Sandrine Prioul, edited by Gauthier Delomez 09h00, October 08, 2021

A recent decree obliges breeders of battery animals to maintain their breeding indoors to fight against possible risks of avian flu.

In the Nantes countryside, many poultry farmers refuse to apply the regulations, believing that they undermine animal welfare.

REPORTING

Will we soon have confined free-range eggs? Following the publication of a decree aimed at combating possible risks of avian influenza, battery animal breeders have the obligation to maintain their breeding inside buildings. This decree goes badly with poultry professionals, a few days after the trip of President Emmanuel Macron who praised animal welfare in a SPA refuge. They consider that this rule is impossible to respect, and quite simply denounce the aberration of locking up free-range farms. In the Nantes countryside, Europe 1 went to meet breeders who decided this weekend not to apply the regulations.

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"There is deception on the merchandise, it is extremely serious"

For breeders, the regulations undermine the welfare of poultry. These go from ten square meters in the open air to 20 times less space and in an enclosed space. Among them, Jacques Dupont refuses to respect the decree. "I breed around 2,000 chickens per year. It happens that next door, I have a meadow where I put batches of 250 chickens. So, they should be locked up," he questioned. "It is also a misunderstanding between what we want to go towards, with a quality product, outdoors, and the rules that are imposed on us on the contrary. It is not possible", blows the breeder Nantes.

This regulation can also prove to be counterproductive. The hens could just get sick from fussing and catching their beak in an enclosed place. A situation far from fulfilling the conditions of respect for animal welfare claimed by the labels "raised in the open air". As for Jacques Dupont, it is no for Audrey Lacroix who wants the poultry to stay outside. "We ask the state to review its copy," she says. "Last year already, for seven months, people bought free range poultry which was not, which had lived in isolation", underlines the breeder, before assassinating: "There is deception on the merchandise, and it is extremely serious ".

For breeders, we must resist otherwise it will be the end of eggs and free-range chickens.

They also denounce the usefulness of this regulation, justifying that the last cases of avian flu near them came from already claustrated farms, and not from contamination of migratory birds.