Running Head: INHUMANE EGG PRODUCTION

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Cage? Inhumane Egg Production Methods

Sydney G Williams

First Colonial High School

Legal Studies Academy

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Abstract

This paper will be covering the overlooked abuse within the egg production industry, specifically

focusing on cage-free production cruelty in comparisons with other production methods. The

author will be discussing within this paper how the consumer is mislead with lack of regulations

within egg production industries and false advertising in relativity to the abuse occurring in large

scale production farms. The author will also be discussing cost comparisons in this industry,

different health issues arising from different production methods, and possible solutions and

steps which can be taken to prevent abuse.

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Which Came First, the Chicken, or the Cage? : Inhumane Egg Production Methods

On average, around 300 million hens are used for egg production ​("The Egg Industry,"

n.d.). ​Whether produced more “humanely” cage-free, or with battery cages, both types of

production facilities go through a mutilation of burning their beaks partially off and sometimes

using starvation as a method to force molt, which is the shedding of feathers. These similar hen

farms also send all female chickens to slaughterhouses after their body can no longer keep up

with the businesses’ fast rate need for eggs, which usually is no more than two years, or less than

half of chicken’s normal life span. Male chickens, however, are not that lucky; more than 200

million male chicks in the U.S. alone are slaughtered immediately because they do not serve a

need to egg production facilities ​("Cage-Free vs. Battery-Cage Eggs," n.d.).

Differences Between Production Methods

Battery cages are cages in which hens are granted 67 square inches, or less than a single

sheet of lined paper. The United Egg Producers require at least 8 inches by 8 inches with 6 birds

per cage; however, they also estimate that around 15% of egg facilities are not up to those

standards ​("Cage-Free vs. Battery-Cage Eggs," n.d.). ​Free-range production is where hens are not

exposed to artificial light, do not have their beaks trimmed, and have access to green feed and

open spaces ​(Parker & De Costa, 2016). However, activists in this field of work call it “phantom

access” where doors are too small, limited, and not always open. Cage- free hens are to have

enough room to walk, spread their wings, and lay in nests. This production style puts the hens

together in a flock of usually thousands in one area. 97% of all eggs produced are from battery

cage farms, 2% are from cage-free farms, and 1% are free-range ("Cage-Free vs. Battery-Cage
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Eggs," n.d.; "How Hens Are Confined," 2010). There are also “enriched” or “colony” cages

which are cages with flaps for nesting boxes, perches, and scratch pads for natural behaviors.

The European Union, New Zealand, California, and Michigan by law are restricted to the use of

these cages for egg production (Parker & De Costa, 2016). ​Egg laying hens who are raised in

cage-free egg production facilities suffer constant abuse from wide scale production methods in

factory farms.

Social

Misleading the Consumer

Animal cruelty is an up and coming issue that our generation is just beginning to become

aware of. Often consumers want to take a step in the right direction for animals, but do not want

to commit fully to a plant based lifestyle without eggs or fur or meat in their lives. Because of

this, people have been choosing the lesser of the two when it comes to animal products such as

going with products labeled as cage-free or free-range. However, what consumers are not aware

of, is that these labels are often just a marketing scam that big production factory farms are doing

in order to increase sales without changing much in their factories. Factory farms often find a

loophole in the definition of cage-free in order to consider their products cage-free without any

type of cruelty decrease. Unfortunately, this process is much easier than one would believe and

almost every large scale factory farm on the grocery store shelves labeling their eggs as

“cage-free” are far more abusive than consumers assume.

Regulation in Farms

As previously stated, factory farms are often finding loopholes in regulations to qualify

eggs as cage-free during the advertising process. By law, cage-free eggs must apply to hens that
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have a minimum of 11 by 11 square inches per bird. However, as broad as this definition is on

its own, governments have also been reducing the amount of enforcement in this industry. In

Australia alone, the scope on egg production industry has minimized significantly just in the past

20 years (​Parker & De Costa, 2016​). The egg production industry inspections are often planned

with the factory owner as they have a set date and time. Along with allowing the factories to

prepare ahead of time for inspections, the regulations are often not searched thoroughly, and

inspectors often miss large problems. For example, videos have surfaced that show levels of

abuse that could not be cleaned up enough to fully pass inspection no matter how much time they

had. Direct Action Everywhere is an all-volunteer animal advocacy group who stealthily visited

a “cage-free” barn in California, also known as Kirkland. They documented their experience by

film and the results were shocking. The video shows dead birds on the floor, injured hens

pecking at other hens, flesh hanging off many chickens beaks, hens that couldn’t stand, missing

feathers on many of the birds, and feces covering not only the floor, but most of the chickens

backs’ as well. As if this were not enough, Wayne Hsiving, co creator of the video, stated “There

were birds rotting on the floor, and there was on dead bird that seemed to have lost her head.”

