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Battery life: at LT’s Egg Farm in Victoria, 20,000 caged hens produce up to 18,000 eggs a day. Photographs by Meredith O’Shea for the Guardian
Battery life: at LT’s Egg Farm in Victoria, 20,000 caged hens produce up to 18,000 eggs a day. Photographs by Meredith O’Shea for the Guardian

Inside the battery hen shed: the farmer who wants to prove cages aren’t always cruel

This article is more than 9 years old

His birds can’t flap their wings or forage, but with the campaign to ban cage eggs gathering pace, Brian Ahmed argues a range of properly managed farming systems are needed to meet consumer demand. Guardian Australia takes up an offer to inspect his farm

“It’s not freedom, I’d admit that,” Brian Ahmed says, gesturing to row after row of chickens kept at five per cage in a large, temperature-controlled shed.

Ahmed runs LT’s Egg Farm in Victoria’s Werribee South, where 20,000 caged hens produce up to 18,000 eggs every day.

“But by moving to a cage-controlled system from free-range egg farming, we reduced the rates of disease in the birds, we better protected them from predators and parasites, they produce cleaner and more affordable eggs, and we’ve reduced their mortality rate to 1%,” he said.

With the Victorian Greens this week introducing a bill into state parliament to ban battery cages and the routine debeaking of hens, Ahmed invited Greens animal welfare spokeswoman, Sue Pennicuik, to inspect his farm.

The Greens and animal welfare groups including the RSPCA and Animals Australia say Australia’s estimated 11m battery hens are unable to express normal behaviours such as wing-flapping, scratching, dust-bathing, perching and foraging and are unable to escape aggression from other hens.

Pennicuik declined the invitation, but Guardian Australia decided to take up the offer and see an example of the more humane end of cage-hen egg farming.

Ahmed, who is also president of the Victorian Farmers Federation Egg Group, said he was keen to show the public that cage-hen farming was not cruel, with a raft of food retailers moving to eliminate cage eggs from their supply chains.

Woolworths has committed to phase out cage eggs from all stores by 2018, while Coles no longer sells Coles-brand cage eggs. On Monday McDonald’s Australia said cage eggs would be off the menu by the end of 2014, and on Thursday Subway Australia said they would switch to cage-free eggs within 18 months.

Brian Ahmed: ‘Countries like England are going back to cages because of disease issues with free-range farming’

But Ahmed says there is no difference in the stress levels between caged, barn and free-range hens. Unlike other farmers, he has allowed journalists access, saying consumers have been misled by animal welfare groups about the conditions the birds live in.

After we don full-body suits and cover our shoes in plastic to avoid bringing contaminants into the birds’ environment, Ahmed opens the door to a long rectangular shed where the temperature is kept at 22C and chickens are kept five-rows high.

They have about enough room to turn around in their cage and move from the front to the back, but not enough room to flap their wings without hitting another bird. With a ground of wire to walk on, there is no dust-bathing either.

But the environment is clean. Faeces drop through to metal trays which are cleaned every six days, the eggs are collected daily, and there is a constant supply of food and water to the cages. They don’t get sick, Ahmed says, so they don’t need antibiotics.

The chickens come to the farm at 16 weeks old with beaks trimmed with a hot blade to prevent cannibalism. They remain in their cage until around 18 months, Ahmed says, at which point they are culled and sent to countries like South Africa. After that age they produce fewer eggs, and it is not economically feasible to keep them when a younger, replacement hen could produce much more, he says. Free range hens, too, are killed at about 18 months.

Ahmed’s hens look plump, aren’t missing too many feathers and seem in good condition.

Ahmed releases one from its cage and, after some flapping, it sits still, unsure of what else to do.

Then he reveals a row of 5,000 hens towards the end of their 18-month cage egg-laying lifespan.

They are due for culling next week, Ahmed says, when they will be killed and swapped with a 16-week-old batch.

