The confusion of ethical poultry

Farm or Harm: As part of a Stuff series on the primary sector’s treatment of animals, we look at the SPCA’s blue tick, which critics describe as a ‘‘fundamentally flawed’’ scheme. Esther Taunton reports.

There are few modern shopping experiences more confusing than choosing chicken meat or a carton of eggs at the supermarket.

You would be forgiven for dithering over what should really be a pretty straightforward purchasing decision – after all, an egg is an egg, right? And a chook is a chook?

So why do some labels say ‘‘cage free’’ while others say ‘‘barn raised’’? What’s ‘‘free to roam’’ when it’s at home and is it any different to ‘‘free range’’ or ‘‘free farmed’’?

If you want to do the right thing by the birds, how do you choose? Since 2001, the SPCA has awarded its blue tick to egg producers who meet its animal welfare standards, with chicken meat and pork more recently added.

The charity plans to expand the accreditation scheme further to include beef and dairy cattle, and sheep meat and dairy.

SPCA chief scientific officer Dr Arnja Dale says shoppers who choose meat and eggs with the blue tick can be confident the products come from farms with much better welfare standards than those required by law.

But critics say the scheme doesn’t address the problems at the heart of poultry farming in New Zealand and should be retired until it does.

Under the Government’s code of welfare for meat or ‘‘broiler’’ chickens, the birds must be stocked at less than 38 kilograms per square metre when in sheds. The blue tick standard is set at 34kg per square metre.

How many chickens that actually equates to depends on the size of the birds, Dale says.

At their heaviest, broilers average about 2.5kg, meaning about 15 per square metre under the law and closer to 13 per square metre in the same space to meet the SPCA standard.

On those numbers, the average chicken raised for meat gets about 660 square centimetres of floor space – slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper – while a bird in line for the blue tick gets about 750 square centimetres.

It might not sound like much, but Dale says the extra space gives the chickens more room to

‘‘There is a lot of talk about slow-grow chickens having better welfare outcomes, but there isn’t any credible international proof to back those claims up.’’ Michael Brooks

Executive director of the Poultry Industry Association and the Egg Producers Federation

‘‘We’ve got 13 million meat chickens, 200,000 layer hens and 100,000 pigs annually, so that’s a significant number of animals that we’re positively influencing.’’ Dr Arnja Dale

SPCA chief scientific officer

move, interact with others in their flock and express their natural behaviours.

Blue tick accreditation also requires access to an outdoor area with shade and shelter, and ‘‘enrichments’’ for the birds, including somewhere to perch, neither of which are legal requirements.

However, Dr Michael Morris, spokesman for animal activism group Direct Action Everywhere, says the SPCA scheme’s failure to address the continued use of the fastgrowing, top-heavy ross and cobb meat chicken breeds is a fundamental flaw.

Both breeds were susceptible to metabolic diseases, skeletal disorders and heart problems due to their rapid growth.

‘‘The problems these chickens face are about genetics, not whether they have access to the outdoors.

‘‘The meat chicken industry is designed to breed chickens as quickly as possible to make money, there is no consideration of animal welfare.’’

Until farmers move to slower-growing birds, like those sold under the Label Rouge banner in France, blue tick accreditation of broiler farms should be withdrawn, he says.

‘‘ ‘Organic’ and ‘free range’ meat chickens use the same breeds and their suffering is just as intense. An animal’s pain isn’t any less just because it can go outside.’’

New Zealand meat chickens have a lifespan of about 35 days, while Label Rouge chickens are slaughtered between 81 and 110 days.

The SPCA doesn’t contest the fact conventional meat chicken breeds face welfare challenges or that genetics play a major role in contributing to those challenges.

While it advocates for the introduction of slower-growing breeds, they aren’t commercially available in New Zealand and requiring their use in the blue tick programme is impractical, it says.

A recently-released report, commissioned by the United Kingdom’s RSPCA, concluded the use of slower-growing chickens can significantly reduce mortality and improve overall animal welfare.

But Michael Brooks, executive director of the Poultry Industry Association and the Egg Producers Federation, says more research is needed.

‘‘There is a lot of talk about slow-grow chickens having better welfare outcomes, but there isn’t any credible international proof to back those claims up.’’

For layer hens, the SPCA can award the blue tick to free range and barn systems with up to 5000 birds per barn. Cage systems, including colonies, can’t be accredited.

In approved barn systems, hens can roam freely inside. They have perches to roost on and space to stretch their wings.

They also have nesting boxes for egg laying and floor litter for scratching in, all of which can have real welfare benefits for the birds, Dale says.

The SPCA acknowledges not all farmers could meet the blue tick standard or prioritise it as something to work towards but it is already benefiting millions of animals every year.

‘‘We’ve got 13 million meat chickens, 200,000 layer hens and 100,000 pigs annually, so that’s a significant number of animals that we’re positively influencing,’’ Dale says.

But animal rights group Safe says there are questions over some aspects of the scheme, including the approval of barnlaid egg systems.

‘‘From a brand perspective, it’s intended to give consumers confidence that the animals were raised to a higher welfare standard,’’ chief executive Debra Ashton says.

‘‘From our perspective, some of the things it represents are still questionable. Barns might be an improvement but those birds might never see the light of day.

‘‘The chickens bred for meat might have the tick, but they’re still suffering immeasurably because they’re bred to grow so quickly.’’

Ashton says the message to consumers when it comes to animal welfare claims is ‘‘buyer beware and do your homework’’.