Free to choose Cage Eggs

Maybe Jon Stanhope will think of something even better than this legislation. It sounds like he does have compassion for the animals.

If the RSPCA have reason to believe it is cruelty to animals it will take a lot to convince me that it isn’t.

Skidbladnir – you should change your user name to The Tin Man…for surely you are in need of a heart…

I found Jon’s thoughts on battery hens from 2007

http://www.chiefminister.act.gov.au/media.php?v=5999&s=15

he offered PACE farms 1 million dollars to phase out battery production – they chose not to take it up.

At the time Jon was keen to work on banning battery eggs nationwide, and said he would re-visit the issue at a later date if hte other states didn’t come to the party.

2009 would seem to be a good later date.

ABC news ran a story on this subject tonight, but used footage of happy looking chooks ith plenty of feathers in biggish cages – clean, with access to food etc. This is nothing like battery cages (eg PACE) and just gives people the wrong idea that cage eggs aren’t that bad.

the problem with battery hens isn’t that the chooks are caged – it is the size of the cage and the fact that they often trim off the chooks beaks etc to fit them in there. If people could see the conditions they would not defend them so quickly – or buy those eggs.

Thumbs down ABC – I guessing someone thought the real images of grotty, featherless battery hens would put people off their dinner.

I reckon if Pace thought they could get more eggs out of their chooks by whipping them, they’d have a herd of angry little jockeys in their with whips going flat tack within an hour – and there’d be no seven strokes rule, either.

A win win situation for both parties! 🙂

bohemian said :

Killing animals for food is cruel.

At least animals have some chance of fighting back unlike plants. Therefore I say it is the meat eater who have the moral high ground as at least their food had a chance. Meat eaters are the equivilant of the kid who takes on the school bully, as opposed to vegetarians who are like the year 10 kid who takes on the smallest weakest year 1 girl.

Gerry-Built said :

But why should chickens suffer so our eggs are cheaper?

Because we are the top of the food chain. Because everyone wants stuff for as cheap as they can get it. and finally because they taste good still and the method for gathering is out of sight and out of mind.

Gerry-Built said :

To the best of my knowledge, Barter eggs are not packaged here in the ACT, but are transported to Pace Farms (Sydney) for distribution.

I dunno about that… I used to work out there and we packed somewhere between 750,000 – 900,000 eggs a day. Eggs were being trucked into the ACT and packed and then sent elsewhere.

When I left, they had just spent a motza on new packing machines so I don’t expect that they would have shut down operations since then.

hax said :

Many animals kill other animals for food, and we’re among them (even if you don’t, personally). It’s more about the fashion which we go about doing it – unlike other animals we mass produce our food, which comes with some sad consequences.

Thank you. I’m very well aware of it. I was being sarcastic. Canberra has become such overregulated place in recent years and instead of demanding a ban on every single little thing that annoy every little tom, dick and harry, people should be given the option of exercising some common sense (which I know doesn’t exist in some species – human or otherwise). Banning caged eggs, as said by some people on this forum, which only see an influx of resources from elsewhere.

I do not oppose to the banning. I’m certain that buying free-range eggs (and consuming backyard laid eggs) is an ethical thing to do but as many have pointed out too, some people can barely make ends meet, let alone pay a few extra dollars for the eggs. I don’t know the Greens’ proposal in detail but if they want to introduce the ban on caged eggs, they should also introduce the a way to make it affordable.

RSPCA supports free range. And barn eggs (i think).

If you aren’t on the poverty breadline there is no excuse not to use freerange eggs. I would like to see more restaurants using them too.

Just ban them – who cares if PACE farms has to shut down – they have had years to work on a freerange model (didn’t Labor try to pay them to do this years ago?).

Cage eggs should be a thing of the past

neanderthalsis said :

But there are plenty of people out there who don’t have the luxury of choosing to buy food for ethical reasons. $1 dollar loaves of white woollies bread and cage eggs are the norm for many families.