The hens look noticeably different from their younger peers. Some have featherless chests raw “from rubbing against the wire while feeding”, Ahmed says. Many have featherless, pink gaps at the back of their bodies too.

They seem thinner.

“The cage is not cruel,” Ahmed says.

“A cage to most people seems like a prison. That’s a hard, emotional argument to come up against. But countries like England are going back to cages because of disease issues with free-range farming.

Some hens have featherless chests ‘from rubbing against the wire while feeding’

“Animal activists have been campaigning against caged eggs for more than 10 years and farmers have ignored them for too long, allowing them to mislead the public to think this is a cruel system.”

According to consumer website Choice, the free-range-egg business is booming, commanding almost 40% of the egg market value. Despite attracting a price premium over cage and barn eggs, a 2012 Choice survey of 900 people found 60% of respondents said it was “essential” the eggs they buy are free range, while a further 25% said it was “important”.

More than half said they were willing to pay $3-$5 more per dozen for free-range rather than cage eggs.

Ahmed says 10 years ago, free-range egg farming comprised about 5% of the market. He acknowledges that demand for free-range eggs is increasing.

“But to produce the quantity needed to feed the Australian community, free-range egg farmers would need to run between 10 and 20,000 birds per hectare,” he says.

“People who think all the farms will be 100 chooks running around an open paddock need to know it will not happen, there is just not enough land and yet by 2050, we farmers need to produce double the amount of food we are today to meet demand.

“How are we going to feed that growing population? I want someone to answer that.”

Free-range farming is not without its problems, he says, and farmers had moved to caged eggs in the 60s because of consumer demand for a cheaper, cleaner product.

A Choice survey found that more than half of people are willing to pay $3-5 more per dozen for free-range rather than cage eggs

He believes there is still a place for cage, as well as barn and free-range egg farming systems, to meet the needs of consumers and their budgets.

“I’m not saying every farmer does the right thing,” Ahmed says.

“We want farmers who are bad for animal welfare out of the system as much as activists do. But I also want to show there is a room for a range of different farming systems when they are managed properly.”

Consumers have seen horrific images from the cage hen farming industry. Pictures allegedly from a NSW farm supplying Pace Farm showed severe overcrowding, while dozens of birds were said to have been found in manure pits below the cages, without access to food or water.

Battery cages have been outlawed in the European Union and some US states, while New Zealand is phasing out battery cages over the next decade.

Earlier this year, the ACT passed legislation introduced by the Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury to prohibit the use of battery cages for hens, and to ban sow stalls. A similar bill introduced to the Victorian parliament on Wednesday will be debated on 1 October.

Introducing the bill, Pennicuik said; “The momentum in the community for a ban on battery cages throughout Australia is becoming so strong that even large retailers are stepping up on this important animal welfare issue.

“Scientific studies indicate that battery hens suffer intensely and continuously for the entire time they are confined in cages. Restricted movement, constant exposure to a wire floor and lack of perches lead to serious bone and muscle weakness.”

According to Animals Australia, chickens have cognitive abilities similar to cats and dogs.

At LT’s Egg Farm in Victoria, chickens are kept five to a cage

Heather Neil, the CEO of RSPCA Australia, agrees and says farming should be approached from an animal welfare perspective first and foremost.

“I acknowledge that free-range farming is more labour intensive,” she says.

“But I think we need to take a step back and think about what good welfare is for hens, and I think the RSPCA is in a position of authority to say what that means.

“It means their physical and psychological needs are being met, and they are allowed to exhibit natural behaviours like dust-bathing and nest-building.

“When you consider those things in the context of a cage, it’s easy to see why we draw the conclusion that they are restrictive and cruel.”

It is time for farmers to accept that consumers had changed their mind about caged eggs, she says.

“What we’re seeing with the announcements from Woolworths, Coles, McDonald’s and Subway is that they are actually providing a product that consumers want.

“Even if we were to ban caged eggs, there would still be a range of choices for consumers from barns through to backyard hens, and we encourage consumers to buy the highest standard of welfare they can afford.”

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