Anthony Butcher

I watched the Jamie Oliver 'Fowl Dinners' programme last night, during which he made reference to the fact that the EU is going to increase the density of birds allowed in the intensive barns from 17 to 19 per square metre.

This is a far cry from the positive publicity they had from pretending that they are pro-animal welfare by banning battery farming.

The programme also revealed that this is also a lie - instead of small cages, the birds will have bigger cages with more birds in. Mildly better than before but still an absolutely unacceptable situation.

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Hartlepool

I thought the 17 birds per sq metre was for the birds in the barns that are bred for their meat,not for their eggs.

The repeat of the HF.Wittingstall programme is on now,from 5-35pm with these birds in it.

Anthony Butcher

Yup, that's right.

I was trying to make the point, obviously not very clearly, that the EU tried to pretend that it was pro animal welfare by banning battery farming, for eggs, across the EU.

However, this simply isn't true - they have just changed the caging sizes and conditions marginally.

At the same time they are also making conditions worse for the bred-for-meat chickens kept in barns.

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Britannist

Just like on so many other welfare/environmental issues (i.e. the 'green' issue) the EU hypocritical claims to support them just to gain popularity for itself (and/or to use these issues as an excuse to demand more money from the EU member states to expand its own eurocracy).

If the EU were seriously concerned about the horror of cruelty to animals it would not have proposed and implemented the REACH Directive - which forces manufacturers to chemically test many items on animals (testing which, in the majority of cases, does not need to be done because the research has already been carried out long ago).

Britannist

Yes, battery cages (large or small) are cruel and hideous. The birds must be allowed to roam free in a large barn or in a free range setting.

I only buy free range or barn eggs.

kernow

Don't be fooled by Barn reared! They don't have that much room, they're still packed in. Free range is the only humane way but it will mean expensive chicken and eggs!