caged eggs

[Misthios]

SNP - food poverty is dreadful! Everything is too expensive and people can't feed their kids a healthy diet.

Also SNP - we're banning eggs from caged hens because we are worried about the chickens.

Asda essentials eggs from caged birds, 15 for £1.99, 13.3p each. Cheapest free range eggs are 15 for £2.60, or 17.3p each. Yes it's just 4p an egg but as they are so fond of telling us, every penny counts when you have no money. There is definitely an argument to be had around animal welfare but this is not the time.

Yes and no

There will always be a case for the cheaper whatever - so at sone point a line just has to be drawn

Now does seem to be an unusually hard time though

The mistake was putting the hens in cages in the first place.

You do know it means a cage the size of a shoebox for the hen’s entire life, and half their beak cut off with a hot wire tool so they can’t peck the hens either side of them out of stress/just to have something to do?

Caged hens have no freedom to practice any natural behaviours. None. It is abhorrent. I am not vegetarian and am fine with the fact that animals die for my food but I want them to have a better life than that first, FFS. If 4p more per egg is too much, don’t buy eggs or cut back on something else.

Even with food prices how they are, we spend much less of our annual income on food than at any time in the 20th century. It’s actually never been so cheap, compared to our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Reducing animal welfare more and more is one way we’ve done it but that doesn’t justify cruelty.

Have you actually seen the conditions that these poor birds are kept in? It's beyond vile. No creature should have to survive in those conditions. Then as soon as their egg production reduces they are culled. Its been beyond time for many years

Caged birds are an abhoration, I was shocked to read they are still in existence. Don't eat eggs if you can't afford to give hens a decent life, no one is forcing anyone to buy eggs. It's beyond cruel.

We pay too little for food because we pay too much for basic housing and until that shifts there will be too many people in food poverty

Eggs are great healthy options and we should be helping people eat good healthy food

Also SNP - we're banning eggs from caged hens because we are worried about the chickens.

That's brilliant news!

I've had literally no money at times, so I know what it's like to be totally skint and struggling.

I've never bought caged hen eggs in my life, I just did without.

Stand on an a4 piece of paper. Now stay there for the rest of your life. That's the space caged hens have. There are plenty of healthy options that don't involve this cruelty.

Your life may be shit op. Is saving 4p worth making a hen's life worse than yours?

If I was finding free range expensive I’d just buy fewer eggs. I didn’t even know you could still get caged ones. I’d never buy them. I’m sure in Morrisons near me they are all free range

YABU. Caged eggs should have been banned decades ago. It’s evil.

I’ve told my kids someone always pays for cheap food, usually the animals themselves. We eat less but better. We even only get organic chicken but it’s so expensive we only have chicken about twice a month. The animals shouldn’t pay for us.

Have you ever witnessed the conditions caged hens are kept in OP? This is an investigation into the Happy Egg Company who claim to have free range eggs. Judge for yourself.

https://investigations.peta.org/happy-egg-co-free-range-eggs/

I'm the biggest opponent of the SNP going but I can't criticise this.

We do eat quite a lot of eggs so I buy higher welfare and donate to a chicken shelter.

I'm lucky I can afford this but if I couldn't we'd just not have eggs.

Caging hens is a barbaric outdated practice. You can't make one creature suffer enormously just to benefit another, people in the west need to stop relying so heavily on meat and dairy for every meal. There are far cheaper alternatives.

Isn’t the bigger issue with caged eggs that they’re still used in ready meals etc? How many of us eating our free range eggs are eating caged eggs in shop bought cake, ready meals etc.

I hope the ban will not just be about boxed eggs.

That’s the main issue with legislation - there’s always a loophole. Do you look for ‘made with free range eggs’ before you pick up a muffin, a sponge cake etc?

Defra -as of 2021, 35 percent of eggs consumed in uk are caged. And you can bet you’re eating them and you didn’t know it.

so I both agree keeping caged hens should be banned, and think the impact is higher than buying boxes of eggs.

Chickens are surprisingly intelligent, we have ex battery hens, they are utterly brilliant and incredibly friendly, I call them and them come running to greet me. When we had 'flock down' my girls really suffered, despite previously being caged. I hated watching them run up and down the bird proof run. I had to give them puzzles to keep the busy.
I agree housing is too expensive and should be cheaper and food should cost more.

How are they going to enforce it though? If they really think that banning caged eggs in Scotland is what they want to do then surely just stopping them being sold in Asda is only half a job? I mean, if you feel really strongly about eggs from caged hens, and some of you clearly are passionate about this issue, then it has to be wider than supermarkets?

The Scottish government can't stop any of the big ready meal companies using caged eggs or restaurants buying them in bulk south of the border and importing. This is another of these "grand gestures look how amazingly progressive Scotland is" things which really, if we're going to do it, should be the whole UK doing it together.

Yes, I agree that actually banning the caging of birds is a better solution and needs to be wider than Scotland.

Exactly - yet another of the many issue where you want the biggest possible group of firms to be forced to better standards just banning boxed egg sales I’m not against but unless you are not eating out and not buying any egg products you’re likely still eating eggs from caged hens.

It is eminently doable and a lot of the big firms already are for some of their big products. Hellman’s uses FRE in its mayo, for example. A lot of premium lemon curd is now FRE. You can largely avoid battery eggs if you want to. It takes some effort with some products but it can be done. But also, reduction is better than nothing - so even if the only change you make is to switch which fresh eggs you buy, that will still have benefits.

Agree there but expecting people to check they’re consuming ethically, environmentally etc -
isn't that the strategy we’ve been trying for years?

This is one of the few SNP ideas that I’m wholly onboard with.