We have been unemployed for eight months and we still buy free range eggs. People justify animal suffering for all sorts of reasons:

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly live without the bile of moonbears.”
“We like shark fin soup. Why should we have to give that up just because it’s animal cruelty?”

Me, me, me, me, me.

I think enough chickens have suffered so thoughtless people can have cheaper scrambled eggs on toast.

and you forgot about smoking in cars.

ghughes said :

In less than twelve months – ACT Labor Greens have been able to ban (or try to ban)
– Fireworks
– Electric Hot Water systems
– Caged Eggs
– Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
– Internationally trained GPs
– fringe festival
– Advertising of alcohol and junk food
– magazine racks outside shops

And there is still three more years of this coalition government

Indeed, this makes me regret that I didn’t actually vote for them. Maybe I will next time.

ghughes said :

In less than twelve months – ACT Labor Greens have been able to ban (or try to ban)
– Fireworks
– Electric Hot Water systems
– Caged Eggs
– Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
– Internationally trained GPs
– fringe festival
– Advertising of alcohol and junk food
– magazine racks outside shops

And there is still three more years of this coalition government

Hmmm. The debate on eggs in happening in about 45 minutes in the Assembly, so I think your third point is wrong. Or at least premature.

Oh , and you forgot to include the new public holiday that has been designated to replace the unwanted Melbourne Cup day public holiday.

🙂

I happily pay $11 a carton for my eggs, locally produced with quality 2nd to none and the hens are treated like hens, not egg producing machines.

When you think about the real cost of using ethically produced eggs its really not that expensive. $3.60 for our weekend brekky eggs instead of $1-$1.80. Big deal.

In less than twelve months – ACT Labor Greens have been able to ban (or try to ban)
– Fireworks
– Electric Hot Water systems
– Caged Eggs
– Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
– Internationally trained GPs
– fringe festival
– Advertising of alcohol and junk food
– magazine racks outside shops

And there is still three more years of this coalition government

Granny said :

The RSPCA estimates the amount of money saved by buying cage eggs to be about $25 per year. A pretty pathetic reason for animals to suffer needlessly.

Yeah, but that’s an extra $25 a year that you can feed into a poker machine – thereby increasing your chances of winning the jackpot by 125 000%! 🙂

From memory Parkwood is actually in NSW.

Pace Farm @ Parkwood is right on the ACT\NSW border.

Granny said :

The RSPCA estimates the amount of money saved by buying cage eggs to be about $25 per year. A pretty pathetic reason for animals to suffer needlessly.

Eggs aren’t just going to retail, though.
$25 saving may seem nice and pleasant and small when you’re only dealing with a few dozen eggs in a year, but when you’re buying them by the ten-thousand-dozen lot, the difference will add up.
Something like 40-50% of market produce is added as ingredient into other foods (Ever tried shopping for someone with an egg allergy? Or just ask your baker how many eggs they buy in a year…) or used in other forms of food&consumable manufacturing (Egg proteins are used in winemaking, and various pharmaceutical processes), or for export as egg powder and the like.

Cage eggs make up 73% of market volume (but only 61% of market value), with barned and free-range eggs being 4.3% volume (5.7% value) and 22.5% volume (33.3% value) by comparison.
IE: Non-cage alternatives are value-added by comparison, so long as there’s a market for it farmers will supply, but increasing supply for those product will eventually reduce prices at point-of-sale. If this lower price eventually gets passed back to farmers, they produce less, so the total market volume shrinks.

And for those of you saying free-range or barn-laid eggs are eggs are fantastic, they suffer greater losses to cannibalism and disease from soil-borne viruses and bacteria from bird-inflicted injury (in case you forget where the term “pecking order” comes from…)
From: http://www.actavetscand.com/content/51/1/3
“Causes of mortality in laying hens in different housing systems in 2001 to 2004” January 2009, National Veterinary Institute (SVA), Uppsala, Sweden
Conclusion
The results of the present study indicated that during 2001–2004 laying hens housed in litter-based housing systems, with or without access to outdoor areas, were at higher risk of infectious diseases and cannibalistic behaviour compared to laying hens in cages….
Cannibalism was not observed as the main cause of death in any of the flocks housed in cages.

