Today (23 June), we held an opening ceremony in Parliament to launch an interactive exhibition, Phone Box ‘Calls’ to End the Cage Age for Hens.

The installation will be in parliament for a whole week demonstrating the cramped space UK caged hens have to live their whole lives; equivalent to four people in a phone box. The exhibition also showcases over 10,000 written and recorded messages from Compassion supporters, all calling for a ban on cages for laying hens.

British public back a ban

As we await the results of the Government’s laying hen consultation, this is a crucial moment to demonstrate the widespread support for phasing out cages. 94% of the British public think cages for egg laying hens are cruel, yet they are still legal in the UK. Yet almost 6 million hens are still confined in so-called 'enriched' cages every year across the UK. Confined, they can't perform even the most basic of natural behaviours, such as foraging, dustbathing, seeing the light of day, or even fully stretching their wings.

All the UK’s major supermarkets have already stopped selling shell eggs from caged hens, or pledged to do so. Yet, without a legal phase-out of these systems, the welfare of millions of hens will continue to be compromised.

Calling for an end to cages

Our replica phone box forms the centrepiece of our parliamentary exhibition, and demonstrates the unacceptably small space that caged laying hens spend their entire life in, equivalent to four adults in a phone box. When multiple people step into the box the squeeze becomes uncomfortable immediately, but for laying hens trapped in cages, this is their entire life.

Last summer we took our phone box to the streets and recorded many heartfelt messages from the public calling on the UK Government to ban cages for laying hens. We were also overwhelmed by more than 10,000 emotional written messages we received, all backing a ban, which have been turned into a Compassion Phone Book.

MPs get the message

All this week, Parliamentarians can step inside the phone box, experience the small space caged hens live in, and pick up the phone to hear messages from the public. They can also look through our Compassion Phone Book and read messages from their constituents.

During the opening ceremony, Josh Newbury MP who hosted the exhibition, said:

This phone box demonstrates the confined space that hens have to endure. Four people in a phone box amounts to the same amount of space as a hen in an enriched cage. It really doesn't allow them to express their natural behaviours. We need to join together to make our voices heard and to phase out these cruel cages.

Anthony Field, Head of our UK office, added:

I firmly believe the UK is a nation of animal lovers. This has been shown in the three Parliamentary petitions formed on enriched cages, that all received over 100,000 signatures, and in our Compassion Phone Book there are over 10,000 messages from the public to MPs saying why hen cages should be banned.

The Government’s consultation on banning cages for laying hens that ran earlier this year and the statement in the Animal Welfare Strategy offer us great hope that finally the UK can be rid of cages for hens.

Read about our campaign to End the Cage Age in the UK.

Our End the Cage Age phone box is ringing in Parliament all week