Huge protest against Craddock egg farm this morning

This morning in Auckland animal rights activists and locals from the community of Patumahoe held a large protest outside the Environment Court. Around 70 people held placards and chanted “Craddock Farms! Shut them down!” for an hour outside the courthouse. This is one of the largest protests ever seen outside the Environment Court in Auckland.

Craddock Farms want to build a colony cage egg farm in Patumahoe but have come up against strong opposition from locals and activists who don’t want the farm built.

Auckland City Council declined Craddock Farms’ application to build earlier this year based on concerns about odour affecting the township.

Craddock Farms’ appealed the decision and this morning a 7 day hearing commenced in the Environment Court. Craddocks’ has adjusted its plans by adding around 120 10-metre chimney stacks to its buildings in the hopes of mitigating odour issues.

Stop Craddock Farms spokesperson Deirdre Sims says, “The proposed factory farm will be one of the biggest of its kind in our country, confining 310,000 hens to cruel colony cages,”

““I’m hoping to confront Stefan Craddock at some stage during the hearing and ask him how he sleeps at night knowing 310,000 hens will suffer horribly in his cruel cages if the plan goes ahead,”

“Our group wants to see a ban on cages for chickens so we've joined up with the locals and have been working with them for over a year to stop the farm being built,"

“Overseas trends show countries like Austria, Germany and Switzerland are already phasing out colony cages while they are just being introduced here in New Zealand,”

“We’re falling far behind more progressive nations but if we stop this farm being built, that’ll go a long way towards getting rid of chicken cages here,”

“Stefan Craddock and the rest of the egg industry are personally responsible for the suffering of over 3 million caged chickens in our country. I want to ask Stefan why he thinks animal suffering on such a massive scale is acceptable,” says Ms. Sims.

ENDS

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