For nearly a century, hens in factory farms across the world have been abused and locked in dungeon-like cages. Earlier this year, California tried to do something about it.
In January, the state mandated that egg-laying hens have enough room to lie down, stand up, turn around, and extend their legs and wings.
It sounds like an improvement, but in reality the law doesn't mean the chickens are "cage-free" or "free-range."
Even if it did, those terms don't mean much in practice. While you may think that free-range or cage-free eggs translates into chickens frolicking in sunny meadows, that's not always the reality.
According to the Humane Society, cage-free chickens can freely roam inside their barns, but often never see daylight. Free-range chickens have outdoor access, but are often confined to smaller screened porches with their flock.
California's law hopes to give hens more wiggle room, but it doesn't force farmers to eliminate cages or even give their flocks any kind of outdoor access.
"Cage-free and free-range are simply marketing terms," Betsy Babcock, founder of Handsome Brook Farm, tells Tech Insider. These hens "spend their lives in cramped, darkened, warehouse-style barns, stressed wing-to-wing."
When an egg label says "free-range" or "cage-free," that just means the chickens aren't confined to cages — not that they magically have more room. As The Guardian's Amy Westervelt notes, manure can also stay in the hens' barns and build up over time, causing air pollution and bacteria like salmonella to grow in the eggs.
Pasture-raised eggs are better for chickens, because they allows the animals to roam freely and live as hens naturally do. Chickens on these kinds of farms are also usually fed a GMO-free diet of corn, wheat, and soy.
Based in Franklin, New York, Handsome Brook specializes in pasture-raised eggs, and each chicken has about 108 square feet to graze and forage, she says. The company works with about 50 farms in 41 states that have over 250,000 hens. In 2015, it produced 82 million eggs and plans to grow to 120 farms this year.
Both farmers and animal rights activists oppose the California law, but for different reasons.
The required space allocation to comply with the new law costs farmers upwards up $40 a chicken, making it more expensive than caged raising. Some farmers are just ordering larger cages or killing half their flocks.
And many animal rights activists think the law doesn't go far enough.
Pasture-raised eggs have twice as much vitamin E and omega-3 acids as eggs from caged chickens, according to a 2010 study by Pennsylvania State University. But there are also drawbacks to pastures: coyotes and hawks can prey on the chickens, and it's still difficult to control manure because the hens roam freely.
For a long time, pasture-raised eggs were a luxury good, costing shoppers about $11 a dozen on average, or about three times as much as traditional eggs. That price has slowly declined, due to increasing consumer demand for and awareness about humane farm conditions.
Handsome Brook's eggs sell at hundreds of independent markets and major US grocers, including Publix, Wegmans, and Harris Teeter. A carton of the company's eggs costs $5.50, still almost twice the price compared to standard eggs. But you're paying for those non-industrial farm conditions, which usually aren't the most economical option for farmers.
Both buyers for grocery stores and shoppers are often unfamiliar with the differences between the three egg distinctions, Babcock says.
As with grass-fed beef, there's not much strict packaging regulation for cage-free, free-range, and pasture-free eggs. This means that farms that hold their chickens in inhumane spaces can still jack up the prices on their eggs. And many shoppers don't realize the difference, Babcock says.
If you want to make a more human purchasing decision, it's best to look for the "American Humane" label on egg cartons, Babcock says. You can also look to the American Pastured Poultry Producers' site to find a local farm you can trust.
