EU Fully Bans Battery Cages for Laying Hens from 2012

Because traditional cage rearing of laying hens does not meet animal welfare requirements, the EU will completely ban this rearing method on January 1, 2012. Any country in the EU that raises laying hens must adopt one of the following 4 rearing methods: (1) large-cage rearing; (2) free-range rearing; (3) indoor floor rearing; (4) organic rearing.
Survey data show that at present, among the 27 EU countries, the proportion of caged laying hens is 75%, and the proportion of non-caged laying hens is 25%. Among the non-caged laying hens, only about 7% are raised using large-cage rearing. Within the EU countries, the Netherlands has the highest proportion of non-cage methods, at 54%, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany, at 40% and 37% respectively. Sweden stopped using traditional cages in 2002, Austria banned traditional cages in 2008 and abolished large-cage rearing in 2020, and Germany and the Netherlands gradually phased out traditional cages by the end of 2009.