(​Storm, 2016)

Economic

Cost Comparisons Between Small and Large Scale Farms

Most successful farms in the United States are family owned which means that the

principal owners and their relatives by either blood or marriage own over 50% of all the

business’s assets. Studies show that in 2015, while around 90% of U.S. farms were small family

operated, their gross cash farm income was less than $350,000; however, large family farms
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made over one million in gross cash farm income. (MacDonald & Hoppe, 2016) Along with

ultimately having higher production levels, larger farms are also more efficient making food

from them less expensive. According to ​Tim Griffin, director of the Agriculture, Food and

Environment program at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, “As

the farms get larger, it’s easier to invest in labor-saving machinery, technology and specialized

management, and production cost per unit goes down.”

Cost Comparisons Between Production Styles

Everyday consumers are willing to pay the extra couple dollars when they believe that it

may help lessen animal cruelty or their own health. ​On average, white eggs produced from

battery cages cost $.93, and brown eggs with the same production cost around $.97. Cage-free

eggs cost on average $2.37 for a white carton of eggs and $3.33 for a brown carton. While brown

organic free-range eggs cost on average $3.66 per carton (​"How Hens Are Confined," 2010).

These prices are raised as the price of production increase; however, cage-free and battery cage

egg production costs are unnoticeably close as the differences between minimum allotted spaces

for each bird is only a mere 53 inches ("How Hens Are Confined," 2010).

Health

Cage-Free Health Issues

Animal Welfare researchers argue that large scale cage production may protect hens from

themselves and others in some scenarios. These scenarios include but are not exclusive to:

feather pecking, vent- pecking, and cannibalism ​(Parker & De Costa, 2016). Feather pecking,

also known as injurious pecking, is a term that occurs with egg laying hen flocks which is a

abusive harmful version of the natural habitat chickens have called gentle pecking. This can
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result in balding hens which ultimately require 40% more feed to maintain their body

temperature than a healthy chicken. The stress caused by this pecking can make the hens more

susceptible to diseases and death ("What Is Feather Pecking?," n.d.). Vent-pecking is a more

severe form of injurious pecking where the chicken will not only peck at the feathers and the

skin, but continue to peck to the point of reaching their internal organs and sometimes pull out

the organs and intestines. Cannibalism is often the next tragic step after feather and vent pecking

and is yet another leading cause to hen death within factory farms.

Battery Cage Health Issues

Often egg laying hens who spend their lives in cages face new types of illnesses and

bring the risk of spreading new diseases that hens otherwise would not face. Constantly kept in

cages without exercise and being deprived of calcium and other crucial vitamins and minerals,

hens will develop a very serious condition known as caged layer fatigue. This sickness paralyzes

the birds as they die from thirst and starvations within reach of their food and water. This is an

effect of not only lack of room to move within confinement, but also a genetic manipulation

founded in the 20th century to produce a hen capable of laying an unusual amount of eggs.

During this paralyzing process, pieces of eggs clog the bird’s oviducts, which are tubes in which

an egg passes through an ovary ("Oviduct," n.d.), as eggs are overly large for the bird to lay. In

addition, a new disease has been founded known as the fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome. This is

associated with an abnormally fragile, enlarged liver coated with blood clots (Davis, n.d.). These

types of diseases are not only extremely painful to the birds, but they can be unhealthy for

humans when consumed. Contaminated eggs can be easily seen and prevented however along

with the abuse in the industry, the sicknesses are overlooked for the economic value.
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Free-Range Health Issues

In 1909 production was one quarter of what it is today with starting in 1900 at 76 million

and growing to over 303 million by 2008. At the earlier times, all egg production was free range,

but lots of disadvantages came with that. The hens had no protection from heat, cold, and other

weather circumstances. The hens were kept in dirty conditions with no protection from predators,

disease, and parasites while having a poorly regulated diet. From the years of 1947 to 1951 there

were 395 cases of trichinosis with 57 deaths. However, as regulations became stricter and

medical technologies increased, there were no deaths and only 12 cases of trichinosis from the

years of 1997 to 2001 ​(Miller, 2010).

