The ‘End the Cage Age’ European Citizens’ Initiative aims to abolish the use of caged farming in Europe. This Initiative is the biggest political push in the history of farmed animal welfare, having collected over 1 million signatures from all across the EU.

Every year over 300 million animals in Europe spend all, or a significant part, of their lives imprisoned in cages. Egg-laying hens and rabbits raised for meat are kept in space about the area of an A4 sheet of paper, and almost all sows spend half of every year inside cages, in which they cannot even turn around. This causes tremendous suffering, as these sentient beings cannot perform most of their natural behaviours.

Compassion in World Farming has been co-ordinating a network of over 170 organisations supporting the Initiative, as well as a group of Members of the EU Parliament working for cage-free farming.

More to be desired

In addition to cages for laying hens, sows, calves, and broiler breeders, the ‘End the Cage Age’ European Citizens’ Initiative calls for no cages to be used when farming rabbits, quail, ducks and geese.

Following a campaign by Compassion in World Farming and a subsequent request by the EU Parliament, EFSA recently looked into the welfare of farmed rabbits and concluded that the key welfare issue for adult rabbits is the restriction of movement caused by caged farming. Nonetheless, there is no current mandate to review the welfare issues facing quail, ducks and geese kept in caged systems.