Ensure your MP is fully informed on battery cages.

Hour after hour, day after day, a gentle hen stands on the wire floor of a cage.

Confined with several other hens, she’s unable to stretch her wings, dustbathe, make a nest or even see the sky. When she’s 18 months old she’ll be ‘spent’ and sent to slaughter.

We’re so close to a phase out of cages

Now, after years of delays, finally this year State and Federal agriculture ministers are due to announce the updated Standards for how laying hens and other farmed birds can legally be treated.

Following the biggest public consultation in Australia’s history, where caring Australians overwhelmingly demanded change for hens, there’s a possibility of a phase out of battery cages.

Hens need you to counter industry spin

Unsurprisingly, the industry that has fought to keep hens confined to cages seems to be having one more go to resist change in line with community expectations and animal welfare science.

We won’t repeat the full detail of the ‘information’ they’ve apparently been sending MPs, but safe to say, here’s key information about battery cages and egg production:

• Battery cages, as regular Australians understand them to be called, are legal and routinely used (the egg industry might call them ‘conventional cages’)
• In each all-wire cage, multiple hens are kept confined with less than an A4 piece of paper’s worth of space each
• At least 5 million hens are in battery cages across Australia right now
• Animal welfare science — and common sense — is clear that cages cause suffering and can never meet the welfare needs of hens
• Across all egg ‘production’ systems, days-old male chicks are killed by gassing or being ground up alive

Will you speak out for hens?

Use the form above to send an instant message to your state Member of Parliament, ensuring they are FULLY informed on battery cages and what they mean for hens — and calling for a ban on cages altogether.