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STAND UP FOR CHICKENS
KEEP THE BAN ON BEAK TRIMMING

Debeaking or ‘beak trimming’ involves cutting off around a third of a chick’s beak with a red-hot blade or an infra-red beam. This serious and painful mutilation was due to be banned in the UK from 2011.

This ban is now under threat.

Compassion in World Farming – the leading organisation focused on farm animal welfare – is urging the government to keep the ban on beak trimming. We need your help.

ACT NOW – send an eCard to the UK government

Subject

Dear Jim Fitzpatrick MP,

I am shocked that Defra is planning to unravel one of its major reforms in the field of farm animal welfare. This is immensely disappointing from a Government that claims to care about animal welfare.

I am totally opposed to Defra’s plan to drop the ban on the de-beaking of hens. The ban should not be postponed.  It should come into force on the date set by law: 1st January 2011.  Certainly if the ban is postponed, a new date must be set for it to come into force. If, as Defra intends, the ban is repealed without a new commencement date being set, we are unlikely to ever see this painful mutilation being brought to an end.

It has been suggested that infra-red beak trimming is a painless and stress-free alternative to the traditional ‘hot blade’, but this assertion is not well-supported in scientific research.  DEFRA are arguing that chicks do not suffer chronic pain after infra-red trimming – however, numerous scientific studies suggest that this is not the case.

Although Britain often claims to be at the forefront of animal welfare it seems that Austria has led the way for laying hens. They have developed a system which has nearly dispensed with beak trimming, whilst reducing feather-pecking. We should be looking to these examples, as they provide real-life evidence of how unnecessary this practice is.

This is Labour’s chance to prove that they are indeed the party who ‘delivers on animal welfare’ by enforcing a welfare reform that will improve billions of lives. To fail on this would be an embarrassing climb down from such promising beginnings.

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