What does it mean if eggs are labelled cage free?

Battery cages represent some of the most intense forms of confinement any animal endures on factory farms. These small, wire cages can house four to ten hens each and are only about 15 inches in height. They get their name because they can be stacked on top of each other, forming columns that can be upwards of eight cages high, resembling a battery.
Most notably, battery cages are small. The United Egg Producers standards require each bird to be given a minimum of just 67 square inches of space, which amounts to about the same area as a piece of lined paper. Birds can't freely run, jump, or even fully stretch their wings without hitting the sides of the cage or another bird. A study from The Humane Society of The United States confirmed that the stress of cage confinement leads to serious physical and psychological risks for chickens, including severe osteoporosis from not being able to exercise properly, and abnormal behaviours such as feather pecking.
The evidence is clear: cage confinement is animal cruelty. But it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, as more consumers become aware of the cruelty of intensive confinement, they're demanding cage-free eggs—eggs that come from chickens in alternative housing systems that don't make use of battery cages and, instead, allow chickens to move more freely in an open barn environment.

How are cage free eggs produced?

Cage-free egg production, and most egg production, begins in hatcheries, where thousands of chicks are hatched at the same time.
At only a few hours old, chicks are "sexed," which means they're sorted into males and females—with drastically different fates. Deemed unnecessary by the egg industry, because they can't lay eggs themselves, male chicks are often killed as waste products, either by gassing or maceration—a process where chicks are crushed or shredded to death instantly while still conscious.
Female chicks, by contrast, go on to be raised for a lifetime of laying eggs. Because the stressful conditions they'll endure as egg-laying hens often leads to abnormal pecking behaviors, female chicks usually endure a procedure that removes a portion of their beak. This process is known as "beak trimming" and sometimes "debeaking." Notably, some production systems and animal welfare certification schemes prevent beak trimming. The female chicks then travel to grow-out barns for a few weeks—usually about 16—until they mature, at which point the young birds (known within the industry as “pullets”) are sent to the production system (whether caged, cage-free, free-range, or pasture), where they'll spend the remainder of their shortened lives.
The egg industry has selectively bred commercial laying hens to produce high volumes of eggs, often to the tune of 300 eggs per year. This is an enormous amount when compared with the number of eggs an ancestral hen in the wild would lay each year: around a dozen. Industrial farming pushes hens' bodies beyond the limit of what's natural. On some farms, the laying hens may be starved for a period of time to enforce molting—this extends the egg-laying cycle, so the hens continue to produce a high number of eggs. When egg production begins to decline, laying hens are removed from the system and sent to slaughter, usually when they're 75 to 110 weeks old. The exact age of slaughter depends on whether or not the flock has endured forced molting.

What is the difference between cage-free and free-range eggs?

Free-range eggs are a further improvement from cage-free eggs in terms of welfare potential. Free-range systems protect hens from confinement in a cage, but what free-range looks like can vary.

What are pasture-raised eggs?

Many pasture-raised certifications require farms to cover fields with vegetation, keep hens at low stocking densities, and provide hens with features like nest boxes and perches. Pasture-raised often means no beak trimming or forced molting is permitted.

What are organic eggs?

Organic labels overlap with labels that indicate the type of housing a chicken lived in. Whether or not certain eggs are “organic” is specifically governed by the USDA's National Organic Program.

Are there egg-labeling requirements?

The USDA has seven basic requirements for labeling egg products. However, these requirements exist to provide basic information on the manufacturer, nutrition facts, weight, and ingredients

What do animal welfare certifications on egg cartons mean?

All animal welfare certification programs are not created equal. Each label has different criteria. For a deeper dive on major labels, an organization called FoodPrint has created a handy tool to help navigate all the nuances of these labels, ranging from habitat conservation to animal welfare to worker safety.

Animal Welfare Approved

Animal Welfare Approved is a label run by A Greener World: an independent, non-profit farm certification program that maintains a portfolio of farm certifications including Certified Grassfed, Certified Non-GMO, and Salmon Welfare certifications.

Certified Humane

Run by Humane Farm Animal Care, a non-profit certification organization, the Certified Humane label ensures that animals are not kept in cages, crates, or other highly confined spaces. The label also ensures that animals are never fed antibiotics, growth hormones, or feed that contains animal by-products.

American Humane Approved

American Humane Certified standards are much closer to industrial practices than the standards of other humane certifications. The label certifies egg production facilities that are cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised.

Food Alliance Certified

Food Alliance is a non-profit organization that runs a voluntary certification program for producers and companies keen on embracing transparency, traceability, and environmental and social responsibility.

United Egg Producers Certified

Sometimes last is, in fact, least. The United Egg Producers certification allows for caged housing—along with beak trimming, forced molting, zero access to outdoors, and lack of natural light requirements that accompany life in cages for layer hens.

How are egg-laying hens treated?

Different facilities have varying standards for how they treat egg-laying hens. However, a vast majority of the US egg supply comes from hens in factory farms, and a majority of these factory farms still force hens to endure life in a battery cage.

How can I help?

Chickens deserve better than life in a cage. Although cage-free systems still have drawbacks, eliminating cages spares egg-laying hens from the worst forms of physical and psychological harm that they experience in intensive confinement.

Cage free system