Predictably, outdoor birds suffer a greater instance of death by exposure.

WMC, breeding animals specifically for their aggression and fighting capabilities so that people could be entertained by their bloodshed in the name of sport, is both cruel and brutal. Hence no dogfighting or cockfighting in Australia.
If you want to do that, just set foot in an alley almost anywhere in Asia, cockfighting is never far away.

Nor do I keep dogs so that I can consume their reproductive mentruations or aborted fetuses.
Arguing minor ethical considerations when we imprison animals so that we can eat their young or eventually the birds themselves, just becomes a study in the economics of factory farming supply for industrial processed food demand.
You’re only interested in their health and well-being of animals up to a point, and then you eat them or their children.
😛

PPS: Killing off a local industry so other interstate players can move in and do exactly the same thing you shut down the local players for doing doesn’t make sense, other than NIMBYism over ethics instead of Canberra’s regular variety of NIMBYism over land-development.

From memory Parkwood is actually in NSW.

No. It is in the ACT. Otherwise there would be no debate.

What #34 said – everyone should get chooks in the backyard for their own eggs. And a veggie garden.

The local council would probably want to have a licence system introduced though – if there’s a chance of a tax they’ll be onto it.

Granny said :

The RSPCA estimates the amount of money saved by buying cage eggs to be about $25 per year. A pretty pathetic reason for animals to suffer needlessly.

I buy a dozen eggs a fortnight, on average, free range cost $2.50 more per doz than cage so over 12 months that equals $65, or the equivalent of a good bottle of whisky (my prefered method of cost comparison).

Mrs Neanderthalsis prefers the free range, so I buy free range. But there are plenty of people out there who don’t have the luxury of choosing to buy food for ethical reasons. $1 dollar loaves of white woollies bread and cage eggs are the norm for many families.

Thumper: Parkwood (“industrial” estate & Chicken Farm) is in ACT

I have chocks in the back yard the kids love them, we have to give away the extra eggs, and my word they are very tasty eggs too.

Addison said :

I bought some free range eggs for the first time recently. Do they all seem to have rooster spunk in them? Mine sure did.

Addison – you won’t find a rooster anywhere near the battery hens… they truly are “unfertilsed chicken ovulations”… 😀 enjoy with brekky now…

Skidbladnir said :

For mine, I will continue to buy the cheapest eggs that meet my needs, be they battery\cage\warehouse eggs or not. I don’t see why I should suffer price inflation thanks to regulatory requirements that achieve nothing other than price increases.

But why should chickens suffer so our eggs are cheaper? Caged chickens live in cages “about three-quarters of the size of an A4 piece of paper”. Barn eggs are (marginally) better for the chickens. I just don’t understand how anyone could support such cruel treatment of animals given that it is quite public knowledge now. Surely we can reduce the cruelty on animals raised for food production.

And who damn well cares if closing Parkwood would halve the agricultural income of the ACT??? The eggs are shipped out of the ACT for packaging anyhow – with the transport cost associated, eggs cannot possibly cost more if the farm here closes and other eggs are shipped in instead! To the best of my knowledge, Barter eggs are not packaged here in the ACT, but are transported to Pace Farms (Sydney) for distribution.

Jim Jones said :

Spitfire3 said :

It’s so cool to be alternative

Being opposed to cruelty to animals is ‘alternative’? Alternative to what, exactly?

You misunderstood. My “cool to be alternative” comment was aimed at those who embody a backlash against progressive moves like this.

justbands said :

Are free range eggs really still considered *alternative*? Judging by the ever increasing variety of free range eggs on offer (& the decreasing range of cage eggs) at the supermarket, I’d say free range was more & more the norm.

See above.

The RSPCA estimates the amount of money saved by buying cage eggs to be about $25 per year. A pretty pathetic reason for animals to suffer needlessly.

bohemian said :

Killing animals for food is cruel. Selfish, selfish human. Please ban the farms in the ACT. Prevent import from surrounding regions.

