Voiceless, the fund for animals, congratulates the University of Newcastle for becoming Australia’s first educational campus to go ‘cage-free’.

The Board of the University of Newcastle Services has agreed to trial 100% usage of fresh ‘free-range eggs’ in campus food outlets from November 1^st.

This move can be seen as part of an international trend away from battery caged egg production, with over 150 colleges in the United States having gone ‘cage-free’ in the last three years.

Brian Sherman AM, director and co-founder of Voiceless, said today:

“The university’s introduction of a free-range egg policy, which is an Australian first, is an important step towards addressing the pain and suffering inflicted on battery hens. About 10 million hens in Australia spend their entire lives indoors in ‘battery cages’ allocated a space barely larger than an A4 sized piece of paper.

Most people don’t realize that hens are sentient and intelligent animals because their suffering is hidden beneath a veil of secrecy.”

The University of Newcastle’s initiative was driven by a local student, Kathleen Chapman and follows last month’s pledge by the ACT government to implement a cage-free policy throughout ACT government institutions. .

A growing number of corporate dining facilities across the USA, including America Online (AOL), Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Adidas, have also responded to public demands by instituting cage-free policies in their cafeterias as part of their corporate social responsibility programs.

In the United Kingdom major supermarkets, such as Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer, now sell only cage-free eggs ahead of a European Union ban on battery cages for egg-laying hens by 2012. Sales of barn laid and free range eggs have recently overtaken demand in the UK.

Voiceless recently launched a new educational initiative Voiceless Animal Advocates (VAA) which is empowering law students at universities across Australia to help end animal suffering. At present VAA members are active on 19 campuses and in 2008 they will be campaigning to introduce similar cage-free policies at each of these universities.