Battery-cage hens can expect no early relief from the rigours of factory farming, a conference on poultry welfare was told yesterday.
Non-battery methods of egg and poultry production posed almost as many problems as they sought to solve, according to veterinary surgeons, animal behaviourists and poultry specialists at a symposium organised by the British Veterinary Association at the Zoological Society of London. Britain has about 38 million commercial egg-laying birds in 41,000 flocks. Only about 10 per cent of the commercial layers are housed as colonies in systems without cages. The main alternatives to cages are percheries, allowing birds perching space and nesting boxes, and deep-litter systems with floors covered with straw or wood shavings to collect droppings.
John Webster, professor of animal husbandry at Bristol university, said minimum standards for battery cages and for loose-housed colonies were unacceptable. He could not recommend a simple ban on battery cages. Homes fit for hens could be provided by a mixture of "enriched cages" that allowed birds more room to exercise, and improved colony systems.
Olaf Swarbrick, a veterinary surgeon, said that disease, mortality rates, cannibalism and the incidence of broken bones were all lower in battery-cage systems.
