Behind the “Cage-Free” Label

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: animal welfare, battery hens, Boca, cage free, chickens, eggs, hens

creative commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

AJ H.

4:58AM PDT on Apr 28, 2011

The cruelty practiced in factory farming is ghastly, nauseating, makes me ashamed to be a human being. Most people would find it so. Rather than acknowledge what is being done in their names, they turn away and pretend it doesn't happen.

send a green star

Christine L.

10:52AM PDT on Apr 26, 2011

It's so sad that our world and most of the people in it care only about money. They have no compassion for the animals, they don't care about them, they care only about the money they make from them. Hopefully someday things will change if more people get on board and fight for them. Instead of saying, which I hear all the time when I tell people I am a vegetarian. They say " One person can't make a difference". This is so untrue! Every vegetarian , vegan, every signature on a petition, every dollar added to a animal abuse campaign, makes a huge difference. Thats one more person, one more signature, or one more dollar that was not there before, they all add up to help save one more animal!

Aleksandra W.

6:36AM PDT on Apr 26, 2011

I rarely eat eggs, when I do, I make sure to buy organic ones. But I had no idea what happened to the male chicks and also about the debeaking and forced molting. Looks like the only way to be truly humane is to go vegan

Jovita P.

4:28AM PDT on Apr 26, 2011

This is like the concentration camps of the IID World War. I remember the bright and big places the hens, rabbits and piggeons had when I was a child. They live happily without the stress, fear and horrible situations they ´re living because of the economical interesting of people. They do have right to live freely and if population goes the same way of consumption without making a change to a way of respecting animals and Nature and to decrease the use of dairy and meat industry, there´ll be no enough for everyone but many problems related to health will emerge because of this

Randy G.

2:23AM PDT on Apr 26, 2011

Basically, cage-free means that we just make the container way bigger and force more hens into it. Local farms, aviary and/or free range certified humane is the way to go if you are not vegan.

Kimberly H.

8:13AM PDT on Oct 3, 2009

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.

Alan G.

6:21AM PDT on Oct 3, 2009

I was trying to say at the end of my comment below that "Hawaiian Roosters truly are nuts"!

6:19AM PDT on Oct 3, 2009

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

Dan C.

1:07PM PDT on Apr 10, 2009

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.

Cynthia M.

12:21PM PDT on Apr 10, 2009

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!