So the sisters of Our Lady of the Passion Monastery in Northamptonshire lost the battle to save their 5,000 battery hens from being slaughtered because, claimed the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the hens were infected with salmonella.
But the question that immediately came to my mind was: "What on earth are nuns doing with a battery hen operation?"
Factory farming is an appalling way to treat animals, and I would have thought that keeping hens in such conditions would horrify everyone.
The battery hen will never see daylight, and has hardly any room to move five birds can be crammed into a cage measuring just 18in by 20in. Their feet are deformed by the wire mesh they have to stand on throughout their lives, and these conditions lead to between 20 and 30 million dying in their sheds every year.
Overcrowding and boredom lead to aggression, and so beaks are cut off to limit the damage birds can do to each other.
About 40 million chicks are killed every year within 24 hours of their birth simply because they were born male.
This is because genetic engineers have produced two types of chicken: those bred for meat, which grow fat very quickly on the minimum of food, and those which lay as many eggs as possible, again on the minimum of food. Those that have the misfortune to be of the second type, and are male, are killed because they can't lay eggs, and can't put on weight fast enough to be "economic".
Nine out of 10 eggs come from hens kept in these dreadful conditions and there is little sign that these practices are coming to an end.
It is hard to believe that a religious order could justify being involved in battery egg production. If we give them the benefit of every doubt and say they ran the most humane factory farm unit in Britain, we are still left with animals being kept in small cages for their entire lives. We still have animals used as egg and meat machines.
Sister Catherine, the Mother Superior, said, after losing her court battle with the Government: "We were getting out of eggs anyway, because the animal libbers made life so miserable for us."
Not half as miserable, I would submit, as the hens in her care.