Many animals kill other animals for food, and we’re among them (even if you don’t, personally). It’s more about the fashion which we go about doing it – unlike other animals we mass produce our food, which comes with some sad consequences..

frontrow said :

If I’m ok with keeping a creature enslaved so that I can regularly harvest it’s reproductive organs for my breakfast, all other ethical considerations of it’s welfare strike me as resembling deckchairs on the Titanic.

The least we can do is not be unnecessarily cruel while they’re living?

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

There is no role for government here. People are free to make their own choices about what types of eggs they consume.

Skid, do you have pets? Would you mind if I come round and, say, kick them to death? Because as Ralph says, there’s no role for the government here, just the market – any laws against me doing so would only benefit animal rights theorists and deny profits to a flourishing international dog fighting market.

Indeed. Checking through the posts outraged at the cruel slaughter of those possums recently you would probably find the thread includes some of these folk who happily contribute to the barbaric torture of chickens by buying cage eggs.

Addison said :

I bought some free range eggs for the first time recently. Do they all seem to have rooster spunk in them? Mine sure did.

Does it really matter when you’re already eating the female equivalent?

There is no role for government here. People are free to make their own choices about what types of eggs they consume.

They’re also free to elect a government that will ban cage eggs.

Skid, do you have pets? Would you mind if I come round and, say, kick them to death? Because as Ralph says, there’s no role for the government here, just the market – any laws against me doing so would only benefit animal rights theorists and deny profits to a flourishing international dog fighting market. Surely me getting the cheapest entertainment that meets my needs is all that matters, right? They’re just dumb animals, yeah?

Woolworths is not stocking caged eggs. Won’t be long until there is no market for them eggs except for the jail out near Queanbeyan

Banning cage eggs will put a monopoly on free range/barn laid* – watch the prices skyrocket once they have cornered a market.

As I have said previously, Mrs Danman gets the free range eggs, and I have reluctantly followed suite now, but damn they can be double the price of cage eggs…

Just like food in general, the right choice is always the most expensive, hence people go for cheaper options.

*FWIW Barn laid = just as bad as battery

I bought some free range eggs for the first time recently. Do they all seem to have rooster spunk in them? Mine sure did.

I endorse a ban on cage eggs. I haven’t bought cage eggs in years.

What to do about imported products that contain caged eggs though? I can never buy a bought cake.

Killing animals for food is cruel. Selfish, selfish human. Please ban the farms in the ACT. Prevent import from surrounding regions.

If I’m ok with keeping a creature enslaved so that I can regularly harvest it’s reproductive organs for my breakfast, all other ethical considerations of it’s welfare strike me as resembling deckchairs on the Titanic.

This is Caroline’s Amendment here.
If the law she’s proposing is:
1) of no specific benefit to any individual Canberran other than animal rights theorists;
2) killing off the Pace Farms@Parkwood operation (which according to Assembly Hansard is in dollar-for-dollar terms, more than 50% of the ACT’s agricultural output in that one facility);
3) Putting local people who have spent years developing specialised skills out of work with no recourse for alternate employment, and ;
4) Is likely to provide a boon to cross-border suppliers by killing off their local competitors,

Is she really representing her constituency, or unintentionally acting in favour of NSW?

Also of note is what she’s looking to enforce would be beyond the EU’s current regulations, in that Caroline is proposing all cage systems be banned, without a dictionary mention of what constitutes a cage system.

A person commits an offence if the person keeps hens in a cage system.
Maximum penalty: 100 penalty units, imprisonment for 1 year or both.

While she has included a compulsion on the Minister to make ‘reasonable steps’ to influence other States in her Section entitled Banning cage systems etc – national approach…
(1) The Minister must take all reasonable steps to promote a permanent ban by the Territory and the States on the keeping of poultry in cage systems.
(2) The Minister must take all reasonable steps to improve the living conditions for poultry under the model code.
(4) Within 5 sitting days after 1 July each year, the Minister must present a report to the Legislative Assembly on the steps taken under subsections (1) and (2) in the previous financial year.

