Behind the "Cage-Free" Label
posted by: alicia graef 309 days ago
It’s no secret that the lives of battery hens are nothing short of miserable. Multiple hens are forced to live in cramped wire cages together, like the one in the photo, with no room to move or stretch for a year or two, or until their egg laying productivity declines, at which point they’re discarded as “spent” hens.
Now, so called “Cage-Free” labels for eggs are fairly common in most grocery stores, but what does that really even mean?
It’s certainly nice to be provided with the alternative visual of happy hens being allowed to roam free in the sun, building nests and taking dust baths, but the truth about cage-free can make that vision seem hopelessly optimistic, if not downright delusional.
Organizations like Humane Myth and the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, want consumers to know that the lives of many cage-free hens are not really any better than those of battery hens.
Both battery and free-range hens come from hatcheries, where after chicks are sexed in both industries all the males are destroyed. Additionally they all undergo debeaking and force molting, where they’re starved for about two weeks to trick their bodies into starting another egg laying cycle.
One investigation by Jewel Johnson of a cage-free farm resulted in her discovery of what the lives of 10,000 cage free hens were really like.
“The floor under my feet was cement, and the building was freezing cold with no heat in early April. I couldn’t see much for hens at all down the shed…it was just too dark. All I could see was black, all I could hear was crying of hens, all I could smell was ammonia – it was a cold, black cement hell,” she said.
No. The cold, black cement hell description definitely doesn’t equate to the vision of happy hens in the sun. A second investigation of a Free Range Organic Egg farm wasn’t any better.
You can also check out “The Faces of Free-Range Farming” video from the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary.
Of course, the ultimate solution would be for consumers to give up eggs completely, which is why it’s especially great to see companies like Boca go egg-free, instead of cage-free, but will it ever work?
Or will the cage-free industry continue to profit from people who think they’re making a compassionate choice?
Read more: eggs, chickens, hens, animal welfare, Boca, battery hens, cage free
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If possible supporting your local farmers is another option. Their hens are free range and happy. I am fortunate to live In MA in a city were there are farms within an hours drive. It is well worth it for me to go once a week and buy raw milk and fresh eggs. Many farms also offer fresh produce and meat from their own farm. This way their are no hormonesor antibiotics and all the animals are happy! You are also helping the comminities this way by keeping local farm in business and not big factory farms.
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I was trying to say at the end of my comment below that "Hawaiian Roosters truly are nuts"!
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I live in Hawai'i where due to the assistance of Nature, via a few hurricanes breaking open a lot of pens, we now have a huge population of truly free-range chickens. Most people view them as pests and noisy, etc.
I decided to befriend some of them to see what would happen.
All I did was feed them outside my house 1x a day. I must admit I did at times toss a few small rocks when they either got too noisy too early in the morning outside my bedroom window, or started attacking each other.
Soon I had a rooster who would now stand by and keep watch while the hens would eat before he did. Truly a gentleman.
And soon in the garage (and other nearby places) they were laying eggs. I would mark a few to leave for them (as their main purpose for laying eggs was to have children), and some of us who lived there were now enjoying a lot of the most tasty and truly free range eggs one could imagine.
I needed to do no "destroying" of male chicks, as somehow the local rooster population always seemed to stay at one or two (who I had to feed separately before the second one "disappeared" - chickens can do their own rooster population control with no help from us).
Hawai'i is a place that supposedly only has about two days worth of food if we were cut off from the outside world.
If more would take wild chickens and such "under their wing", we'd have plenty of food.
And yes I did manage to learn to sleep through the rooster's crowing starting at 3:30am (Hawaiian roosters tru
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The “American Humane Certified” seal is a FRAUD, as are all of these phony ‘seals of approval’. There is no such thing as “humane slaughter”.
