Stop Confining Chickens to Small, Filthy Cages

Goal: Don’t condemn farm chickens to life in small, crowded cages for another 14 years.

Battery-farming is still a popular method of poultry housing across the world and is still widely legal, despite years of backlash from animal and environmental activists. In this practice, animals are densely packed into cages—also known as battery cages–about 40cm in height. Though various animals are housed in battery cages, they are most commonly used for egg-laying hens.Life in battery cages for chickens is hellish. They are often situated indoors, kept in poorly lit rooms with little to no sun. Birds at battery-farms eat food fortified with vitamins to replace those typically obtained through foraging and exposure to the sun. Many of the chickens can’t even stand or move, and cages are rarely cleaned, leaving them covered in feces and corpses of other dead birds.

Australia recently announced that it plans on phasing out battery-farmed eggs by the year 2036. While the efforts are honorable, forcing chickens to live in tiny, overcrowded cages for another 14 years is downright inhumane. Chickens, ducks, and other birds used for agricultural output deserve the personal space to stand and move.

Sign this petition to demand Australia take action sooner and improve the lives of egg-laying hens throughout the country.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Prime Minister Albanese,

Australia has recently announced its plans to gradually phase out the use of battery cages on poultry farms throughout the country. While we applaud the efforts towards a more humane future for human consumption, we also feel as though 14 years is too long to wait, when tens of millions of chickens are suffering right now.

Battery-farming is a particularly cruel agricultural practice. Chickens are tightly packed into unkept cages, often too small for them to walk around in or even stand upright. These birds are forced to endure extremely stressful conditions, and are denied their natural instincts to forage and socialize. Since they don’t have access to sunlight, chickens are fed fortified vitamins that they would typically get from regular outdoor activity.

Chickens don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 more years. We are asking you, Mr. Albanese, to eliminate the use of battery-cages in Australia now.