9/20/2023 0 Comments Caged chickensMost consumers, though, still buy the cheapest eggs on the shelf, Arrowsmith says, and that will keep keep most chickens in some sort of cage for a long time to come.Ĭal-Maine Foods is hedging its bets, producing eggs that carry a variety of labels, depending on how they are housed and fed: cage-free, omega-3 or vegetarian. On the other hand, egg producers also are responding to consumer demand, and "there is a growing demand for cage-free," says Arrowsmith of Cal-Maine Foods. Cage-free production was expensive in part because the farmer had to pay more for young hens, or pullets, that had been raised in a cage-free environment. Operating costs of the cage-free house were 23 percent higher than for traditional cages, and even more when the capital cost of building the house was included. Chickens in both traditional and enriched cages produced more eggs and produced them more efficiently, compared with cage-free houses. Most died from disease, but some also died because of injury or from being hen-pecked.Īir in the cage-free house was full of dust, but "it didn't seem to have any effect on the hens," says Mench.įrom the perspective of economic efficiency, though, cages were a clear winner. This is one reason more chickens died in the cage-free house - more than 10 percent, compared with about 4 percent in the cages. On the other hand, in part because of that freedom, "there's more potential for injury," Swanson says. Their bones also were stronger, as a result of being able to move about freely. Cage-free houses allow chickens a wider range of natural behavior. Traditional cages still account for 90 percent of the company's production, but when those houses wear out, they will be replaced with either cage-free houses or enriched cages, sometimes called colony cages.Īccording to this experiment, some trade-offs are clear. "Very few conventional cage systems are being installed" on egg farms these days, says Joy Mench, a professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis, the study's other co-director.Ĭal-Maine Foods, for instance, the largest producer of shell eggs in the U.S., is no longer building new chicken houses with traditional cages, says Matt Arrowsmith, the company's vice president for purchasing. The transition away from cages, in fact, is already underway. ![]() "The conventional cage system is not going to be the system of the future," says Janice Swanson, a professor of animal behavior and welfare at Michigan State University and co-director of the chicken housing study. This study is a close look at a couple of those alternatives. The egg industry is meanwhile looking for alternatives that won't be declared illegal. ![]() Other states are considering similar laws. California has banned eggs from chickens that don't have enough space to turn around or flap their wings. ![]() The Salt How California's New Rules Are Scrambling The Egg IndustryĪn industry consortium called the Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply funded this study, mainly because chicken housing is now controversial.
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