Cage-free councils
You could change the lives of thousands of hens by sending just one email. Join our campaign to persuade local councils to use cage-free eggs - from hens leading more natural lives in barn or free-range systems.
To email your local council please follow these instructions
1. Fill in your postcode and press the 'send' arrow:
2. Select either your district or county councillor
3. Type your own message, refer to our bullet points
Bullet points for your email
Please don't just copy and paste these points - receiving personalised emails is much more effective. You can also click on the UK map to find your nearest cage-free councils and include them as an example.
I would like to know what eggs [your council] are using in council catering and urge you to use barn or free-range eggs. My reasons are:
- To be more ethical, as caged hens endure immense suffering
- To reflect the strong public opposition to battery cages, illustrated by the number of leading companies ending the use of eggs from caged hens (such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Sainsbury’s)
- To support national government policy. The government voted for the EU legislation to ban the use of barren battery cages from 2012
- To support humane and sustainable farming
- To win a Good Egg Award from farm animal welfare charity, Compassion in World Farming
I expect my council to spend its budget in a way that supports and encourages ethical and sustainable systems.
What happens next?
If your council has refused to go cage-free on eggs, it will have offered a reason why it is refusing. You might find the documents below helpful in responding to these objections:
If your council agrees to consider going cage-free, send your thanks and ask when it expects to switch its egg supply and to make it commitment part of its catering policy. Remember to tell us your good news!
Compassion in World Farming supporters have achieved great success in lobbying their local councils to go cage-free - over 60 councils have already committed to use only barn or free-range eggs.
It can take only a small amount of encouragement for councils to switch to cage-free eggs. Compassion supporter, Marian Hussenbux, simply wrote to her council and asked some of her friends to do the same. This resulted in Wirral Council committing to use free-range eggs in all council catering including schools. This fantastic move was reported by the regional BBC news, several local papers and celebrated at the Good Egg Awards in the Palace of Westminster.