Battery cages

[rusty]

Could anyone confirm if this photo is the old style battery cage or an enriched one. The image was used in a presentation at my daughters school about Veganism to demonstrate factory farming. My 15 year old daughter told the teacher this photo would not be in the UK as it was illegal to keep hens like this here and that they should buy red tractor food to be assured of good standards.
Just wanted to check my facts before I have a go at the headmaster.

 

[ridger]

Looks like the older ones to me

 

[R J]

definitely old style battery cages , have been banned in the uk since 2012

 

[teslacoils]

We need to send militant "farmers for facts" demonstrators round.

 

[Exfarmer]

Like no cages I have ever seen. I would suuspect the pictures come from very far afield.

 

[wdah/him]

surely very few white hens here for egg laying, mostly brown for brown eggs I thought. although moy park are a white hen but eggs for a meat producing bird and none in cages that I know of.

also something tells me an enriched cage only has 8? birds in it so quite a bit of room but don't quote that figure.

white hen is white egg and most people only want a brown egg so from that I would more so say it is in a different country.

 

[traineefarmer]

Definitely not an enriched cage. White hens are a possible indication that it is from outside of Europe. I'd guess at South America or East Asia.

If they want a presentation of factory farming, they should look at deforestation for palm oil and soya.

 

[traineefarmer]

surely very few white hens here for egg laying, mostly brown for brown eggs I thought. although moy park are a white hen but eggs for a meat producing bird and none in cages that I know of.

also something tells me an enriched cage only has 8? birds in it so quite a bit of room but don't quote that figure.

white hen is white egg and most people only want a brown egg so from that I would more so say it is in a different country.

Enriched cages are also called colony system and actually feature larger groups of birds - usually 30+ per cage.

 

[Exfarmer]

There is plenty odd about that picture. Stocking density is obviously far higher than anything I have ever seen. But the birds them selves, it is obvious a lot are not in lay if you look at the combs.
The colour of the birds indicates they are most certainly not from this country.
The closest I have seen is in far Eastern markets , where the birds are held for sale in similar cages and stocking, although I have not seen them stacked

 

[Badshot]

That's a screenshot of a Google search for that image.
It's a stock photo .
Very naughty of the school.

 

[delilah]

Could anyone confirm if this photo is the old style battery cage or an enriched one. The image was used in a presentation at my daughters school about Veganism to demonstrate factory farming. My 15 year old daughter told the teacher this photo would not be in the UK as it was illegal to keep hens like this here and that they should buy red tractor food to be assured of good standards.
Just wanted to check my facts before I have a go at the headmaster.

All credit to your daughter for speaking up. A couple of suggestions:

Get in touch with the NFU education team, I put them on to our secondary school and they sent a couple of speakers along.

There's plenty of material for you to give to the head on this thread:
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index...info-sheet-on-cows-and-climate-change.301538/

 

[rusty]

I did speak to the new headmaster who only started this term. Turns out he has family Farming background in the North East. One of his cousins runs a dairy processing plant and the other farms and has a green waste company who I happen to know as I did a Worshipful Company of Farmers course with him about 20 years ago.
The teaching material came from an outside source called votes for schools. My wife emailed them and they forwarded the presentation. She did the google image check showing it appeaered to come from the far East and put some links in her reply about UK standards and photos of enriched cages. She also set them straight on some of the other comments such as being Vegan was helping save the planet.