
It is time for the committee and the Government to listen to those widespread expressions of concern.
The advisory committee needs to go back to the drawing board with its draft code. It should consign the first one to the scrapheap and draft a new version, based on the principles clearly set out in the Animal Welfare Act.
That would mean banning battery cages. Phase-out periods can be provided to give the egg-production industry time to prepare for the change.
In the meantime, clear rules should be introduced to provide for proper labelling of eggs.
Consumers buying eggs are faced with a bewildering display of cartons labelled "farm fresh", "barn raised", and "country fresh". Many buyers mistakenly believe that "fresh" means free range. It does not.
Eggs produced by battery hens should be labelled as such.
I had hoped that by the time my niece was old enough for me to talk to her about the reality of hens' lives that battery farming would have been banned.
I know she will find it impossible to understand how we could treat other living creatures so cruelly.
* Catriona MacLennan is a South Auckland barrister.
COMMENT
My 3-year-old niece has a book about chickens. It shows fluffy little balls of yellow fur walking happily about a farm. They peck the ground, sunbathe and take dust baths.
My niece is too young for me to tell her that, unfortunately, the vast majority of New Zealand's hens do not
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