Pros and Cons

Pros

Although large scale factory farming has many questionable aspects, there are also many

pros to this style of production. Through using vitamins, minerals, and other substances, animals

grow at an unusually rapid rate. Also the processes used are modern and efficient, resulting in

decreasing overhead prices. Both of these contribute to lowering business costs and making food

more accessible to lower income citizens. Along with that, factory farms may improve local and

national governments. This is because while not only creating jobs and generating revenue, they

are also attracting workers from nearby towns and cities therefore increasing the need for the

development of community projects such as roads and housing.

Cons

Along with pros in this industry, there are also many cons. The population of farm

animals have increased by 23% from 1980 until 2010 and according to Worldwatch Institute, has
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increased to 4.3 billion. However, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

estimates that around 80% of this growth is from strictly large scale factory farming animals This

level of increase has many cons as the rate of production has never been this rapid. CAFOs, or

concentrated animal feeding organizations, account for vast amounts of waste, water, and land.

Along with these factors, they also contribute to biodiversity loss and pose as a serious threat to

human and animal diseases. Biodiversity is the variety of life within an environment and as

farms expand and take land to breed more farm animals, they are taking away land and

ultimately killing off the natural animals who resided on the land before (K. Wyckoff, Personal

communication, December 18, 2017). Diets with high levels of meat and animal fat

consumption, particularly red or processed meat, can be linked to obesity, diabetes,

cardiovascular diseases, and certain types of cancer. The high levels of waste and gases given off

from production methods also drastically contributes to climate change. Around 18% of all

greenhouse gases originate from factory farms, to be more exact, around 9% of all carbon

dioxide, 40% of all methane (which is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide), and 65% of nitrous

oxide (which is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide).While the greenhouse effect requires

a healthy amount of these gases to keep the atmosphere warm enough for substantial life, too

much of these gases, which is what we are experiencing now on Earth, can let too much heat into

the atmosphere resulting in global warming.

Small Farmer’s Perspective

An interview was conducted with ​Bill and Amy Prince, owners of the Leaping Lizard, a

restaurant in Virginia Beach. This interview occurred because along with owning the restaurant,

they also created the idea to farm their own produce for the restaurant.​ After speaking with Mr.
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and Mrs. Prince, a lot of light was shed on the business perspective within this industry. Their

moving impetus to begin raising their own poultry was that they wanted fresh eggs for personal

use, as well as to supplement when needed in their restaurant. They added that it makes for a

good source of entertainment and fun at the Leaping Lizard. Unfortunately, however, as with

most cage free small farms, they have lost eight chickens to foxes in the past two years. This is a

commonly seen problem for farmers such as Mr. Bill Prince, who takes care of the chickens

mostly on his own, as they are focused more on the happiness and freedom for the birds that in

some cases will be taken advantage of by predators. Although stating that raising his own hens is

a great source of entertainment and that every last dollar helps when owning a restaurant, Mr.

Prince states that the eggs laid in their own farm could not possibly cover the obscene amount of

eggs needed in a fully functioning kitchen and is simply used in specialty dishes as an added

attraction (B. Prince & A. Prince, Personal communication, October 25, 2017).

Case Law

National

As of July 2010, the FDA began requiring egg factory farms producing 50,000 or more

eggs to be subject to the Egg Safety Rule. This rule states that the factory owners and producers

must take all possible steps to prevent possible salmonella spreading with the hens and with

transportation and consumption. The Egg Safety Rule also requires records and documents on

the producer’s submission with the FDA (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2012).

Along with the previous rule, Congress decided in 18 U.S.C. §48 for the criminalization of the

“commercial creation, sale, or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty” (United States

v. Robert J. Stevens). The statute states that if animal abuse occurs knowingly for commercial
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gain, one may face up to five years in prison. In ​United States v. Robert J. Stevens​, Mr. Stevens

brings the question to the court if the prohibition in the statute is consistent with the First

Amendment’s freedom of speech. The court responds with the creation of the legal definition of

animal cruelty: “ in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded,

or killed” however exempts any actions with serious religious, political, scientific, educational,

journalistic, historical, or artistic value. The court ruled against Stevens stating that although the

First Amendment does protect your freedom of speech, it does in no way protect any violence or

criminal conduct. Also, under no circumstances may the First Amendment grant permission to

Congress to step outside and to assume any underlying meaning of the amendment to allow

relating crimes to continue.

