Lucy Gavaghan, a 14-year-old schoolgirl who gathered 460,000 signatures for online petitions calling for supermarkets to stop selling caged eggs, was invited on a tour to a free-range farm.
Lucy, from Sheffield, was invited to celebrate her success with a tour of Wood Farm in Waresley, Bedfordshire, which is a member of RSPCA Assured.
Rio Mellor, an RSPCA Assured assessor, said Lucy's campaign will see "millions of hens, who would have been kept in cages, being given plenty of space to move around freely and express their natural behaviours instead."
"It’s a phenomenal victory for animal welfare," Mr Mellor said.
"It was wonderful to meet Lucy and tell her more about the strict RSPCA welfare standards farmers have to meet in order to use the RSPCA Assured logo.
"It was helpful for her to see a commercial farm in action. She asked some intelligent questions about welfare and I’m sure this experience and her new knowledge will help her future campaigns"
250-acre farm
Charles Mear, the fourth generation of his family to farm the land, his wife Jo, and their three children showed Lucy around their 250-acre farm where they have just under 28,000 free-range hens producing about 25,000 eggs a day.
Lucy and her mum Jenny were shown the tree-covered ranges, inside the sheds, the egg packing station and also the mill where the family mixes their own feed for the hens.
Charles said: “Lucy has really made the supermarkets sit up and take notice, she’s managed to open doors to make a real impact and proved she is a force to be reckoned with.
“The welfare of the hens is our top priority. We think happy hens produce quality eggs, so it’s great that the industry has got someone like Lucy pushing for change.
“We wish her every success with her campaign.”
'Happy and healthy'
Lucy became interested in hens when she met some at a livery yard where her family keep their miniature Shetland pony Willow.
She now has a flock of her own - Pumpkin, Hazel, Sunshine, Sylvia, Fern and Mildred - some of which are former battery cage hens.
She launched her first online petition lobbying Tesco from her mobile phone in the living room and it quickly went viral gaining more than 280,000 signatures in less than six months.
Now she is campaigning for the UK to go cage-free.
Lucy said: "I felt it was really important for me to see a commercial farm and I was really impressed. The hens looked really happy and healthy, just how all hens should be.
"I know there will be some resistance to what I am trying to achieve - an end of hens being kept in cages - so it was great to speak to a commercial farmer like Charles and know he wishes me well with my campaign"
