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Action Alert Uncaged Freedom for caged chickens
Action Alert Uncaged Freedom for caged chickens | Freedom for caged chickens |
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| Thursday, 04 December 2008 | |
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Compassion in World Farming (South Africa) has responded to an article in The Germiston City News, as follows: Dear Editor, I refer to your article ‘Cruel Chicken Hawker's Stock is Confiscated’ (Germiston City News, 5 December 2008) and commend the Germiston SPCA for rescuing 358 chickens from a hawker site in Katlehong. According to your article, the inspectors rescued the chickens because they were kept by the hawker in cages so cramped and overcrowded that they were unable to open their wings, did not have enough perching space, nor solid bases on which to stand. From the photo, it is clear that the chickens are end-of-lay hens. Readers should be aware of the following facts: In South Africa there are 22.8 million laying hens trapped in battery cages with no solid bases and no perches. The space allowance per hen is 75% of an ordinary A4 sheet of paper; they are debeaked because in the overcrowded confines of the battery cage, there is no place to hide and, unable to peck at anything else, the hens peck at each other’s feathers and sometimes draw blood; they are often detoed so that they won’t scratch each other as they clamber over one another to get to the food trough in front. After a year in the battery cages, they are sold to hawkers for informal slaughter, never having experienced even one of their natural behaviours such as sun-bathing, dust-bathing and foraging for food. They die never having felt the soil beneath their feet nor the warmth of the sun. Every consumer who eats battery eggs has bought into this gross abomination of human behaviour towards chickens. As environmental author Leonie Joubert (Scorched and Boiling Point) puts it in Animal Voice, December issue: “Some of the things we do to animals are simply not part of what would be regarded as normal, healthy, human behaviour”. The point is: Don't blame the hawker only. Blame Agribusiness for its callous disregard for mass suffering, hidden away in battery sheds, far from the sight of the public who would be shocked if they were to see it. Blame the farmers who 'love their chickens' yet allow these end-of-lays to be sold to hawkers for informal slaughter, well-knowing that the hawkers do not have the infrastructure to handle the birds humanely. Blame the supermarkets who have profited from the sales of the hens' eggs (each hen lays about 300 eggs in a year) yet despite awareness campaigns about the suffering of end-of-lays in informal markets, do nothing to promote a kinder end for these poor tormented birds. Blame the consumer who prefers not to think about it and continues purchasing battery eggs. Battery cages will be banned because of their cruelty throughout Europe by 2012. Compassion in World Farming (South Africa) urges the South African Poultry Association ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and retailers to ban them in South Africa too. Woolworths has already implemented this and is a cage-free store throughout the country. However, even Woolworths' end-of-lay hens go for informal slaughter. Sincerely, Louise van der Merwe SA Representative: Compassion in World Farming Editor: Animal Voice Managing Trustee: The Humane Education Trust CEO: Humane Education Publishers P O Box 825, Somerset West, 7129 Tel./Fax +27 21 852 8160 www.het.org.za www.animal-voice.org |
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