linkpost: PETA White Paper on Cage Free Eggs

via Claude:

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Here's a summary of the PETA white paper:

Title: The Failure of Cage-Free Housing Systems to Reduce Overall Hen Suffering (January 2026)

Core Argument

PETA argues that the shift from battery cages to cage-free egg production has largely failed as an animal welfare reform. Rather than eliminating suffering, cage-free systems shift rather than eliminate welfare burdens — improving some outcomes while worsening others.

Key Problems Identified

Health & Environment: Cage-free hens are more immunocompromised because they breathe high levels of pathogenic dust, ammonia, and particulate matter. Wet litter causes footpad disease, and the dust buildup in electrical systems is cited as the leading cause of barn fires.

Overcrowding & Behavior: In flocks numbering in the tens of thousands, each hen is provided with only between 1 and 1.5 square feet of floor space — so little that a hen cannot even turn around freely. This triggers aggression, feather-pecking, and cannibalism, which the paper says affects 80–94% of cage-free flocks in the U.S.

Injuries: Keel bone fractures and breaks often occur when hens fall or are pushed from perches and nest boxes, with fracture rates between 85–97% in cage-free systems.

Disease & Mass Killing: The ongoing HPAI (bird flu) outbreak — described as the largest animal health crisis in U.S. history — has disproportionately hit egg flocks, leading to mass killing via ventilation shutdown, a process where barns are sealed and temperatures raised until animals die from heatstroke and suffocation.

Hatchery Practices Unchanged: Beak trimming, male chick killing, forced molting, and the separation of chicks from their mothers all continue regardless of whether hens are caged or cage-free.

Critique of "Cage-Free" Marketing

Cage-free certifications and labels mislead consumers into believing that cage-free hens behave like hens in their natural environments. The paper argues that "cage-free" functions primarily as a marketing tool to stabilize the industry and charge premium prices, rather than a genuine welfare improvement.

Recommendations

PETA calls for abandoning the cage-free campaign framework entirely. Instead of reforming conditions within factory farms, the paper urges a focus on eliminating egg consumption altogether — through investment in plant-based food technology, consumer education, and shifting food culture away from animal products.

In short, the paper's position is that both battery cages and cage-free systems are ethically unacceptable, and that the only meaningful solution is to stop exploiting hens for eggs in the first place.

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