Animal Rescue with Marion Garnett

Dedicated animal expert Marion Garnett, founder of the Ealing Animal Charities Fair, continues her column

A few weeks ago, we met a beautiful cockerel in the column called Napoleon who needed a home.

Since then, he’s received some good news. He’s been invited to live with his own group of hens where he can scratch, peck and crow to his heart’s delight.

This week, we’re going to think about some chickens who don’t have such happy lives and, aren’t likely to receive good news any time soon. I know it can make us uncomfortable to think about the way our food is produced and, if that’s the case, but you want to do something to help the animals involved, skip to the end of the column and just do the action. But, if you want to know more, read on.

Earlier this year, investigators from the organisation Animal Equality made three visits to an egg farm in Sussex.

Their report states the farm confines around 320,000 hens and produces 72 million eggs annually. They found gigantic hen sheds, some stacked with cages four tiers high. Young chicks were packed into wire-floor cages.

Animal Equality’s pictures show that, as the babies grow, the cages become so crowded there is less space than an A4 piece of paper per bird. Video footage shows hens suffering feather loss and unable to carry out many natural behaviours. Investigators saw birds who couldn’t survive the filthy, overcrowded, brutal conditions with decaying hen carcasses left in cages with living birds. According to Animal Equality, this farm is accredited by the “Laid in Britain” quality assurance label which assures consumers their food is from “Happy Healthy Hens”.

If it upsets us to read this, what can we do. Firstly, we can reduce our consumption of animals and animal produce. Now, more than ever, it’s easy to do this.

Have you noticed how, increasingly, advertisers are telling us their product is suitable for vegetarians and vegans. They’ve even had Vegan Week on The Great British Bake Off.

Vegan cook books are useful - I got the recipe for these vegan cupcakes from the internet (pictured below).

If becoming vegan is too big a step, for now, make sure you buy items produced under high animal welfare standards or try gradually replacing animal produce with plant-based alternatives.

And, importantly, sign Animal Equality’s petition calling for a ban on keeping hens used for their eggs in cages. It’s available at animalequality.org.uk where you can see details of their investigation.

Animal Equality have passed their video footage to Defra, the RSPCA and Laid in Britain.