Animal cruelty sadly still exists and we can all make a difference in the suffering of domesticated animals by changing our shopping habits. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has launched an education campaign to get people aware of the dangers of factory-farming hens while celebrating the benefits of letting the animals roam free.
Cage-free is healthier for the chickens:
There is overwhelming scientific evidence to demonstrate that caged hens have a greater chance of being infected by Salmonella; which is among the most common causes of food-related hospitalization and deaths in the US and Canada.ii,iii,iv
- A study by the European Food Safety Authority, which analyzed data from 5,000 egg farms in more than 20 countries, found up to 25-times greater odds of Salmonella infection in farms where hens were kept in battery cages than in farms using any non-cage system. i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi
- Keeping hens in small, barren, crowded cages causes them considerable stress, which can make the hens more susceptible to diseases and more infectious.
- Diseases can spread more rapidly in larger, denser flocks. The average size of a caged flock in the U.S. is 75,000 to 100,000 hens while the average size of a cage-free flock is 25,000 hens. A USDA study found that farms with more than 100,000 birds were four times more likely to have birds test positive for Salmonella than those with fewer than 100,000 birds.
Take the pledge to buy cage-free here.
Read more about why cage-free matters.