Executive summary

Most layer hens in New Zealand are kept for their entire lives 3 to a cage with less space than an A4 sheet of paper.  There are over 60,000 pigs kept in sow stalls in New Zealand.  These pigs are so severely confined they cannot turn around. Because sows are confined in equally restrictive farrowing crates while they are suckling, many sows spend their entire lives in severe confinement.

The present Code of Welfare allows battery cages to continue.  There is a commitment to review the evidence for non-battery alternatives in 2009, but no guarantee that battery cages will not be continued past this date. The Code of welfare for pigs allows farrowing crates to continue.  Sow crates can continue until 2015, then can only be used during the first 4 weeks of pregnancy.  There is a similar commitment to reviewing the code pending more research, but with no guarantee that severe confinement will stop.

The Animal Welfare Act stipulates that animals must be allowed to express normal patterns of behaviour.  Exemptions to this requirement are allowed, but only in exceptional circumstances such as if keeping to the requirements of the Act will cause the collapse of an industry.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that both sow crates and battery cages are inherently bad for animal welfare because they severely restrict normal behaviour.  The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWC) agree.  Nevertheless they continue to allow severe confinement citing “exceptional circumstances”.

The government and NAWAC have shown a bias in favour of industry since the Animal Welfare Act was first enacted in 2001.  This shows itself in biased reports, blind faith in the utterings of industry veterinarians and a failure to take scientific evidence or the wishes of the public into account.

More seriously, we have documentary evidence to suggest that NAWAC and the Minister of Agriculture have been influence by legal pressure and other lobbying from the Egg Producers’ Federation when making their final decision on the Layer Hen Code of Welfare.  What is clear is that NAWAC are self contradictory in stating that battery cages do not meet the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act, yet in reserving the possibility of keeping battery cages.

Severe confinement of layer hens

About 90% of the 2.8 million layer hens in New Zealand are kept 3 or 4 to a cage in a space that allows them between 450 and 550 square cm per bird.  To put this into context, a sheet of A4 paper is 620 square cm.  The hens suffer from behavioural deprivation, crippling osteoporosis and diseased livers as a direct result of confinement.

In addition, and contrary to the assertions of the Egg Producers’ Federation, many battery hens have to endure a painful trimming procedure on their beak to prevent the hens from pecking each other.  A 1997 study on New Zealand battery production units by Dr. Temple from Waikato University found that all battery producers practiced beak trimming.  Beak trimming may be less prevalent on battery production units now, but the only other way the producers can prevent pecking is by dimming the lights to such an extent that the hens suffer permanent eye damage.

In contrast, free range egg farmers can keep hens from pecking each other by providing an enriched environment and preventing overcrowding.  The RNZSPCA no longer allow beak trimming in their accredited free range systems.

Severe confinement of sows
Sows housed in stalls are kept in such extreme confinement that they are unable to turn around. In some sectors of the pork industry sows are subjected to this degree of confinement for almost their entire lives (apart from the brief periods associated with mating).  After mating sows are kept in stalls for their entire pregnancy.  They are then moved into farrowing crates while they suckle their young.  The piglets are removed from their mother after 6 weeks, then the sow is impregnated and the cycle starts again.

A background to the Animal Welfare Act (1999) and Codes of Welfare
The legislation on animal use in New Zealand has changed with recent advances in the understanding of animal behaviour.  It is now no longer considered acceptable only to ensure that animals in human keeping are provides with their physical needs and kept free from pain.  The requirement that animals should have “freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour” was enacted as part of the Animal Welfare Act (1999).  This replaced the Animals Protection Act (1960), which did not have the behavioural requirement.

Section 10-12 of the Animal Welfare Act makes it an offence for anyone in charge of an animal to neglect its “physical, health or behavioural needs” or to withhold treatment for a sick animal. Neglecting the health of your cat or dog, even unintentionally, can land you in court.

However, there is a double standard in play in that sections 10-12 do not apply for animals reared commercially, provided a Code of Welfare is in force.  The procedure for signing off a code of Welfare is stipulated in the Animal Welfare Act.  Briefly, anyone can write a draft code, which the public can then make submissions on.   The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), then makes recommendations on the code of welfare.  By law, they have to take into account public submissions, scientific knowledge and “good practice”.

