September 2026
I've said this before, to anyone who'd listen: our industry is never more than 24 hours away from a news story that can knock us sideways. This week it's arrived twice over, once from RSPCA Assured confirming a welfare standard we have never accepted, and once from a national outbreak that has nothing to do with British eggs and everything to do with how the public sees us.
RSPCA Assured has confirmed that standard E 6.4, the pophole daylight covering standard, will come into force on 1st December 2026 for flocks housed after that date. It was paused back in October 2025 pending industry trials, trials that never actually happened despite a number of members offering their sheds to be involved. For some unknown reason the trials did not take place, yet it appears that RSPCA are now, incorrectly I hasten to add, blaming industry for this.
