Free Range Egg vs Cage Egg

This is going to be a non-stop ethical debate that both sides have positive and negative comments. This post is really just what we discussed during the practical - there is no conclusive view that would be expressed here. In a nutshell, this is just sharing of knowledge.


Free Range eggs are now all the rage since consumers are more educated, more well-informed and we would like to know that the animals that produce our food are well taken care of, ethically put down (if that does happen) and have their welfare managed. This is for all animals who produce meat, milk or fibre for us.

I too would like to have chickens like that do back in the day where the chickens roam free and are happy plus they have ample food and space. And we benefit by eating their eggs from the layer eggs and for the broiler chickens, they would be make into chicken meat.

What was interesting that I learnt in this prac is that
1) chickens are pretty scared of everything - you, me, larger animals, planes that fly by
2) Chickens can get quite vicious
3) in this day and age of biosecurity, sometimes that free running  life-loving, egg-laying chicken is a thing of the past.

The school had an experiment with free range eggs where the chickens had a little door to run out to a small yard.

What was counter-intuitive was that the chickens rarely went out to the yard (since the food was inside). Them chickens all prefer to laze around near the food.
furthermore, the yards should only have short grass since the chickens eat anything and everything and their systems cannot digest the grass (so you get a dead chicken).

The one thing that bothered me the most is that in the free range system the chickens have a larger area to roam so you have more chickens but there will also be canabalism in the coop. To be honest, the quote - survival of the fittest really applies here. If the chicken is seen as weak and is pecked at, blood will drip (duh. from the wound). The bright red blood seems to ignite something in the other chickens and within the day, the weak chicken will be pecked to death.

Gruesome but true.

In egg laying systems where the chickens are well taken care of (although in cages) but have suffient space to move around and a perch - the chickens' condition and feed is more controlled hence it  is possible that the cage eggs could actually be 'healthier'.

Just food for thought. Pun totally intended.