In 2019, more than one million people, including over 50,000 British citizens, signed the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) calling on the European Commission to introduce a ban on caged farming. This Initiative was the biggest political push for farmed animal welfare in European history and has resulted in a ground-breaking commitment by the European Commission to phase out the use of cages for farmed animals across Europe.

This decision is a massive step forward and will positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions of animals farmed in cages. It is now vital that the UK Government maintains its position as a world leader in farm animal welfare and follows the EU in bringing an end to cruel caged farming. We need to encourage ministers and key decision makers to support a ban, to get us closer to a cage free Britain.

We have ranked each of the UK and EU’s member states by how close it is to our cage free goal, based on the percentage of cage free farm animals. You can find out how each country is performing below.

Act now by sending a tweet to your relevant minister asking them to support a ban.

66% United Kingdom

% animals out of cages: 66%

% animals caged: 34%

Number of animals in cages: 16,444,417

Number of ECI signatures: 54,114

What can you do to help End the Cage Age?

Please email the Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to reinstate the promised consultation on ending cages for farmed animals.

The general situation

The League Table

Below you can find the full league table. Click on the flags to see how each country is performing, and send a tweet to the relevant ministers, asking them to support a ban. Repeat this for as many countries as possible.

Table notes

Many factors determine if a Member State will support our ECI, including the percentage of animals still caged, national laws, and the support of key decision-makers. Some countries are close to being totally cage-free, while others still confine millions of animals with governments reluctant to bring about change.

The table is a living tool: we will update it as soon as any progress is made to end the use of cages.

On each flag, you’ll find the percentage of cage-free farmed animals and, in each pop-up, you'll find the number of animals still in cages. These numbers are calculated on the total number of each species that can be farmed in cages like sows, rabbits, ducks, geese, and hens. We are excluding quails and calves because there are no reliable figures for all Member States, although we are calling for a ban on caging both.

Table Key

Country Level

Species-Level

Sources

Info on the percentages and caged animals

Data on annual animal numbers were taken from the following sources according to the most recent published data: Sows – Eurostat 2021; Laying Hens – EU COM 2021; Rabbits – European Commission (DG Santé) 2016. However, we believe the EU total has dropped from 119 million to around 78 million overall based on EU COM changes in tonnage reported for 2016 and projected for 2021. We estimate that 74 million of these are caged. Rabbit figures for individual countries are not published, but data suggests that French, Italian, and Polish production has dropped whilst Spanish production has stayed more constant; Ducks and Geese - ITAVI 2020 and SSP, Eurofoiegras 2021. Where published figures are not available, estimates of the number of animals farmed and caged have been calculated using generic estimates and data from various sources.

Info about national legislation

• End the cage age report
• For quails – Quail – Industry and national government statistics
• For calves
  • Reference for %ages in system Marcé, C., Guatteo, R., Bareille, N. and Fourichon, C., 2010. Dairy calf housing systems across Europe and risk for calf infectious diseases. Animal, 4(9), pp.1588-1596. except where stated otherwise
  • Reference for Czech %ages Staněk, S., Zink, V., Doležal, O. and Štolc, L., 2014. Survey of preweaning dairy calf-rearing practices in Czech dairy herds. Journal of dairy science, 97(6), pp.3973-3981
  • Reference for Bulgaria – National NGO
  • Reference for Poland – Compassion in World Farming investigation 

Updated in October 2021.