Fear over imports after exposé on battery hens

Four Paws UK this week posted a disturbing three-and-a-half-minute video online which appears to show two poultry farms in the Italian countryside where more than 100,000 hens are confined to dark, cramped conditions. Close-up images of the animals reveal clipped beaks, believed to be a measure to prevent hens from turning on one another, and carcasses littering occupied cages.

An EU-wide ban on battery hens came into force in January 2012 but last month Farming Minister David Heath told the House of Commons that two member states were breaching the rules.

Four Paws International’s director of campaigns, Gabriel Paun, said: “More than one year after the EU Commission banned the torture of hens in conventional cages, some Italian farms continue to completely ignore EU law. Up to 15 birds are being squeezed into each cage. Suffering animals lay eggs next to dead animals.

“It’s finally time for the appropriate authorities to close the book on bird farming in cages.”

Mr Paun added: “We do not know in which countries, but these eggs are probably being sold in products such as pasta, sweets and mayonnaise, etc.”

The NFU’s chief poultry adviser, Kelly Watson, said Italy did not tend to export shell eggs but admitted eggs from the battery hens could find their way into exported pasta.

She said: “With pasta, there potentially could be product coming in but how you trace that is very difficult. It is not illegal to export these eggs, it is a voluntary agreement (between EU member states) but you can export product when it is processed into a foodstuff.

“Obviously it’s disappointing for farmers here who have spent £400m meeting conditions of the legislation and providing better conditions for hens.”

Ms Watson added: “Having said that, certain retailers have committed to making sure that they are only using free range eggs and compliant systems.”

Four Paws said it had reported its footage, which it says was captured in the last week of February in Verona and Forli, to local police and had informed the EU Commission, urging it to strengthen infringement procedures with high fines for illegal practices.

In the UK, farmers have switched to using “enriched colony systems” in place of the old-style battery hen cages and last year the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reported that 51 per cent of eggs produced in the UK in 2011 came from hens not housed in cages, compared with just 14 per cent of eggs laid by uncaged hens in 1995.