Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 152

Chickens | 109 Chickens held in cages at Whiting Farms in Colorado This farm has about 85,000 chickens who are harvested for feathers that will be used for making fly fishing flies (AP Photo/John Marshall) at the end of their productive lifespan It is unclear how much additional empty space is desirable from a hen’s perspective What is in the space may have greater salience Thus, the European Union has mandated that, from 2012, hens may no longer be kept in plain cages Cages must be furnished with a perch, nest and litter material to facilitate expression of perching, nesting, foraging and dust bathing behavior Cage-Free and Free-Range Housing Whether furnished cages provide sufficient behavioral freedom is a matter for debate, and some people favor banning cages outright In affluent countries, the market for cage-free and free-range eggs is expanding, leading egg producers to replace a proportion of their cage housing with housing comprising a combination of slatted floors and littered areas, or aviaries with multiple wire-floored tiers, with or without access to the outdoors Litter, nest boxes and perches are provided, although the ideal quantity and layout of these resources has not been well established Despite popular opinion, many welfare problems have been encountered in these facilities Compared to cage housing, these include increased risks of cannibalism, feather pecking, bone fractures, smothering, bacterial diseases, and parasitism Predation is added to the list for hens given access to free range The extent of these risks depends on specific details of housing design, genetic strain of chickens, their rearing conditions, and the producer’s experience with this type of housing In particular, strong genetic selection needs to be applied to develop