13/10/2014

Today I’m incredibly excited to share with you that we are launching our biggest ever campaign. Our aim is nothing short of ending the use of cages in farming. I see cages as the ultimate cruel symbolic representation of factory farming. They embody everything that is wrong with the system. They constrict and confine animals, preventing them from turning around and displaying their most basic natural behaviours.

Despite the obvious failings of this medieval system, Europe still incarcerates around 700 million farm animals in cages every year.

Pigs, hens, duck and geese are often confined to cages for much of their lives; even tiny quail are often imprisoned in factory farm cages.

In the UK, more often than not, people think of rabbits as pets. Our recent investigation revealed that most farmed rabbits spend their entire lives in battery cages. Breeding does are often kept in solitary confinement for two years. In one farm, we filmed the crude artificial insemination process of the breeding does, showing them being roughly pulled out of their cages, inseminated and forcefully put back in.

At Compassion, we firmly believe that all rabbits should be able to roam, hop, and express all their natural behaviours. None of the 330 million rabbits factory farmed in Europe every year are able to do these most basic of things. With dead rabbits strewn about and ammonia levels high from the waste left to pile up under the cages and lack of ventilation, it is unsurprising that these rabbit farms are breeding grounds for infection and disease. In rabbit factory farming, 5 – 7 times the amount of antibiotics are used compared with pig or poultry farming.

I’ve had enough of outdated cages still being used in modern European farming. If you feel the same, please get involved with our major new campaign. It’s time to evolve. It’s time to End the Cage Age.

Please, take the time to watch our film and share it with as many people as possible. And if you believe that farm animals should no longer be kept in cages, join the campaign today. Every generation must make its mind up which injustice and cruelty to animals it is going to stop. The time has come for this generation to stand up and End the Cage Age.

Thank you.