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Every day of delay means another day of suffering

for hens trapped in cages.

Millions of hens are living in cages the size of an A4 sheet of paper. The Government ran a consultation on banning them. The response is overdue. It’s time to call for action.

Take action now

End cruel animal confinement

In January 2026, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) opened a consultation on banning cages for hens. It closed in March with 39,000 responses from the public. The Government’s response is now overdue. While hens wait, the suffering continues.

Cage-free is not cruelty-free – but ending cages would end one of the most extreme forms of confinement endured by farmed animals. This is the bare minimum. And the Government already asked the public whether it should act. Now it needs to follow through.

Hens in cages cannot spread their wings, nest, or carry out their most basic natural behaviours. Many suffer from feather loss, open wounds, and broken bones. This is not a fringe issue – it is the reality for millions of hens right now, in systems the Government has the power to end.

We are calling on the UK Government to respond to the consultation without further delay and commit to a full ban on cages for hens.

Contact Defra

Take Action – Email Defra today

Defra has the power to end the cruel practice of confining hens in cages. All that’s missing is the decision to act.

Emails to Defra add real pressure at a critical moment. The consultation on banning cages for hens closed months ago, and a response is now overdue. We’re calling on Stephen Morgan, the Defra Minister responsible for this decision, to:

  • Respond to the consultation without further delay
  • Commit to a clear, legally binding timeline to end the use of cages for hens across the UK egg industry
  • Act on the evidence and public input Defra already has, instead of continuing to delay long-overdue reform

Review and personalise the pre-written message if you wish, personal touches make all the difference. Please remember to keep it polite!

Add your details and hit ‘send email’ to open your ready-made draft and send your message directly to Stephen Morgan’s inbox. Thank you for taking action for hens!

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If you’re having any tech issues with the above tool, feel free to hit ‘copy to clipboard’, for each element and paste into an email manually! Or you can click here to open up the draft. You can still mark that you completed the action by clicking ‘I did this’. Thank you for your dedication to animals!

Want to take further action for hens?

Add your voice!

Dear Defra,

We, the undersigned, join Animal Equality in calling for a ban on keeping hens used for their eggs in cages in the UK.

Investigations carried out by Animal Equality and others have exposed British egg farms confining hundreds of thousands of hens in abhorrent conditions.

Hens in cages today suffer a miserable existence crammed into overcrowded, barren, wire-floored confinement they are barely afforded the space of an A4 piece of paper.

Such appalling conditions clearly have significant and disturbing ramifications for the animals, causing serious physical and psychological issues. Many hens suffer from severe feather loss and some are nearly bald. Others show signs of painful hernias and red, raw skin.

Whilst ‘conventional’ cages were banned in Britain years ago, so-called ‘enriched’ cages – which bear a striking resemblance to those that have been outlawed for failing to meet hens’ basic welfare needs – are still permitted. Millions of hens in the UK spend their entire lives in crowded cages. This is unacceptable.

We call ourselves a nation of animal lovers, so how can we allow cruel cages to continue?

The time has come for us to ban cages for hens.

We, the undersigned, call on you to act now and without delay.

Thank you for taking action to help hens!

We need to fix this broken system. Please share our petition and help us spread the word about the cruelty that our investigation exposed.

Thank you for your support! Your actions are making a huge difference for farmed animals.

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Over 40% of hens in the UK are currently crammed into cages and locked away for life. This cruel confinement cannot continue. SIGN NOW!

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Defend hens and chicks

Each chicken has less than the space of a single sheet of A4 paper to live in on a typical UK egg farm. You can save chickens from a life of misery by replacing eggs in your meals with plant-based alternatives.

I Want To Try Plant-Based

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