If you're not already aware of Activist's newest campaign, then now is the time to sign the petition pressuring Pick n Pay, Shoprite Checkers and Spar to follow Woolworths' lead and immediately stop selling battery eggs.

Debeaking, where a beak is melted away by being pressed against a red hot blade, is inflicted on 22.8 million chicks in South Africa every year – just one of the attrocities battery hens undergo in order to lay eggs in a battery cage. Only a ban on battery farming for laying hens can stop this mutilation.

Compassion in World Farming (read about 'kind food' in our green your diet guide) have provided an interview with Mike Bosch that is well worth reading.

Zimbabwian born farmer Mike Bosch has a free range chicken farm near Bela-Bela in the Limpopo province of South Africa that is green..., humane, flourishing and as African as it gets. In January this year, Mike received world recognition in Brussels for his free range eggs and farming methods. He was the only farmer/producer invited to present a paper at the Global Animal Welfare and Trade Conference held in Brussels.

And why?

Mike's chickens can freely express virtually all their natural behaviours and can even roost in trees if they wish to. He even have some of his hens hatching out their own chicks in order to retain that mothering instinct that chickens have been known for throughout history. 

When Mike was asked about debeaking and detoeing of battery chickens, he had the following to say:

Debeaking, detoeing or any other mutilation, is absolutely out as far as we are concerned.  When chickens are under stress, such as in the overcrowded conditions of a battery cage, they attack each other and that is why battery farmers debeak their chicks. My chickens are not under stress and so they don't go around attacking each other.  [for the full interview]

pic: one of Mike's chickens