Slaughtering animals is extreme speciesism. Speciesism is the exact same moral wrong as racism and sexism, only in a different form. It is ignoring morally relevant characteristics like sentience in favor of irrelevant differences like race or species. A sentient nonhuman’s slaughter is just as horrifying to him or her as slaughter would be to us. It is purely irrational prejudice to assume that their death is sufficiently trivial to exploit them for menstrual products or flesh.
I direct all my “meat-eating” friends to go vegan, because there’s no such thing as humane slaughter. I hope that one day all humans will dispel irrational prejudice and bad habits and go vegan.
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Yes, there are truly wonderful farms out there that raise pigs, chickens, cows in a natural setting, with very strict guidelines. You can go on to the website.
It's ...thehumanetouch.org You can find eggs,beef, chicken,pork, and veal. These products have the "AMERICAN HUMANE CERTIFIED" seal on them.I am a vegetarian, but I direct all my "meat-eating" friends to this website. Hope this helps. At least it's a start. I pray that one day all the factory farms and slaughterhouses will have to follow these "humane" guidelines, too!
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I don't eat eggs or chicken..and its like I have said before..seems that animals are simply mistreated for the gain of greedy humans that do not care how the animals are raised as long as they can make a buck!!
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Humane commercial egg production is a MYTH. There is no such thing as “humane commercial egg production” because one cannot make a viable living in egg production without at least slaughtering the chickens after the decline in production (i.e. when they’re young). And in the vast majority of cases, unless the eggs are extremely expensive, crowding, killing males, and forced molting are all very likely performed.
Free range and organic commercial eggs are an atrocity. Learn as much as you can about this from reliable sources. Be extremely skeptical when taking information from those who profit or make their livelihoods by exploiting chickens. Don’t accept assurances without seeing for yourself – and even then, be skeptical about what goes on when you’re not there.
Commercial egg production is extreme speciesism. Speciesism is the exact same moral wrong as racism and sexism, only in a different form. It is ignoring morally relevant characteristics like sentience in favor of irrelevant differences like race or species. A chicken’s torture and slaughter is just as horrifying to her as torture and slaughter would be to us. It is purely irrational prejudice to assume that her pain and death are sufficiently trivial to exploit her for menstrual products or flesh.
Learn about replacements for eggs. There are dozens of excellent vegan food blogs and vegan cookbooks these days. Being vegan is easy. We just need to learn about it
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Kathleen,
The following is an except from my blog entry on free range eggs:
http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-is-wrong-with-vegetarianism.html
"The egg production of hens peaks when the hens are around seven months old and drops significantly at around 15 months old. To get an extra six months of production out of the hens, “free-range” producers will engage in a practiced called “forced molting” to imitate the conditions of the winter-spring transition. In forced molting, the hens are starved for several days up to 14 days and the lighting in the shed is dimmed. Hens can lose up to 30% of their body weight during this starvation process and some of the weaker hens – already malnourished from not being able to consume their own eggs – are killed as a result. Several weeks after the forced molt ends, production is back to normal."
She was probably in there during a forced molting period where "winter" is simulated.
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I find this article rather interesting. Egg laying is a daylight induced response so is it that the individual that went to this particular hatchery was witnessing the dark period? In order to maintain a chicken's productivity, they require a specific quantity of daylight hours and specific temperatures. If either fluctuates too much, their laying slows down or ceases (too hot) and/or they lay pullets (really tiny eggs). Ensuring peak productivity in hens is quite a science and if hens aren't comfortable and if they don't have specific conditions, they simply cannot lay.
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I have read the article referred to about the Free range Organic farm. I do not understand how that farm can call itself organic. To my knowledge, the organic certification requires that the chicken be allowed outside access at least part of the time and I believe there's also a requirement about the type of floor or ground cover they should be provided (litter, straw, etc.). I can understand that "cage free" and "free range" have more restricted meanings, but the organic certification, in my mind, should ensure that animals live a more "normal" life. Is this farm just not regulatory relative to the organic norms? I don't think all organic farms fit that picture, do they?
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