EGG-LAYING IN BATTERIES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 11

EGG-LAYING IN BATTERIES

SYSTEM DEFENDED BY BRITISH FARMER

ADVANTAGES IN HEALTH OF HENS Two English visitors to Christchurch, Mr and Mrs H. E. Woolley, who own a poultry farm in Nottingham, consider that the battery laying system would be a great advantage to New Zealand poultry keepers, both in the saving of labour and egg production. A cable message from London, which was published in “The Press” on Saturday, said that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had begun a campaign to make the battery laying system illegal. “I am, I think, in a position to reply with interest and feeling to those who object to the system,” said Mr Woolley yesterday. In comparison with birds on free range which were exposed to wet conditions and fowl pests, those caged in batteries were always warm, dry and clean. At his home in England several hundred birds were housed in batteries, Mr Woolley said. These birds were reared from day-old chicks and were on free range for the first five months and a half, when weaklings were culled, and those hens kept for laying placed in their separate compartments in the batteries. “These birds are all perfectly healthy, and continue in that state because they are scientifically fed and watered, kept in an even temperature, and are immune from disease and the elements,” Mr Woolley said. “The size of each cage, which according to the cable message from London was the size of a biscuit tin (9|in square), is in fact 2ft high, 2ft deep and 16in wide, giving a hen ample room in which to move.

“The birds are always warm and clean, no time is lost with broodiness, the food is equally distributed and there is no feather picking or cannibalism. The hens are excellent for the table at the end of the laying season. Those who have been most sensitive for the x comfort and wellbeing of poultry have been quite convinced, after seeing the contentedness of birds housed in batteries,” Mr Woolley concluded.