DURING the last parliament, this Government banned hunting with dogs, ostensibly on the grounds of animal welfare.

Hopefully, we will now see this concern extended to other animal welfare issues crying out for similarly robust action.

Are buyers of non-organic chicken products aware that the broilers farmed for this purpose are routinely reared at approximately 17 birds a square metre and never see daylight during their short and squalid lives? Battery hens and broilers suffer disease and injuries, and mutilation such as de-beaking. Broilers are subjected to breeding regimes which produce birds unable to bear their own weight.

Do people buying non-free range eggs realise each battery hen spends its life in a space no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper? Do many of us know routine transports of live sheep and cattle, financed by EU subsidies, subject animals to long, cruel journeys?

Once transported to a non-EU country, most of these animals are ritually slaughtered - without pre-stunning - in ways that would be inappropriate to describe in a family newspaper.

Factory farming costs us, and the animals involved, dearly. It pollutes our environment, encourages the spread of disease, requiring antibiotic intervention, and subjects millions of animals to a lifetime of suffering in deprived and barren conditions.

We protest when confronted with cruelty to domestic pets but selectively ignore similar cruelty occurring all around us. We should take the trouble to find out how and where our meat has been produced and how and where it is slaughtered. Only then can we eat with a clear conscience.

Mrs J Kay,

Askham Grove,

Acomb, York.

Updated: 11:00 Friday, May 20, 2005