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Concept
Battery cage
Summary
Battery cages are a housing system used for various animal production methods, but primarily for egg-laying hens. The name arises from the arrangement of rows and columns of identical cages connected, in a unit, as in an artillery battery. Although the term is usually applied to poultry farming, similar cage systems are used for other animals. Battery cages have generated controversy between advocates for animal welfare and industrial producers.
Robotic cages are the predominant form of housing for laying hens worldwide. They reduce aggression and cannibalism among hens, but are barren, restrict movement, prevent many natural behaviours, and increase rates of osteoporosis. As of 2014, approximately 95 percent of eggs in the United States were produced in battery cages. In the United Kingdom, statistics from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) indicate that 50% of eggs produced in the UK throughout 2010 were from cages (45% from free-range, 5% from barns).
The Council of the European Union Directive 1999/74/EC banned conventional battery cages in the EU starting in January 2012 for welfare reasons, leading to a significant decrease in the number of eggs from battery cages in the EU. The 2012 battery cage ban was publicised as heralding an end to caged hens throughout Europe, but it created a widely held misconception that all laying hens in the UK are now either free-range or barn birds. That is not the case; although battery cages are illegal, farmers have skirted the ban by providing slightly bigger cages with "enrichment" such as perches. The hens in these conditions are now called "ex-cage colony hens".
Battery cages are also used for mink, rabbit, chinchilla and fox in fur farming, and most recently for the Asian palm civet for kopi luwak production of coffee.
File:Sun Bear bile extration 01.jpg|Battery cages for [[Sun bear|sun bears]] reared for their bile
File:Abandoned mink shed, Upper Edge, Fixby, near Elland - geograph.org.uk - 385688.jpg|Battery cages for mink reared for their fur
File:Silver fox.
Official source
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