Good news about battery hens

[Birdie Wife]

We're not trying to change the world, however much we'd like to, but we can live with ourselves, knowing we do what we can to make a difference. If that means supporting a ban - I'm up for it

I think that's right Milliebecks - speaking for myself, I know I can't change the world, but I CAN change my small corner of it. The problem of battery hens and intensive farming may never go away, but as long as we each have the choice, we should exercise it responsibly, in whatever way we can. Don't worry about what other people are doing, you are only responsible for your own actions. And where we don't get a choice, we should make a noise about it until we get that choice. Another signature on a petition is a very small step, but if we each make that choice, then collectively we can make a real difference. Or at least show that we want to!

But please, don't be put off posting Paul - it's a valid debate and I think ideas and opinions need to be tested sometimes.

[Alison]

now if you had come up with a humane battery system giving he birds room to stand up and flap their wing and still produced the same amount of egg you could go to the producers abroad and say this works you still make money and the birds are happy to my mind would be better in the long run than a total ban.

However, as any battery system would be inhumane, we should not be clouding the issue by pursuing this direction.

[TPeers]

To All,

I have been reading this with interest.

PaulW please don't leave the forum - every view is valid if it is not a direct attack, and yes I can understand that the size of the problem in global terms seems overwhelming.

Milliebecks I can equally see your side in this. Please, keep trying to make a difference!

Surely some open and honest debate, as long as no-one gets too heated is better that shoving the subject under a rug?

[kirsty b]

Well said TPeers.
The fact that we can have such debates says a lot for this forum, its members and mods.
No harm done as long as it doesn't get personal.
I hope nobody chooses to leave the forum as a result of this discussion

[Snadger]

Interesting debate.

What I think we need:-

Legislation by the Government to ban the sale or use of eggs produced by the antiquated battery method, whichever country they come from, would be a start.
No one wants to see unemployment, so a govenment subsidy to convert to a more humane way of keeping chickens for the present battery farmers.

Without legislation supermarkets will always buy the cheapest they can get, without any ethical qualms!

No figures I'm afraid, just a simplistic view!

[moggssue]

I think Birdie Wife summed it up for me. My buying eggs from my local farm might not make a big difference in the world, but slowly slowly catchy monkey. I have free choice and will exercise that choice, in this instance by buying fewer eggs but from a source where I know the hens are happy. If we all make similar choices, then the big players will start to realise that they have to change or lose our business, and therefore their profits.

battery farming is just downright wrong, however you wrap it up and try to portray it.

[ulla]

well we live in a capitalist system, where profit comes for a lot of businesses before ethics and people. That's why so many die of hunger and curable illnesses in the third world despite of having more or less enough food produced for all...

Of course there is the possibility of winning one struggle but at the same time you might loose in many other aspects and many other struggles at the same time.

As good old Berthold Brecht wrote, and Theodor Adorno and many other philosophers before and after him earlier and later and in many different ways:
"It is not possible to live an ethical live in the wrong system."

[Alison]

It may not be possible to live a fully ethical life in the wrong system but that does not mean that you should not strive to do so.