CHENNAI: As the country celebrates 75 years of Independence, animal welfare activists are demanding “freedom from lockdown” for pigs and chickens in cages. Animal protection groups Mercy For Animals and People For Animals have come together for this initiative.
Recently, activists from the two organizations dressed in pig and chicken costumes and held placards reading, ‘Freedom for All’, calling for a ban on gestation crates used to confine pigs and battery cages used to confine laying hens.
“Pigs confined in gestation and farrowing crates suffer bone degeneration and show signs of extreme stress, including biting the metal bars of their crates,” said Nikunj Sharma, chief executive officer of Mercy for Animals India Foundation.
“It is time for the central government to ban cruel crates across the country,” Sharma said.
Gestation crates are two-foot-wide and seven-foot-long metal enclosures in which pigs used for breeding are kept during their four-month-long pregnancies. Battery cages are systems of barren wire cages placed side by side used to confine hens in the egg industry. Both types of enclosures are extremely cruel and prevent the animals from displaying many natural behaviors essential for their physical and mental well-being.
“In the 75 years of celebrating our Independence, we have moved away from traditional Indian animal rearing. We have adopted barbaric cage systems which were invented in the west, for millions of animals,” said Gauri Maulekhi, trustee of People For Animals.click here to read the full news