California Proposition 2 (2008) - Animal Welfare

Animal Welfare

Opponents of Proposition 2 claim that California's current regulations ensure sanitary and healthy conditions for egg-laying hens in the care of law-abiding organizations. Proponents of Prop 2 say the best housing environments for farm animals must take into consideration freedom of movement and expression of normal behaviors. The American Veterinary Medical Association supports greater attention to the behavioral needs of farm animals, but has expressed concern that Proposition 2 is not sufficiently comprehensive to ensure that increases in behavioral freedom don't translate into increased risks of injury and disease (i.e., a typical welfare tradeoff). Furthermore, although Proposition 2 offers hens additional space, it doesn't address other behavioral needs such as nesting, foraging, and dust bathing.

A Canadian study completed in 2008 concluded that conventional battery cages could easily be converted into furnished colony cage systems, and asserted that perches increased hen welfare. It went on to say that hens in battery cages did not have significantly higher levels of stress measured by the hormones in blood and fecal matter. The study qualified that finding by stating: "It is possible, however, that these measures may not be sensitive enough to detect the differences in housing conditions. It is also possible that the space allocated to each bird in the conventional cages in this study may have affected the results as birds received nearly double the floor space of a commercial bird." The study also concluded that hens in the enriched cages lost feathers because of "wear on furnishings rather than feather pecking."

Egg farmers assert that the egg production methods that the industry has developed are meant to ensure that fundamental components of sound animal care are provided to egg-laying hens: optimal feed, light, air, water, space and sanitation for egg-laying hens. Animal welfare advocates assert that, in order to maximize profits, hens in factory farms are treated like units of production rather than as living beings. The instinctual needs of each hen are denied, and most spend their entire lives indoors in filthy, cramped conditions in immense dark warehouses. Most hens never feel the sun, never walk on grass, and many are never able to turn around without hitting cage bars or another hen.

Approximately 95% of California's egg farmers are part of the UEP certification program, in which, farmers assert, they must place top priority on health, safety, and comfort of their hens and submit to independent United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) audits. Animal welfare advocates, however, assert that UEP certification deceives shoppers by conveying a false message of humane animal care. They say that UEP certification permits routine cruel and inhumane factory farm practices such as intensive confinement in restrictive, barren cages such that the hens cannot perform many of their natural behaviors such as perching, nesting, foraging or even fully stretching their wings.