A street artist has created a gigantic mural of a caged hen, depicting "cruelty inflicted on it", and urged the government to implement a ban on these housing systems.
Amitabh Kumar hopes the mural, supported by Humane Society International-India's campaign, would invoke empathy for the suffering of egg-laying hens confined in cages.
The art work has come up at wall next to Ansal Plaza market, HUDCO Place in south Delhi.
"Seeing hens in battery cages is a sight we are all used to but only a few of us stop to think what it means for the birds.
"Through my work, I wanted to reverse the claustrophobic world of battery farms, where the beholder becomes imprisoned by the gaze of the hen, understanding what it is like to be a confined chicken," said Kumar.
It is estimated that approximately 18 crore egg-laying hens are being kept in battery cages in India and each bird has less living space less than an A4 sheet of paper.
The battery cages are so small that the hens are unable even to spread their wings without touching the sides of the cage or other hens and these cages prevent nearly all forms of natural behaviour including perching and roosting, scratching and foraging, comfort behaviour and exploring.
"We are delighted by street artist Amitabh Kumar's support to our campaign to end battery-caged farming of hens in the country. The use of battery cages for egg production is barbaric.
"It is time that we start acknowledging the fact that factory farming heavily compromises the welfare of hens and work on introducing policies that will protect thousands of egg-laying hens in our country from extreme cruelty," said N G Jayasimha, managing director of HSI India.
In 2012, the Animal Welfare Board of India passed a resolution and recommended that the Environment Ministry adopt the draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Egg Laying Hen) Rules and phase out battery cages for egg-laying hens by January 2017. However, the policy is yet to be adopted.
In addition to animal abuse, a landmark two-year study released by the prestigious Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production concluded that intensive confinement facilities pose unacceptable risks to public health and the environment.
Other studies have shown that the crowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions typical of these systems facilitate the transfer of disease-causing pathogens through the flock, including the avian influenza (bird flu) virus, HSI India said.
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