EGGS from battery hens could soon be banned from many school and town hall kitchens across Greater Manchester.
Several authorities are weighing the cost and other implications of ordering caterers to only source eggs from free range hens.
Wigan Council has already announced it will ban factory-farmed eggs from next month, a move that will cost an estimated £5,000 extra a year.
The government announced earlier this year it is to outlaw the production of battery-farmed eggs by 2012. Animal welfare groups say each battery hen is crammed into a space often with a floor area smaller than an A4 sheet of paper.
The government decision follows a high-profile campaign by TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, that highlighted the way chickens are treated.
Their programme focused on barn not battery hens but raised issues of animal welfare.
Manchester, Bury, Tameside and Salford are reviewing their policies and will make decisions in the coming weeks.
But Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Bolton have no plans to ban factory-farmed eggs. Trafford did not reply.
The 10 authorities currently use eggs from a variety of sources, including free range, battery and barn hens - which are confined to barns but not caged.
Any change to free range could have significant costs attached for councils such as Rochdale, orders about 8,500 dozen eggs a year.
Alan Robinson, from Wigan Council's caterers MetroFresh, said: "With the new legislation coming in 2012 this is something we were looking to do anyway, but obviously there's been a lot of pressure because of the Jamie Oliver effect.
"There will be an increased cost and that's something we will have to absorb along with a number of other pressures as far as food costs are concerned."
The government's environment department, Defra, estimates that 63 per cent of eggs produced in Britain are from battery farms while 32 per cent are free range.
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alvinlwh (23/01/2008 at 10:02)
Mark Spencer, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. (23/01/2008 at 10:42)
They are often kept in "Barn"-type houses the size of a small football field in flocks of up to 16,000. They are often debeaked. The birds must have access to the outdoor range area (but would you go out in this weather), which can be stocked at a maximum of 2,500 birds per hectare of land available to the hens. However, in large-scale free range units, often less than 50% of the birds regularly go outside. They ae feed pellets just the same as a battery hen would be and are just as likely be injured or infirm & just like battery hens they are slaughtered after about 12 months.
ebble (23/01/2008 at 11:51)
jomov, Manchester (23/01/2008 at 12:00)
Fran M, Stockport (23/01/2008 at 14:57)