International

One of Brazil’s main economic sources is eggs, producing around 697 million eggs

annually around the country. Although their production numbers are so high, they still have yet

to create any legislation strictly for egg production methods nationwide, with their closest

relating legislation being Federal Act n. 9.605/98. This act states that criminal charges and

punishments will be put in place with any type of harm to the environment. Because this act does

not specifically address any livestock abuse or regulations, a Federal Animal Welfare Code has

been proposed. This bill is meant to explicitly protect pets and livestock as Brazil has no other

legislation similar to that. This bill, however, is under consideration by the government and has

been since 2012 (Sousa, Pereira, Watanabe, & Cataneo, n.d.). However, the Brazilian

Agricultural Research Agency of Embrapa located in the state of Santa Catarina has a set of

animal welfare guidelines relating to the commercial egg production methods known as
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Technical Guidelines 49/2006. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that, because eggs are

so widely popular, no nutritional values can decrease or pose as a risk to consumers’ health due

to improper production methods. Nonetheless, this is strictly a set of guidelines and is not

mandatory in any way for egg producers nor does it cover anything specific to animal welfare.

Possible Solutions

There are many possible solutions in relation to cage-free egg production cruelty within

the industry. Many suggest to cut eggs completely out of one’s diet and make an independent

effort to reduce the amount of egg production person by person. However, it is argued that this is

not possible for all as the most realistic egg substitutes are relatively more expensive than eggs

themselves. These prices could be significantly reduced with increasing awareness and demand

for a less cruel answer to still enjoy your favorite meals. This brings the next solution into

conversation with spreading more awareness with the younger generations. The egg industry is a

very vague subject which is very unknown to the public; however, many specialists suggest that

raising younger generations from the start with the knowledge of what occurs in large scale

production farms can also be a solution to this abuse. This is because it may force producers to

create a more humane environment for the animals in order to stay in business if interest were to

drop as awareness rises. Children in the U.S. are taught that the food pyramid should contain 2-3

servings of meat and dairy per day which is scientifically proven to not be necessary. In fact,

most educational food nutritional sources suggest all plant based calcium and protein to be

strictly “allergenic alternatives” ("Dairy Group Food Gallery," 2017). Raising children to know

that there are not only tasty alternatives, but healthier, cruelty free alternatives to all animal

products can heavily decrease the amount harm occurring in egg production factory farms.
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Conclusion

Summary

The egg production industry is an extremely abusive field in relation to lack of

government regulations and awareness within the public. The three types of egg production

methods are battery caged, cage-free, and free-range with cage-free and free-range being the two

most cruelty free methods believed by the general population. However, cage-free hens, contrary

to popular belief, face constant abuse and overcrowding of farms. Everyday consumers believe

that by buying cage-free, it automatically means the hens are raised less harmfully, and

unfortunately that is not the case. Factory farms often find loopholes in the regulations to label

eggs as cage-free without changing much from their battery cage production methods. Cage-free

egg regulations by law states that hens must have 11 by 11 square inches per bird and typically

inspectors will let the factory owners know ahead of time when inspections will take place

without any real threat of criminal penalties for breaking regulations. The cage-free production

style, however, is not the only overlooked production style, especially when speaking on health

issues. All production methods have a risk of types of liver and cannibalistic diseases with the

hens which can be linked to paralyzing symptoms and often death. Despite past stated

information, factory farms are an extremely efficient method of production and often allow

consuming prices to decrease. Although prices may decrease, many experts argue that the

contributions to climate change factory farms have are not worth it long term. Despite the fact

that so much abuse is occuring and it is risking the health of others as well, there still yet to be

any approved legislation nationally or internationally covering strictly animal welfare within

factory farms. There are many simple solutions to this issue such as raising awareness with the
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public and younger generations of the abuse occurring in large scale production facilities and the

types of alternatives available. Egg laying hens who are raised in cage-free egg production

facilities suffer constant abuse from wide scale production methods in factory farms.

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