VIDEO: Inside an illegal Italian egg farm
Animal welfare charity Four Paws has released video footage shot, it says, on Italian farms defying the conventional cage ban.
The charity said that the footage is from two farms near the Italian cities of Verona and Forli. It added that the farms contained more than 100,000 laying hens in illegal conventional battery cages.
A spokesperson for the charity said that it had notified both the EU commission and the local Italian police. It was unsure where the eggs would be sent, but said they “are probably being sold in products such as pasta, sweets and mayonnaise”.
The video also highlights layers with beaks trimmed more severely than in the UK, evidence of aggressive feather pecking, and shows a bin containing several dead birds.
Gabriel Paun, director of campaigns at Four Paws, said: “It is extremely unfair for most European farmers who are respecting the conventional cage ban, while these illegal farms make huge profits by infringing national and EU law.”