RSPCA to sue over cruelty claims?
23 July 1999
RSPCA to sue over cruelty claims?
By FWi staff
The RSPCA is considering legal action following claims that egg-laying hens reared under its Freedom Food scheme are kept in overcrowded conditions.
The claim was made on the Undercover Countryside programme shown on Channel Four last night.
The Free As A Bird documentary also claimed consumers are paying more for free-range eggs in the mistaken belief the birds roam freely in open fields.
Programme-maker Daniel Butler, a Welsh smallholder, said that on one Freedom Food farm, 8000 birds were crammed into a single henhouse.
The birds displayed signs of behaviour typical of battery hens or those kept in overcrowded conditions, he claimed.
A statement from the RSPCA before the programme was screened said it was clear that the documentary would contain several potentially defamatory statements.
“Naturally, we will consider what further action to take after we have viewed the show,” it said.
“We are taking legal advice and responding to those [inaccurate statements] in turn.”
Todays edition of The Guardian reports that the British Free Range Egg Producers Association has also rejected the allegations.