Although Codes of Welfare allow breaches of Sections 10-12 of the Animal Welfare Act, Section 73 states that these can only be allowed in “exceptional circumstances”.  Our legal advice is that these would allow a breach if it could lead to the collapse of an entire industry, but not if it simply meant some farmers will go out of business, or that animal products would cost more.  The Animal Welfare Act required existing codes of welfare to be reviewed in 2002 to ensure they complied with the new legislation.

When reporting back on the Animal Welfare Bill, the Primary Production Committee stated that:
 

We think it desirable to clarify the intent to avoid clause 65 [=Section 73] being used routinely as an “opt-out” clause to justify the continuation of current practices that do not meet the obligations in the Animal Welfare Act. We expect that this provision would be used rarely… We recommend that clause 65(3) be amended to make it clear that this power should be used only in exceptional circumstances.

The Primary Production Committee also singled out the layer hen and poultry industry as two that are not meeting the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act.

The Code of Welfare for Layer Hens and Pigs
The codes were signed off by the Minister of Agriculture on 23 December 2004.  The Code of Welfare for Layer Hens  allows battery cages to continue, though all cages have to provide 550 square cm per hen. The codes NAWAC stated that battery cages do not meet the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act, because they do not allow the hens to express normal patterns of behaviour.  However, NAWAC but uses section 73 as an excuse to keep them. Instead of phasing out these cages, NAWAC instead stated that further research should be undertaken to find alternative systems and the decision to phase out cages will be reviewed in 2009.

NAWAC took a similar approach with sow stalls and farrowing crates, stating they do not meet the requirements of the Animals Welfare Act, but allowing a section 73 exemption.  Its stipulation that pigs not be confined to farrowing crates for more than 6 weeks is disingenious; after 6 weeks piglets are weaned, sows are re-impregnated and they are put back in dry sow stalls.  The Code states that sows must only be kept in sow stalls for the first 4 weeks of gestation after 2015, and again recommends more research into alternatives.

Scientific evidence that hens and pigs suffer in severe confinement

The SVC report on layer hens
The Scientific Veterinary Committee (SVC) of the European Commission published a detailed, rigorous review of welfare in battery cages.  The report not only discussed the welfare of battery hens, but compared the welfare and economic performance of hens reared in other production systems.

The SVC came out strongly in favour of hens having adequate and facilities for nesting, perching and dustbathing, , citing numerous studies showing that hens deprived of these necessities showed stereotypical pacing behaviour, “vacuum nesting” and other signs of frustration.  They also reviewed a number of studies showing that providing enriched environments, especially giving litter for foraging, improved plumage cover and reduced fear responses.  The SVC report describes how osteoporosis develops in battery hens, and how this is exacerbated through lack of exercise.  Fatty haemorragic syndrome is also mentioned as a disorder that is exacerbated by inactivity, and therefore most commonly found in battery hens.   The SVC reviewed studies on beak trimming and conclused that the practice caused short and long term pain in hens.

The SCV acknowledged that non-battery husbandry methods such as free range and aviary systems have welfare problems.  A recent European study has paid particular attention to cannibalism, which can be severe in some free range operations.  However, the SVC acknowledges that this is a problem of management.  The physical pain and behavioural deprivation in battery cages in contrast is inherent in the system.
The SVC concluded that
 

Further development is necessary in all systems but enriched cages and well designed non-cage systems have already been shown to have a number of welfare advantages over battery cages in their present form (emphasis added)

As a direct result of the SVC study, battery cages are being phased out in the European Commission from 2012, and some European countries have initiated faser or more thorough phase out of cages.

Pigs in sow stalls
The SVC conducted a study on the welfare of pigs and concluded that their welfare was compromised by being kept in severe confinement.  In particular, the SCV found that stereotype behaviour was observed in every study on sows in crates.  In contrast no stereotypes were seen in the sows reared in less severe confinement.   I attach a more recent study on sow stalls co-authored by Sean Weaver and myself.

As a result of the SVC study, sow stalls are now completely outlawed in the United Kingdom and Sweden.  Switzerland will be phasing out the sow stall by 2007, and the European Union will allow confinement in sow stalls for only the first 4 weeks of pregnancy by 2012.

