Polls show that most Americans care about animal welfare. But they trust this country's laws to minimize cruelty to animals. Few know that the laws--in particular the Animal Welfare Act of 1970, which provides guidelines for the confinement of animals--explicitly exclude all animals that are being reared for food. All birds, regardless of their presumed edibility, are excluded.

Not only is the practice of starving chickens for up to two weeks legal, so is housing four or five birds in a wire-bottomed cage smaller than the one pictured in The Post. So is debeaking the birds with a hot knife that cuts through an area of sensitive tissue.

The European Union has agreed that the use of battery cages for egg-laying hens--such as the ones depicted in The Post--must be phased out by 2012. I hope Americans, as their eyes are opened to the inhumane conditions on egg-producing farms, will call on our government to follow suit and to end forced molting and all other cruel practices.

KAREN DAWN

Pacific Palisades, Calif.