Estonia to ban keeping chickens in cages

According to new changes in legislation, caged chickens will be banned in Estonia starting in 2035. This means that entrepreneurs will have to make significant investments to switch to alternative methods of keeping birds. This is reported by ERR, reports UNN. 

Details

According to the country's Ministry of Regional Development and Agriculture, 81% of all Estonian egg production facilities currently keep chickens in cages. If caged hens are banned in Estonia starting in 2035, switching to a different type of chicken keeping will require significant investments from enterprises, as all equipment in poultry houses will need to be replaced.

Allan Tohver, the head of Estonia's largest egg producer Dava Foods, said that this also implies the need to renovate existing facilities or build new ones.

“This is an investment of about 50-60 euros per chicken. That is, if we have 300,000 chickens, it will be about 15 million euros for our company. This will be the construction of new poultry houses,” Tohver explained.

Dava Foods is currently working on a project to adapt an existing poultry house to keep chickens on the floor, but it's not cheap.

“There is nothing to be done, these old poultry houses are already depreciated, they need to be updated. If you want to improve the conditions for birds, it still requires a lot of money, and you can't do it with a few euros,” he said.

The third largest egg producer in Estonia, Linnu Talu OÜ, plans to move its hens from cages to the floor in most cases by 2027.

Currently, 38% of the company's birds are kept in free-range or floor housing. To do this, the company had to renovate two old, usually empty buildings, which ultimately cost about 1.2 million euros. For the investment, it was necessary to take out a loan and apply for support from PRIA.

Jarno Hermet's business manager said that in order to switch to keeping chickens on the floor, they plan to continue to renovate existing buildings. In this case, the total investment may amount to about three million euros.

“We have not been able to build new (poultry) houses. Investments, as they were, remain expensive for producers. We hope that we will be able to replace the equipment and reduce the workload,” he said.

Such investments also affect the price of eggs, added Linnu Talu, business manager of Linnu Talu.

“The investment itself is expensive, the payback period is long, and egg production from floor and free-range hens is also more expensive. There are higher electricity costs because you need more ventilation, higher labor costs, some eggs go to waste, and even higher feed and water costs because the birds move more and therefore consume more energy,” he explained.

Piret Hartman, Minister of Regional Development and Agriculture, said the government hopes to find ways to support businesses in the transition to keeping chickens on the floor.

“This year, various investments for food producers will soon open. You can already apply for funding to make investments and support this transition. And in the next period, we will definitely take this change into account so that enterprises receive state support for the realization of this transition,” Hartman explained.

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