In 1999, the European Union gave owners of battery cage chicken farms a 12 year phase-out period, leading to battery cages being banned on the 1st January 2012. Battery cages now do not exist within the UK, though there are still many illegal battery cage farms around Europe. It is unsurprising that hens in battery cages go through severe physical and psychological stress, as a cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper houses four hens. The small cages restrict the hens’ abilities to perform natural behaviours; the hens do not have enough room to stretch their wings, dustbathe, exercise, nest, or move away from other hens. Hens are also deprived of foraging. This is possibly why ‘feather-pecking’ is a problem in battery farms; this is where hens pull out each others’ feathers, leading to serious injuries or even cannibalism. However, farm owners have ‘solved’ this problem by trimming the beaks of chicks using infrared beams. This procedure is performed without anaesthetic. As hens have been bred to produce lots of eggs- up to 300 per year- often through artificial means such as selective breeding, they often suffer osteoporosis as their calcium levels are reduced. These stresses cause aggression, which in such densely populated cages pose threat to the other hens in the cage, as they cannot escape any aggressive behaviour. Lastly, the high numbers of cages in the farms make inspection difficult, and mean that sometimes deceased hens are left in cages, leading to disease.
But, as has been previously established, there are no more battery farms in the UK, and the EU has done their bit in trying to stop them all over the continent. Also, we have ‘free range eggs’ in the supermarkets, laid by happy chickens.
And who doesn’t love happy chickens!?
I’ll tell you who doesn’t like happy chickens. Fish. Fish do not like happy chickens, because not only have the general public been buying free range eggs, they have been buying chickens. Not only are they adorably cute with their idiosyncratic walk and head bob, but the public can obtain their own eggs knowing that the hens who laid them are well cared for.
As an aside, the EU have banned battery cages but have not banned raising chickens in cages. However, there are strict rules on the dimensions of the cages to ensure the chickens have enough space and a standard quality of life. These cages are not battery cages, but are ‘enriched cages’. This is why eggs from caged chickens can still be bought from popular supermarkets such as Tesco, though it is unsurprising that many customers choose to buy free range eggs.
The more I researched the unacceptable conditions of battery farms, the more I thought “Where is the fish farm ban?”. Fish are farmed in overcrowded cages, and fish that would usually swim long distances in the big blue- such as salmon- become carousel horses swimming round and round in circles. The overcrowded fish become more aggressive and stressed, which leads to injuries such as fin damage; this is not helped by the carousel of swimming round and round, where fish inevitably brush against each other. The water is easily contaminated, i.e. by fish faeces, and as the cages have high population densities, disease spreads quickly. Water contamination also causes the fish to be deprived of oxygen, and can cause eutrophication in neighbouring waters. In addition, a lot of the fish on fish farms are selectively bred, and the limited gene pool and lack of variation can cause genetic diseases.
The conditions of the fish farms did not surprise me, yet I was startled by the inhumane methods used to slaughter the fish. Before slaughtering, fish are starved to empty the alimentary canal. One or two days would be sufficient, however often fish are left starving for up to a fortnight before they are finally taken in for slaughter. More humane ways of slaughtering the fish include electric stunning or a strike to the head. However, many methods of slaughter cause the fish unnecessary trauma: suffocation (in air or on ice), cutting the gills without any anaesthetic, and gassing with CO2.
If battery farming has been prohibited, then maybe fish farming will be too in the near future, or maybe stricter regulations will be enforced. In the mean time, fish is a great source of proteins and omega three and therefore the demand for it is always increasing, especially as there are thousands of people in the world suffering from malnutrition and related diseases such as kwashiorkor. The demand for fish is increasing because of other reasons too, for example celebrity chefs are promoting exotic fish dishes. Fish farming allows for a higher yield of fish to be produced in a shorter time. Perhaps fish farming is helping marine ecosystems overall; whilst fish are being intensively bred on fish farms, less fish are being hunted in the wild. This may help species that have become vulnerable to extinction due to overfishing repopulate.
Photos: battery hens http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/57602000/jpg/_57602836_batteryhens.jpg , fish farm http://www.sagrainc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Tropical-Fish-Farm1.jpg
isntsciencewonderful 
Hello Betsy! That’s interesting. I find unregulated fish farms a entirely unethical practice, however understandably every economy in the world relies on its success to aid its citizens. In regard to recent rising of the food craze and the enforced significance on ‘healthy’ foods, again is beneficial (hence supported) by the government. Yet I struggle to find documentaries on these business sectors and it is evident why this is. On the other hand the trend of vegetarianism is growing and statistics are showing that people in the UK are decreasing their meat intake. What I say is monitor fish sources, increase UK producers, tax food from such institutions in order to promote ethical farms, and use the money gained to enforce minimal requirements on such farms.
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You make very good points and observations Julia, but what i wish to question now is the following. If we were to decrease our intake of meat, and therefore decrease the need for fish farming and indeed battery cages, is our alternative actually more ethically sound? The alternative would be, of course, to increase agricultural production and eat more plants. However, with global population growing exponentially, this could present ethical problems. As predicted by Ester Boserup, humans as a specie have innovated our way out of farming shortages with the creation of GM crops. Are GM crops ethical? Plant cells may not have brains or emotions, but does that make it acceptable to change the DNA of these eukaryotic organisms? Does this kind of ‘solution’ also encourage other unethical practices, such as selective breeding?
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