That animals should not be poorly treated before their slaughter is a statement almost everyone can agree on. No one openly defends animal cruelty. Yet Britain’s factory farms regularly inflict it on chickens and pigs who are crammed into tiny spaces and mutilated to put cheap meat on our plates. On Monday the 16th of June, Parliament will debate whether or not to ban cages and crates for chickens and pigs, amongst other animals, following a petition receiving over 100,000 signatures. The slightest concern for these lower animals calls upon us to back the ban and make our views known to MPs.
Amongst the British public there is a strange image of how animal farming is carried out. 75 per cent of Britons think “free range” applies a lot or a fair amount of the time, yet 60 per cent also think animals being kept in cages occurs a lot or a fair amount too. Regrettably, the truth is much closer to the latter. Only 3.5 per cent of meat chickens in Britain are raised free range while the rest are raised in intensive indoor systems where 19 chickens are packed into each square metre. The situation is better for laying hens with 65 per cent of eggs coming from free range farms, i.e., farms where at most nine hens occupy each square meter of usable indoor space, each hen has 15cms of exclusive perch, and, every hen has four meters square of outdoor space with vegetation accessible throughout the whole day.
Unfortunately, 28 per cent of our eggs still come from hens raised in enriched cages; wire boxes which provide less than an A4 sized area for each hen with 80 of them crushed into the typical unit. In these dense conditions, feather pecking is ubiquitous, the birds never get undisturbed rest, and the wire underneath their feet constantly cuts into them. The total lack of space stops any of their natural behaviours such as dustbathing, perching and simply walking around in peace. And those hens at the bottom of the pecking order have often found themselves left to starve to death, if not subject to cannibalism. The prison which is the enriched cage should be called what it really is: animal cruelty of the highest order, inflicted upon innocent beings all so people can get eggs at a slightly cheaper price.
Britain should be moving to a world where all animals can enjoy a free-range existence
Pigs face a better situation, but it’s still less than humane. 60 per cent of sows have to spend their early weaning period in farrowing crates which stop them from ever turning around and exhibiting their natural behaviour of foraging and rooting about. Admittedly, this is partly to ensure they don’t crush their piglets, but kinder farrowing arcs work for the rest of Britain’s pigs. Another problem with pig on its side, a full-grown pig takes up about 1.1 square meters, yet the minimal legal space requirement for each one is just 0.65 square meters. As a result of these tight conditions, bare concrete floors and a lack of enrichments, many pigs end up biting each other’s tails out of sheer boredom. To deal with this problem, farmers pre-emptively cut their tails off and clip their teeth — both procedures being carried out without anaesthesia.
Writing to your MP and urging them to vote against these barbaric practices is a great opportunity to ensure the wellbeing of animals is taken seriously in the law. Ideally, Britain should be moving to a world where all animals can enjoy a free-range existence where they can achieve their flourishing before they are slaughtered. Yet I suspect someone will claim this shouldn’t be required by law because free range chicken and pork is double the price of its factory farm alternative. This is implausible. No one would tolerate a dog being shoved into a cage, its teeth clipped and tail cut off simply because its owner took pleasure in it, so, analogously, neither should we tolerate chickens and pigs being subject to the same treatment just so people can get a little bit of pleasure out of cheap meat.
Unfortunately, the petition is very unlikely to make its way into legislation due to farming interests and the government’s wish to not upset consumers with higher prices. Yet unlike most political issues, we can each do something very simple to stop animal cruelty. That being to only purchase free range animal products from high welfare providers: I’d just ditch chicken too and take up universally free range lamb instead. To alleviate the most suffering through your shopping, buying free range eggs is essential, and, crucially, not just in cartons, but in processed products such as cakes and quiches too. The own brands for such items at Waitrose, M&S and The Co-op’s all contain exclusively free-range eggs. Free range pork can be found at Waitrose. Sure, free range is much more expensive, but when the animal cruelty it prevents is kept vivid in the mind it is obviously the right purchase to make.
The animal cruelty that is rife in Britain’s factory farms is a disgrace to the nation. Politicians of all parties ought to vote to ban cages and crates on Monday as a first step in moving towards an agriculture where every animal can live out a good life. As meat eaters, however, the most important thing we can do is simply to stop buying from factory farms; only free-range meat and eggs should be on the table.
