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Thursday, 11 February 2010 00:45 |
Des Moines Register
February 7, 2010
Des Moines Register
By Philip Brasher
pbrasher@dmreg.com
February 7, 2010
www.desmoinesregister.com
Manheim, Pa. - The plump, brown chickens in Dave Rosenberry's henhouses live a life that other farmers fear could become a lot more common if animal welfare activists get their way, and eggs likely would cost consumers more.
Rosenberry's 83,000 hens aren't confined to cages. They still spend their lives indoors, but they can roam the floor freely, jump up into the nests when they're ready to lay the morning's eggs and sit on a perch when they like.
If Rosenberry or someone else is carrying on a conversation in the barn, the hens move nearby, sometimes craning their necks as if to listen.
"They have a personality of their own, if you like it," he said.
The vast majority of laying hens in the United States have been kept in cages since the 1960s and 1970s. It's the cheapest, least labor-intensive way of producing eggs. It's still the industry standard nationwide and in Iowa, by far the largest egg-producing state.
But the industry is under pressure on several fronts to change the way hens are kept.
California passed an initiative in 2008 that all livestock must have enough room to stretch their legs and wings and lie down. Hens kept in standard "battery" cages typically have at most 70 square inches of space, less than the size of a sheet of paper.
Michigan is imposing new standards, too. Now, the group behind the California initiative, the Humane Society of the United States, is gathering signatures for a ballot measure similar to California's in Ohio, the No. 2 egg producer behind Iowa.
Meanwhile, several large retailers are shifting more of their egg sales to cage-free. Wal-Mart and Costco, nationwide chains, have made their private-brand eggs cage-free. The Humane Society is pushing another supermarket, Kroger, to join them. Some restaurant chains are starting to use cage-free eggs as well.
Major conventional producers such as Sparboe Farms, which has operations in Colorado, Iowa, and Minnesota, are producing some eggs cage-free.
"We're going to see retailers really taking the lead on this to help move the industry away from battery-cage confinement systems," the Humane Society's Paul Shapiro said.
California law could be industry standard
Cage-free eggs are still a relatively small part of the market. The United Egg Producers, an industry trade group, estimated that 5 percent of production nationwide is cage-free or organic.
Cage-free eggs have a similar share at Hy-Vee stores; sales fluctuate depending on how much more expensive the eggs are than conventional ones, company a spokeswoman said.
Cage-free eggs have been priced at about 50 cents more per dozen. Hy-Vee's suppliers include Sparboe and Kalona Organics.
The egg industry is watching closely to see what kind of housing will be required in California when the new law takes effect in 2015.
Paul Sauder, a major East Coast egg distributor who buys from Rosenberry's farm, said that whatever type of housing is permitted in California will likely wind up as the industry standard, "the way of egg production in the United States," with cost implications for producers and consumers.
A new housing system that some in the industry favor would result in lower production costs than cage-free but higher than the cages used now.
Producers nationwide are delaying renovations of henhouses because they're afraid that measures such as California's could put them out of business, said Gene Gregory, a spokesman for United Egg Producers.
Sparboe is working with other producers to develop a public relations campaign aimed at reassuring consumers "that we not only know how to produce eggs but also care about the chickens producing them," company spokesman Ken Klippen said.
Labor costs higher; other laying drawbacks
It costs about 90 cents a dozen to produce eggs cage-free, compared with 60 cents a dozen for conventional, in part because of the increased labor, Sauder said. Farms also can pack far more eggs in a conventional barn than in a cage-free house.
Rosenberry bought his farm eight years ago, and the barns originally were equipped with cages that housed 130,000 birds. Management was relatively easy, given that the hens are confined and automated equipment provides them with feed and water and takes away the eggs and manure.
Rosenberry took care of the equipment himself, with one employee to pack the eggs for the distributor. But the equipment was aging and needed to be replaced, so Rosenberry decided to go cage-free.
"I felt for where the industry was going, this was a good model," he said.
Some cage-free operations keep the hens on the barn floors, but doing that has its drawbacks, including one that is a major challenge in cage-free systems, according to producers: Eggs are laid on the floor in the manure-laden litter. Such eggs have to be cleaned before they can be sold. They can also break.
Rosenberry installed aviaries instead, long, multi-tiered contraptions that include nests for the hens to lay their eggs and perches for them to sleep on, as well as moving belts to carry away their eggs and manure. At the bottom of the aviary is a platform raised 30 inches from the floor, which allows the birds to walk underneath.
Rosenberry's operation is organic, so the birds are fed pricier feed and are let outdoors occasionally in an enclosed side yard when it's warm enough.
Hens show little fear when properly trained
The key to raising cage-free hens is to give them the right training as pullets, said Denny Williamson of Powls Associates, which contracts with Rosenberry to raise the hens. They have to be taught, for example, to hop up to the platforms.
Even as adults, the birds require more attention than if they were left in cages. Poorly managed birds sometimes attack, even kill, one another, according to specialists.
"Before we managed equipment, now we're managing birds," Rosenberry said.
He must spend more of his time in the houses, he said, and he hires two people to work several hours a day retrieving eggs that hens lay on the barn floors.
His hens show no fear of humans, whereas caged hens can appear skittish. But they do have one behavior that's more than a little odd to the uninitiated: The hens will walk in front of a visitor and squat. They think the person is a rooster ready to mate with them, Williamson said. He gives them a squeeze and they scurry away.
Suzanne Millman, an animal welfare specialist at Iowa State University, said such behavior is a sign that the hens are well-managed - they're used to humans.
She and other industry experts say cage-free operations take more skill and time to manage properly than conventional.
"There are a lot of people that are in the egg business that I wouldn't suggest that they go into cage-free," Williamson said.
Feed costs also are higher - cage-free birds eat more - and that means it takes more corn and soybeans to produce eggs this way.
Iowan argues cost 'doesn't make sense'
Some in the industry, Sauder included, are hoping California will permit farms to install European-style cage systems that have perches and nesting areas included.
The cages are much larger than conventional ones and are known in the industry as "colony" or "enriched" housing. They can be stacked so that barns hold more hens than conventionally equipped house, and production costs would be just 10 cents a dozen higher than in conventional caging, Sauder said.
The Humane Society argued that caged housing can't meet the requirements of the ballot measure.
But producing eggs cage-free doesn't make economic sense, said Kevin Vinchattle, executive director of the Iowa Egg Council.
"The land resources and other kinds of things to go cage-free with everything is just not a reality," he said. "What's the ultimate purpose? Do we want to drive food production offshore?"
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201002070405/BUSINESS01/2070318
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