October 30, 2019

80% of layers in Spain live in cages

More than 30 million layer hens in Spain, or 82%, still live in overcrowded cages, according to 2019 figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Spanish news outlet El País reported.

Each bird is said to live in a space the size of a sheet of A4 paper and never sees the sun. Their beaks are trimmed and they endure constant stress as they lay about 470 eggs in a 100-week period. Spain, along with Portugal, has the highest use of the so-called "furnished-cage" system in Europe: 82% of hens are in cages, compared to the average of 52% in the European Union.

In Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden, caged hens make up just over 10% of the total.

Since 2016, these four countries have been supporting alternative systems such as free-range eggs, where the birds are allowed to live outside freely in larger spaces, and ecological production, where they live outside freely and are given organic feed.  The consumer can identify the differences according to the number stamped on the egg: zero for organic, one for free-range eggs, two for indoor and three for furnished cages.

That said, Spain is also slowly moving towards more animal-friendly systems. Alternative egg production jumped from 7% in 2016 to 17.6% in 2018, according to the Spanish Egg Producer Society (Aseprhu). In other words, about five million hens have moved out of furnished cages.

María del Mar Fernández Poza, the head of Aseprhu, attributes the change to large distributors who have decided not to buy eggs from caged hens. According to the animal-rights group, the Animal Equality Foundation, six of Spain's seven national supermarket chains (with the exception of Dia) have publicly committed to protecting animal welfare.

"If you are restricting the sale of (caged) eggs, you are conditioning the customer to buy what you put in the supermarket," explains Poza. Ester Muñoz Gil, the head of external relations at Guillén Eggs, one of Spain's largest farms, says that all egg production is set to be cage-free by 2025.

According to a Eurobarometer survey on animal protection, 75% of Europeans believe animal welfare on farms needs to be improved. However, 90% of those surveyed are not willing to spend more on products that come from farms where animals have better living conditions. There is also significant difference in the market price of these eggs. An egg from a caged hen costs about €0.15, while a free-range egg costs €0.25, and ecological eggs €0.50 (€1=US$1.11).