07/12/2012
Are "Cage Free Eggs" just a cagey marketing term?
If you eat eggs and you’re a conscientious consumer who wants to reduce suffering in the world, then it’s important to know the definition of terms such as “Cage Free” before you spend your money:
Certified Humane: The chickens are uncaged indoors, and allowed to engage in their natural behaviors. Forced starvation for molting isn’t permitted, but beak-cutting is permitted.
Certified Organic: The chickens are uncaged in a warehouse or barn, and have access to the outdoors. The Humane Society says that chickens raised under this term often don’t go outside, and cruel practices such as beak-cutting and forced starvation to get the chicken to molt are often used.
Free Farmed: The American Humane Society created this phrase to signify truly compassionate treatment of chickens.
Pasture-Fed: Chickens who eat outdoors in pastures. This term is usually reserved for small family-run farms.
Free Range or Free Roaming: Chickens have access to the outdoors. However, this term still isn’t regulated and one study found that only 15 percent of free-range chickens actually spent time outdoors. Cruel beak-cutting and forced starvation to molt are allowed.
Cage Free: This is a completely unregulated phrase which MIGHT mean that the chickens have room to spread their wings at some factory-farms, while at other industrial-farms, the chicken cages have a small opening that they can never get through. Most cage-free chickens spend their lives indoors. Beak-cutting and forced starvation for molting is allowed.
Vegetarian Fed: The chicken’s food is more natural, but this term doesn’t signify compassionate farm practices.
Unlabeled Eggs: NEVER ever buy eggs that don’t have at least a Cage-Free status. To do so is to support extremely cruel practices.
None of the above labels are perfect, but of all of them, “Free Farmed” has the best overall conditions for chickens. If you can buy your eggs from a local farmer’s market, where you can verify that the chickens truly have access to the outdoor, then you’re supporting the best possible conditions.
Compassionate eggs may cost a little more than unlabeled eggs, but you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that your family is supporting kindness – and the energy of an egg (or any animal product) that came from kindness is much healthier for everyone who consumes them.
The Humane Society says: Virtually all hens in commercial egg operations—whether cage or cage-free—come from hatcheries that kill all male chicks shortly after hatching. The males are of no use to the egg industry because they don't lay eggs and aren't bred to grow as large or as rapidly as chickens used in the meat industry. Common methods of killing male chicks include suffocation, gassing and grinding. Hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed at hatcheries each year in the United States.