The economics of sow stalls and battery hens
The Animal Welfare Act allows animals to be raised in conditions that may breach Sections 10-12 only if the economic consequences could be devastating.  It is therefore essential to understand what would happen if a phasing out period was put into place.

Independent studies on animal production in New Zealand and overseas, and interviews with farmers have shown the following.
 

• More than 50% of New Zealand pork producers maintain a viable business in spite of not using sow stalls, and not receiving any extra subsidy on their product.
• The worst case scenario for egg consumers is a 16% rise in egg prices if all are converted to barn systems, and a 75% increase if they are all converted to free range.
• The average number of eggs consumed is 300 per year.  The increase in cost  for an average consumer is therefore 22 cents per week (if buying barn) or $1 per week if buying free range.
• The worst case scenario for pork prices is an increase in production cost of 22%.

Manipulation of the legal process by government and industry
Section 73(2)(c) of the Animal Welfare Act stipulates that NAWAC must “have regard to good practice and scientific knowledge”.  Section 72(2)(a) similarly stipulates that NAWAC must have regard for public submissions.  During the consultation period, NAWAC received 73,844 postcard or brief submissions demanding an end to battery cages.  If submissions received outside the consultation period are counted, the total number is nearer 120,000.  With a total population of 4.2 million, this represents a substantial proportion of the New Zealand public.

NAWAC received over 64,000 submissions calling for an end to sow stalls. NAWAC also  received substantive submissions from 4 animal welfare groups summarising scientific and legal evidence and calling for a ban of severe confinement practices in sows and layer hens.

The combination of scientific and legal evidence and overwhelming public support should have meant that stipulating a phase out of battery cages in the new Code of welfare for layer hens would be a simple formality.  However, in an agricultural country like New Zealand, agricultural industry groups are powerful, and it is instructive to follow the process of how industry put pressure on NAWAC, and how this changed the policy position of both NAWAC and the Minister of Agriculture.

Early indications of Industry bias
A distinct industry bias is already seen in a review by Littin and Gregory commissioned by MAF in 1997.   Littin and Gregory came to similar conclusions to the SVC.   However, they appeared reluctant to accept their own conclusions in their final summary. In their table of advantages and disadvantages of different systems, Littin and Gregory state beak trimming is “essential” for free range because of large group sizes and high levels of natural light.

Littin and Gregory state that beak trimming is not always necessary in battery cages.  Interestingly the Temple study is not mentioned. They also make the standard assertion that beak trimming is less painful if it is performed on young chickens.  This claim is not based on science, and indeed the authors did not provide any scientific evidence to back it up.  This non-scientific claim that young of any species cannot feel pain is still used to excuse all sorts of barbarous behaviour, including the circumcisian without anaesthetic of baby boys.

This bias in favour of industy interests was more pronounced in a later review written by Bagshaw and Matthews and commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture.  The review cited questionable unpublished studies that showed mortality rates to be lower in battery than non-battery systems.  The reviewers totally ignored peer reviewed scientific evidence that showed a contrary view (see attached Table).   The reviewers state that bone injury is likely to be higher in free range than caged systems but do not provide any data to support this.  The reviewers do not mention the undisputed findings that battery hens suffer more fractures prior to slaughter at the end of lay.  Again, very suspect arguments are used to justify beak trimming of young birds.

It is worth mentioning a recent review in the Australian Veterinary Journal suggesting that young animals (and humans) feel pain just as acutely as adults. In fact, in the case of humans, circumcision at a young age may lead to heightened sensitivity to pain as adults

The Animal Welfare Amendment Act (2002)
Section 78 of the original Animal Welfare Act stipulates that all Codes of Welfare must be reviewed in 10 years from the date they were issued.  This meant that the Codes for Pigs and Layer Hens had to be reviewed by ---.  Submissions on these codes ended in --- and ---, which means NAWAC had --- years to complete the review.  This should be ample time even given the speed at which government beurocracies move.  However, it is an indication of the reluctance the government showed to make any changes that instead of getting down to work, they passed an amendment under urgency (The Animal Welfare Amendment Act 2002), that effectively allows the government to drag its feet as long as it wishes.

