The Campaign Against Factory Farming (CAFF) will take to the highway in an effort to ban battery hen farming this Saturday from midday to 2pm.

Spokesperson for CAFF Debra Ashton says the group will keep pressure on Wellington Egg Company battery hen farmers Sandi and Trevor Chin by demonstrating outside their premises on Highway 58 at Judgeford for the second time in two months.

“We want to send a message to all battery egg producers that we won’t go away until they stop this cruel and inhumane way of farming. There is just no excuse for it.”

Hens from this farm have been seen in extremely bad condition. Often featherless, their bare bodies and feet rubbed raw from the wire cages. They are sometimes barely able to walk, through lack of exercise, Ms Ashton said.

“Most New Zealanders already agree that this is no life for a hen because they can’t express their normal patterns of behaviour.

“The fact is that people haven’t realised what goes on inside the sheds of this farm that they drive by every day. We are asking for the farmers to let us all have a look. Surely if they had nothing to hide, they would.”

Minister of Agriculture Jim Sutton is soon expected to announce new recommendations on the code of welfare for layer hens.

His office has already turned down two requests for CAFF Science Advisor Dr. Michael Morris to meet with him to present scientific evidence against battery hen farming, yet he met with the Poultry Industry Association earlier this year.

“It is obvious he is listening to a small number of farmers and not the majority of New Zealanders that CAFF represents.”

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