The charity has launched its End the Cage Age campaign urging the public to lobby their MPs to commit to ending cages for 10 million hens who are still kept in ‘enriched’ cages and the 200,000 pregnant pigs that give birth and nurse their piglets in crates in the UK every year. Sadly, these cages restrict their ability to move freely and means they cannot carry out many of their natural behaviours, such as foraging and dust bathing for hens and nest building and rooting in straw or soil for pigs.
This comes as new polling from the RSPCA reveals that 77% of people in Wales disagree with farm animals being kept in cages. Over half of people in the region (57%) had never heard of farrowing crates despite sows spending up to 15 weeks of their lives in them – and eight out of ten (82%) oppose keeping hens in cages whilst 71% oppose farrowing crates across Wales.
While it is encouraging to see the Welsh Government’s commitment to restrict the use of cages for farmed animals in the Animal Welfare Plan for Wales , without further government support driving legislative change in England, the scale of the change needed could take years to deliver.
Emily Harris, Campaigns Manager at the RSPCA, said: “It is vitally important that we treat every kind of animal with kindness and respect and keeping farmed animals in cages is an outdated practice which has no place in modern society and no place in a country where we pride ourselves on having some of the best animal welfare laws in the world. We simply cannot be leaders on animal welfare whilst farmed animals are still kept in cages which gives hens little more usable space than an A4 sheet of paper and sows kept in crates so small they can’t even turn around.
“It is time to End the Cage Age and step into a future that sees cages consigned to the past.”
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Nearly 18,000 people backed the charity’s campaign for the next UK Government to consult on banning cages
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96% of public think keeping farmed animals in cages is unacceptable*
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And 73% oppose cages if it’s not in the welfare interests of the animal with this rising to 77% in Wales*
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Free range eggs make up almost 67% of all egg sales in UK
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And Google searches*** for buying free range eggs was 393% higher than those for caged eggs
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However, 30% of UK hens are still kept in cages today and 60% of adult female pigs spend up to 15 weeks a year in crates
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86,000 tonnes of ‘pig meat’ was produced in July 2024 alone
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249 million dozen eggs were produced for human consumption during the second quarter of 2024 – totalling 19 thousand tonnes of eggs
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And one in five (22%) of all shell eggs produced came from hens kept in cages
Emily added: “Shoppers who choose to buy free range eggs in the supermarket may not realise that pre-packaged products such as cakes, biscuits, pies and quiches could use eggs which come from caged hens, meaning shoppers could be unwittingly buying food with caged eggs in the ingredients.
“Unlike on boxes of eggs, which are clearly marked, companies do not have to declare the kinds of eggs they use as ingredients. This is unfair to the public who we know overwhelmingly do not think cages are acceptable. We urge everyone who cares about animals to support our campaign and lobby their MP to see cages banned for good.”
The RSPCA is calling on the UK Government to launch an urgent consultation on banning the use of cages in its first six months in office (by January 5). The charity urges MPs to express their support by writing to the Secretary of State for Defra, the Rt Hon Steve Reed MP.
Posy and Maud (pictured above), two former caged hens, were adopted by Catherine Peerless in Kent from the British Hen Welfare Trust in May. The hens had huge bald patches, were very pale and didn’t move around much when she first adopted them.
Catherine said: “It was quite upsetting when I first saw Posy and Maud but now their feathers are growing back, the skin around their eyes and their combs have turned from silver pink into bright red and they look like happy hens.
“It’s been so lovely to see them experience ‘firsts’. Posy built herself a comfy bed in some hay, Maud absolutely loves dustbathing in one of the vegetable beds and scratching around in the compost – all things which hens naturally do but couldn’t when they are kept in cages.
“Hens are such great characters. They are much more affectionate and clever than people think – which makes it all the more sad to know that millions are still kept in cages.”
To support the campaign, please visit: https://www.rspca.org.uk/getinvolved/campaign/farmcages