The fact she’s not calling for a ban on cross-border importation is a pretty clear sign that someone has advised her about the overarching powers of the Australian Constitution, specifically:
Section 51(i) (“The Parliament shall... have power to make laws for the... good government of the Commonwealth with respect to... Trade and commerce with other countries, and among the States“)
and Section 109 (“When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.“).

For mine, I will continue to buy the cheapest eggs that meet my needs, be they battery\cage\warehouse eggs or not. I don’t see why I should suffer price inflation thanks to regulatory requirements that achieve nothing other than price increases.

If there was a way I could score free (and servicable quality) eggs that were raised on a diet of nothing but the salt from the RSPCA’s tears, I’d eat those.

It would be great to see the ACT lead the way in this regard; maybe all states would follow. Then free-range eggs would come down in price and everyone would be happy (especially the chickens).

From the moment that West MacGregor started, I was telling people that by the time houses were developed backing on to Parkwood, that the ACT Government would have it closed down. Watch this space – I bet Parkwood’s operating licence (caged egg production) will not get renewed. It has previously been mentioned on RA (and therefore in The Canberra times the following day), that Parkwood have long been silent on going from Cage to Barn or even free range, and that their licence is up soon e(nd of this year?). If the ban happens in Australia – of course it will be ACT first – we have the smallest number of chicken farms. Those eggs go to Sydney to be packaged and then back here to be sold… that can’t make a whole lot of sense anyhow…

“Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says it does not make sense for the ACT to ban cage egg farms when they are still permitted in every other juridstiction” – OK, so he’s happy to have a world-leading gaol, but on caged chickens we must follow the other states… What’s the matter Jon; are Ya’ Chicken?

Are free range eggs really still considered *alternative*? Judging by the ever increasing variety of free range eggs on offer (& the decreasing range of cage eggs) at the supermarket, I’d say free range was more & more the norm.

cage eggs are a good cheap food for people whom can not afford free range or organic. It is said that poor hens get locked up all their life. But a cheap food group is worth protecting. we can all be champagne socialists

There is no role for government here.

People are free to make their own choices about what types of eggs they consume. If they require further information on battery vs caged, they can seek that information themselves, and make their own choices.

Three quarters of all eggs sold are still from caged hens – indicating that price is a far more important factor influencing peoples’ egg consumption.

Has the local egg concentration camp donated to ACT Labor party recently or something?

I haven’t bought caged eggs for yonks – and I reckon if most supporters of caged egg farming actually saw a battery hen farm operation from the inside, you probably wouldn’t eat their eggs either!

Spitfire3 said :

It’s so cool to be alternative

Being opposed to cruelty to animals is ‘alternative’? Alternative to what, exactly?

Question left unanswered by a punter who “liberated” some cage chickens, when you liberate an animal whose entire existence has been cooped up in a cage, do they go a little bit Brooks Hatlen from Shawshank Redemption?
I had a housemate who did this once in Brisvegas. Guess which “evil meateater” was tasked with cleaning up all the dead chickens………..

There would be no market for caged eggs if the majority of buyers would refuse to buy them.

They don’t.

Over 75% of Canberrans purchase the cheaper caged eggs.

As for myself? I only buy free-range and only when my friend’s chooks have gone off the lay.

It’s so cool to be alternative

I think its a great idea to ban cage eggs. It’s horrible to think about a creature living its entire life in a cage it can hardly move in, anyone who values freedom and not the couple of cents they save should be able to see that.

Has the local mayor been hit by a common sense stick?

Maybe it’s the serenity of the pretend forest he has access to.

I’d rather my government encouraged people to choose free-range eggs for the right reason, and not simply outright ban caged eggs.

I find the yolk is yellower and tastier in eggs made by chickens zapped with electric prods. Higher voltage allows pre-scrambling for consumer convenience.

Nice to know the good citizens of Canberra think this is a big joke.

I hope you come back in another life as a battery hen.

I find my eggs scramble nicer if the chickens have been kept in a cage…