While governments appear loath to consider the appalling suffering endured by battery hens, animal activists are beginning to have some success with local councils, encouraging them to ban caged eggs from their catering. The movement is set to grow as community awareness grows.

But barn laid systems are not perfect, often with thousands of hens confined in conditions almost as crowded as cages.

Anyone who has "adopted" hens from a battery farm will know what tragic figures they are at first sight. Almost featherless, with mutilated beaks, and often unable to walk, they gaze in wonderment at their first exposure to fresh air and sunshine.

There are, in reality, few elements of Australian farming that can claim to be anything approaching "world's best practice" in animal welfare. The way battery hens, meat chickens and pigs are intensively farmed should be exposed to the public by law in order that people can make informed choices about what they buy, and truth in labelling of these products must become mandatory. Australia has little to be proud of too while it encourages the brutal live animal export trade, "surgical" spaying, castrations, and other mutilations without anaesthsia or analgesia. Australia is even going backwards, with the Federal government currently oversighting a review into whether animals REALLY need to be stunned before their throats are cut; this to pander to Middle Eastern markets.

Some animals are certainly more equal than others in Australia. If dogs and cats were treated as "livestock" is treated, the courts would be full of prosecutions.

But animal welfare legislation is left to the enforcement of a charity, and it is the only legislation in the country to be so. The charity, even if it had the will, lacks the means to effectively carry out its role, and that is just how governments like it.

There is only one thing that drives what most people eat and that is PRICE.

The very same reason why 85% of all pork consumed in Australia is imported, mostly to be turned into bacon and ham. PRICE.

Consumers demand cheap prices from retailers largely because food is one of the few areas they can cut back on when times are tough.

If you remove battery hens, which in turn makes free range eggs etc more expensive, consumers will simply reduce the number of eggs they consume which in turn will cost jobs.

Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it.

So rehctub, is your argument that the ends justify the means? And if so, that egregious cruelty can be justified on economic grounds, in the form of subjecting these animals to short, wretched lifetimes of abject misery? I believe that it isn't always about price. I think a lot of it is about ignorance, and that is now being driven home to the pork "industry" by Animals Australia's "Lucy Speaks" campaign.

I have had people whom I would never have thought would make a contribution to that sort of cause tell me that they have sent money to AA to extend the campaign. On these threads, PF has shown us time and time again that there ARE humane alternatives.

Don't you think that's what we should be aiming for, rather than copping out with the economics argument? Nor do I think that it would necessarily follow that if battery cages were removed free-range eggs would be more expensive. If battery cages were removed, there wouldn't be a choice.

If jobs are dependent on the continuation of cruelty, then they are the wrong jobs, I'm afraid. Australia will one day be forced to come into line with (the better) international standards, and jobs change all the time according to factors like community expectations and market forces.

Nicky

Niki I don't know if you went through the last recession back in the 90's but let me tell you, that if this country slips into recession then many sensitive areas such as cruelty to animals and the environment will take second place if people have to worry about where their next dollar/meal is going to come from. And yes, if battery hens are banned then believe me the price off eggs will sky rocket. Furthermore, do you really think that free range eggs come from hens that laze about basking in the sunshine while someone strolls through with a cane basket and collects their eggs. Or, the next time you enjoy your bacon and eggs, spare a thought for the pigs from over seas that it came from. Many piggeries OS are 7 stories high where the piglets are born on the top floor then as they progress through their force feed 5 month life are drafted to the next floor down only to arrive at the bottom floor where they are killed for processing into boneless pork ready for export to Aus and other places.
Of course the alternative would be to go to a country butcher and pay top dollar per kilo for old fashion bacon and, if you already buy this form of bacon and pay less then chances are you are being miss led but as always, as long as the price is right it's all OK.
The unfortunate truth is that everyone has to pay their rent/mortgage, pay for petrol at whatever the price is, pay their utilities bills, pay their phone bill....the list goes on. The reality is that food is one of the very few expenses where consumers can cut back in tough times, entertainment is another, so when time get tough, the dollar wins in 99.9% of the cases. Now you can either accept this or go on holding your head in the sand. It is your choice.

Nikki I don't know where your fulfilment is. Caged birds are out barn birds are out, so wat do we do with them? leave them to the foxes;. or go without. I slaughtered beef for 15 years, and i tell you a beast dies more humainly, with a nick behind the ears than, any stunn stun gun will do. A bullocks skull can be 2 inches thick and a stunn gun will not penetrate the brain.

Rehcteb and olly, thanks for your contributions, and of course I take on board what you say (despite the fact that I don't buy bacon or eggs! I have some "spent hens" from a battery farm).

Certainly there will be a section of the community to whom price is the dominating factor, but I still believe that if most people saw the conditions in which these animals are kept, they would make conscious choices. I have some faith in human nature to the extent that most people really despise this degree of egregious cruelty. I think that as awareness grows, markets for intensively farmed products will decline until ultimately they will be the exception rather than the rule.

Olly, your comment about stun guns, and a "nick behind the ears" especially interested me. Could you possible provide more detail about your thoughts? I also have difficulty with what must go on at slaughterhouses where animals must have some awareness of what is going to happen, even if they have no concept of death as we know it.

Cheers
Nicky