Egg-laying hens are better off inside cages, comfortable barns

Having been raised on an egg-producing ranch, I feel the need to address the issues brought forth by the supporters of Proposition 2, which is on the Nov. 4 ballot.

In my experience, laying hens in the caged environment were oblivious to the fact that they did not have room to expand their wings or dig in the dirt. They were content to have all their requirements -- food, water, light and temperature -- met. They would happily produce eggs that rolled away from them onto conveyer belts.

Most breeds of the laying hens are not "sitting" chickens, since they do not have the desire to sit on a nest to incubate their eggs. Eggs left in contact with their "parent," are considered food and therefore are often broken and eaten by the chickens. Chickens, by nature, are actually carnivorous -- meaning that they will attack and eat a sick or weak member of the flock. They are also by nature scroungers, meaning they will eat everything and anything they find. Chickens love grubs, slugs and snails. Free-ranging chickens will eat their own manure and also love to peck and scratch through any other excrement that they run across.

In our operation, the hens had their beaks trimmed to prevent them from pecking each other. If a hen is pecked and gets bloody, she is considered weak and will be attacked by the others. This happens in any environment, whether in a cage or not.

Hens do not require roosters to produce eggs. An egg takes approximately 25 hours to form, from start to laying. Our chicken houses had about a 75 percent to 80 percent egg-laying rate, so the hens must have been happy to produce.

In the caged environment, eggs are not exposed to manure, which is an inevitable byproduct of any animal farming operation. The manure presents the greatest risk of salmonella contamination to eggs. Eggs are washed during processing, but the less exposure to manure, the safer the end product. Chickens are also safer in the cage-house environment because they are not exposed to wild birds, decreasing the risk of contracting avian influenza.

The increased costs associated with the extra space required to house the hens would be ultimately passed on to consumers. Most farms are already limited in how much space is available to produce a product, and a decrease in the number of producing animals could be enough to force some farmers to retire or sell their operations.

With one of the supposed benefits of this proposition to support smaller, family farms, it would be counterproductive to force smaller operations out of business.

Boer is involved in a family farm in Modesto. E-mail her at columns@modbee.com.

This story was originally published August 5, 2008 at 1:14 AM with the headline "Egg-laying hens are better off inside cages, comfortable barns."