In the end the Minister of Agriculture released the Codes the day before Christmas Eve in 2004, thus assuring minimum publicity for their actions.

Biased “scientific” findings from the Minister of Agriculture
NAWAC leaned heavily on the Bagshaw and Matthews review as justification for their decision to continue to allow battery cages.  The Minister of Agriculture also relied upon his advisers trawling through the scientific literature until they came across an obscure reference that could support their own minority viewpoint.  In a letter to the Canterbury branch of the Labour Party, the Minister of Agriculture states that:
 

For example Lindgren 1978; Wegner 1985; Faure and Mills 1989; Sainsbury 1992; Groot Koerkamp and Drost 1993; Savory and Hughes 1993; Duncan 2001; and Gawecka 2001 (cited in Krawczyk and Wezyk 2002), showed that cage housing is superior to litter systems.

In fact Krawczyk and Wezyk 2002 found that the better health of caged chickens indicates “improved welfare compared to the litter system and contradicts the main arguments of cage opponents.”

Secondly, the paper directly cited (Krawczyk and Wezyk 2002) had several methodological flaws.  I mentioned these concerns to the authors and on 21 December 2004 received a reply to the effect that the study did not even aim to test welfare effects, but was concerned solely with economics.  The authors state that they are more concerned with the economic welfare of “egg producers” (which is the context means human egg producers) than animal welfare.

Also in the letter, the Minister cited a report by Les With, a veterinarian known to be hostile to the notion of alternative methods of egg production, for alleged biosecurity reasons. The With report cites a higher mortality in alternative systems than free range, but neglects to provide any data that would indicate sample size or methodology.  I was later informed by the Ministry of Agriculture that no officials had ever seen such data.  SAFE requested the data from With, but this request was refused. Effectively officials have been giving policy advice based on hearsay, not science. The With findings are so much as variance with scientific reports of mortality figures that CAFF suspects he made it up.

The NAWAC report on the Layer Hen Code of Welfare
While physical problems such as osteoporosis and fatty haemorragic liver syndrome are an issue with battery cages, the main criticism is the way in which the behaviour of the animal is restricted.  If a government or adviser to the government wishes to convince anyone that battery cages are no worse than alternative systems, then it makes sense for them to discount the importance of animals being able to express normal patterns of behaviour, and the value of behavioural experiments.

One animal welfare scientist who does not place much credence on the value of behavioural observations is H. Barnett, who maintains that welfare can be measured only through physiological indicators such as cortisol concentration and immunity. Essentially Barnett is an old fashioned behaviourist in the tradition of Skinner, who does not place any credence on behaviour as an indicator of welfare. In this regard he is at odds both with most of his colleagues and with the policy intent of the Animal Welfare Act.

It is not surprising that NAWAC leaned heavily on a review by Barnett when attempting to undermine arguments that non-battery systems are superior to batteries in providing for the welfare of layer hens.

Evidence that NAWAC caved in to lobbying from industry groups
The most serious of our allegations against NAWAC and the Minister of Agriculture is that their conclusions and support for the continuation of battery cages are based not on scientific data but on industry lobbying.  CAFF have direct documentary evidence that this occurred.  We attach a briefing we produced for Minister Sutton stating our evidence for our allegation.

We have no such direct evidence that similar lobbying was conducted by the pig industry, however the argument for economic necessity is even lamer in the case of pigs, given that half of all pig producers make a profit in spite of not using sow stalls and not gaining any subsidy or price premium for doing so.  The Minister of Agriculture has also ignored recommendations by the Regulations Review Committee concerning  the non-compliance of the Pig Code, and has arrogantly assumed, in answer to a Parliamentary Question by Sue Kedgley (question 6764, 27 May 2005), that he knows more about animal welfare than all the experts.  In spite of the findings by the SVC, and even NAWAC, that sow crates breach the Animal Welfare Act, the Minister has stated that he could confirm that producers using sow crates meet high standards of welfare based soley on his personal observations!

The Ministers’ God-like faith in his own omniscient abilities is similar to his blind faith in the unsubstantiated claims of an industry veterinarian.  CAFF therefore suspects that the Minister and his officials have also been lobbied by the Pork Industry Board in a similar way.