ABSTRACT

Ever since the publication of Ruth Harrison’s book Animal Machines (Harrison, 1964), the question of the humaneness of battery cages for laying hens has been hotly debated. Harrison criticized the fact that birds were kept crowded together in a very unnatural environment, were denied access to fresh air and sunlight and were at high risk of ‘cage layer fatigue’, a disease that causes partial paralysis. In the UK, the publication of these facts led to such public outrage that the British Government formed a committee under the Chairmanship of Professor Rogers Brambell to investigate the whole topic of intensive animal production systems. They published their findings in 1965 in a report that is generally known as The Brambell Report (Command Paper 2836, 1965). This report was also very critical of battery cages. For example, the report stated:

Much of the ingrained behaviour is frustrated by caging. The normal reproductive pattern of mating, hatching and rearing young is prevented and the only reproductive urge permitted is laying. They cannot fly, scratch, perch or walk freely. Preening is difficult and dustbathing impossible... The caged bird which is permitted only to fulfil the instinctive urges to eat and drink, to sleep, to lay and to communicate vocally with its fellows, would appear to be exposed to considerable frustration. (Command Paper 2836, 1965, pp18-19)

However, the Brambell Committee’s conclusions were not based on much hard evidence. In the subsequent 40 years, there has been a burgeoning of research into the welfare implications of cages and this paper summarizes the results.