I think that the article covering the cage-free egg campaign on campus completely misses the whole point (“Cage-free eggs don’t go over easy with students,” ODE Mar. 6, 2007). The effort to get cage-free eggs on campus is not strictly an environmental or health concern, although these are valid reasons for making the switch. More than 100 other universities have made the responsible change to cage-free eggs. This is largely due to the fact that students, once they are made aware of it, abhor the treatment of battery-caged hens. Arguably they are the most abused animal in all of agribusiness. There are almost 300 million hens who are crammed their entire lives into wire “battery cages.” They are usually kept indoors, in the dark, living in their own waste. They cannot spread their wings or engage in any of their natural behaviors or social needs. Their beaks are painfully cut off when they are chicks to prevent them from pecking each other to death, because they become so distressed and neurotic under these conditions. These birds are usually riddled with health problems. They suffer everything from burns on their skin from living in their own excrement, feather loss, bruises, and abrasions from the confines of the wire cages, calcium deficiencies and broken bones, and bacterial infections and diseases are widespread. Another common practice in the egg industry is forced molting, where the hens are starved for up to 18 days, kept in the dark, with no water in order to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle. Also, for every egg-laying hen, there is a male chick who was killed at the hatchery. Since they are of no value to the egg industry, they are usually thrown away by the thousands, where they suffocate or are crushed under the weight. Another common method to “dispose” of them is to grind them up alive before going to the trash bins or compost pile. Clearly the difference between battery cage eggs and cage-free eggs is not simply that “they come from happier chickens,” as one foodservice worker told a student.
I would hope that anybody who lives in the dorms, whether you are a vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, omnivore, or carnivore, will take a stand against battery caged egg farming by not supporting this industry. This is not an issue about an extra point or a few more cents added onto your dining expenses, as the food service’s director would like to turn it into. Please take a stand against this cruelty and ask for the cage-free option the next time you order.
Christina Sasser is a University student