Things are hardly ever what they appear to be, especially not in the world of shopping, and in particular, in the world of egg buying. A few nights ago we were jolted into the reality of animal cruelty when a program on chooks and their environs was presented on the TV.
It proved to be an amazing world of deceit, cunning, and hoodwinking of you, the customer. If you thought that buying ‘free range’ eggs made you into a person caring for the welfare of the Rhode-Island Reds, think again. Unlike in the EU where the term ‘free range’ means a minimum of 4sq metres of open space per chicken and a mandatory supply of greenery. Here ‘free range’ can be even more cruel and horrific than caged birds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_range.
The European Union regulates marketing standards for egg farming which specifies the following (cumulative) minimum conditions for the free-range method:
- hens have continuous daytime access to open-air runs, except in the case of temporary restrictions imposed by veterinary authorities,
- the open-air runs to which hens have access is mainly covered with vegetation and not used for other purposes except for orchards, woodland and livestock grazing if the latter is authorized by the competent authorities,
- the open-air runs must at least satisfy the conditions specified in Article 4(1)(3)(b)(ii) of Directive 1999/74/EC whereby the maximum stocking density is not greater than 2500 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens or one hen per 4m2 at all times and the runs are not extending beyond a radius of 150 m from the nearest pophole of the building; an extension of up to 350 m from the nearest pophole of the building is permissible provided that a sufficient number of shelters and drinking troughs within the meaning of that provision are evenly distributed throughout the whole open-air run with at least four shelters per hectare.[
Free range.
It is different in Australia where there seems to be an open slather on deceiving customers into thinking that free range eggs, which are often 2 to 3 times the price of caged eggs, are somehow produced by happy chickens, freely cavorting and picking their food from open grassy fields. Those EU standards are certainly not applied here. The latest regulation now allows a staggering 20 000 chickens per Ha (10 000 sq Metres). That is one chicken per half a sq M. This in effect raises their stress levels to such an extent it results in cannibalism. No worries, the chooks are then de-beaked which was shown to be done by the young pullets putting their beaks into a feeding tube. Instead of getting feed, they get instantly de-beaked. Footage was shown of the young pullets with bleeding beaks.
If you thought the Australian Egg board would be keen to improve conditions for the poor chooks or at least comply with EU standards, think again. A quick scan through the list of directors reads like the who’s who of some of the largest ‘free range’ operators, egg marketers and producers. http://www.aecl.org/about-us/board-of-directors
Hardly a bunch of unbiased, independent operators keen on improving the lot for chickens. Their main aim is to improve profits not kindness to chooks.
In Sweden, where else, caged eggs have been banned. In many other European countries, main supermarkets, including Aldi, do not stock caged eggs anymore. Al least the ‘free range’ eggs have the legislative back up of a maximum of 2500 chooks per Ha. How come, after so much publicity of late about the plight of chooks, this hasn’t been implemented here? It makes one wonder if the caged eggs are not a better and more ethical deal here after all.
I hope Tony Abbott is not behind all this. He is such a ‘free marketeer’, anything is possible. It’s all such a rort, isn’t it?
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
PS – one hectare is 10,000 square meters. Meaning each chook would have 4 square metres to itself. My lock up home made chook pen has a sleeping area and an outdoor area which is about 8 square metres. In the space of less than a week (I can’t remember exactly) two chooks completely denuded that area in the time they had between getting up and my letting them out at about 9.30 am. It also gathers chook poo and gets muddy when wet. I add mulch and rake it to keep it fresh.
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If he still lives in Dora Street; it’s never too late.
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No those legendary days are long gone now. Nothing remains except the memories of the dwindling few, of roofs rocked, and adventures executed. I last saw EGG-001 back in 1973.
We, the Dora Street gang, called ourselves The Brotherhood of The Burning Dirt and it was our avowed intention to lay waste to east Orange from the railway line to the Lone Pine. Fond memories of halcyon days.
There was me, Drews, Griffo, Step, Feggs, The Basha Boys, (Lebanese twins from the Liberty Milkbar), and Fuk Yu, (that wasn’t his real name but he was genuinely Chinese), and occasionally our numbers would swell with the inclusion of Squiddly, Bryn,…….., look the names and their faces and the memories could go on forever.
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Yes, wow – 2500 chooks per hectare and still call it free ranging – still rubbish. We all should know that free ranging means free to roam and eat grass, insects, worms etc. They’d all be standing there doing bugger all out in the open and still need to be fed by humans.
I currently have 8 free range eggs in the fridge courtesy of free ranging Julia the chook. I ration them !
Cutting the beak means they are not very good at doing any free range eating even if given the chance.
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The EU maximum 2500 per hectare is better than up to 20 000 per Ha here. The program showed one egg farmer who kept 1500 on one Ha. He irregated the one Ha to keep up the greenery. He claimed he could not survive against those that sold free range eggs from those big egg producers as shown on the lower picture.
The label ‘free range’ allowing 20 000 per Ha is totally wrong.
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Beth has lovely red hair just like my sisters when they were younger.
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I don’t know what its like now but when I was a boy The Egg Marketing Board was one of those sinister institutions you just stayed clear of. If you owned chooks, and that was a lot of people in those days, you were at risk of a visit and that never went well.
Before deregulation of the state egg marketing boards they had greater powers of search and seizure than the police, and there where often scary stories of the EMB knocking people up at 5 in the morning, just like the Gestapo, chucking on a surprise inspection, always finding fault, no matter the care lavished on some of the chooks concerned, the whole thing usually ending in the “disappearing” of your fowls, a quick receipt ripped from a book and that was that, no questions asked, no answers given. It was Kafkaesque.
I remember the chairman of the local board in Orange used to get a new Holden every few years. The number plate was EGG 001, can you believe it. He lived in Dora Street in Orange and his roof was the one roof in that street that we never rocked, no matter the temptation. You just didn’t mess with the EMB.
In those days I assume that any cruelty in the industry would have been statutory cruelty, prescribed by law. These days I assume its just willful profiteering from the suffering of animals; not unlike how our banks worked after deregulation, or the way Coles and Woolworths beat up on the small dairy farmer , or , or, or……
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