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Battery-Cage Activity
This activity was taken from the Sowing
Seeds Workbook: A Humane Education Primer by the International
Institute of Humane Education.
This activity introduces students to the conditions on modern factory
egg farms in a light-hearted, fun, and enjoyable manner. Tell students
that this activity will help them learn where the eggs in the supermarket
come from.
 Ask
for two volunteers who are willing to take off their shoes. Pick
two friends who are wearing socks. Put two sturdy metal or plastic
milk crates in front of the class, upside-down and side-by-side,
so that they are touching. Ask the volunteers to remove their shoes
and stand on the crates. Make sure that they are comfortable with
the situation.
Tell them that the class will pretend that there are metal bars
that go up from the sides of the crates, enclosing the two volunteers
in a single cage. It works best if you use your hands and arms to
outline where the imaginary cage bars are. Tell them that the top
of the cage is level with their noses, so they will have to squat
in order to stand in the cage. Again, use your hand to indicate
where the top of the cage is, and model how to squat so that they
can better understand what you are asking of them.
At this point, tell them that they will be in this situation for
a while. Ask them to pretend that there is a conveyor belt in front
of them and that they can reach through the bars to eat the food
on the belt. Tell them that there are tubes of water on both sides
of the cage that they can drink from. Next, let them know that if
they have to go to the bathroom, they have to go in the cage and
let their waste fall through the crate.
Now that the scenario is set up, ask the volunteers the following
questions:
1. What thoughts and feelings would you have
if you had to stay in the cage for the rest of the day? After
they answer, tell them to pretend that they will have to stay
in there for an entire week.
2. Show us how you would exercise and stretch
if you were kept there for an entire week. (The space limitations
will prevent them from doing any meaningful stretching or exercising.)
Ask students if they have ever taken a car or plane ride that
lasted several hours. What did it feel like? What did they want
to do when it was over? How do they think the volunteers will
feel if they are kept in the cage for a week?
3. How would you stay clean? (Again, grooming
and cleaning are impossible to do in this environment.)
4. What would you do for fun?
5. What would happen if one of you became sick?
(If it’s a contagious disease, both of them would most likely
become ill.)
Next, explain that they need to pretend to be in the cage not just
for a week—but for an entire year! Paint a picture for them
of what is happening: Tell them that their cage is dirty and smells
bad from all the waste that has collected beneath them and that
they haven’t been able to clean themselves (so they are dirty
and smelly), exercise, or move freely for an entire year. Also,
let them know that they have been with each other in these conditions—24
hours a day, seven days a week for an entire year. They have had
no privacy from one another, and they are constantly bumping into
one another. Ask them how they would feel about each other after
a year.
Ask students whether they have ever been in a situation in which
they had to be with someone 24 hours a day for a long period of
time. What was the experience like? Often, people get irritated
and their tempers flare when they have to spend lots of time with
another person.
Ask the volunteers what thoughts and feelings they would have if
they were in this situation for an entire year. If they are too
shy to respond, ask other students how they would feel.
Ask the volunteers how their feet feel. Standing on the slats of
the crates can be uncomfortable. Ask them how long they would like
to remain up there. Then thank them and ask the class to show appreciation
to the volunteers with a round of applause.
Explain that this activity shows how 98 percent of the hens who
lay eggs live on modern factory farms. The cages that they are confined
to are called “battery cages,” and thousands of these
cages are put into a single shed called a “battery unit.”
Just like the volunteers, the hens in these cages are unable to
clean or groom themselves, exercise, play, or socialize normally.
The hens become frustrated, sad, bored, and lonely.
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