WEBVTT - The Truth Behind Cage-Free and Free-Range 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.160 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:17.360 and there's Chuck and it's just something is going on 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:22.200 with Chuck. I'm okay so far, but Jerry's not here 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.239 because she turned into the Chicken Lady in his in 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.720 treatment for that doing the chicken dance. Do you remember 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.880 the chicken lady from Kids in the Hall? Oh? Sure, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:38.720 I was referencing arrest the development cock Cuck call. Yeah, 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.240 but you're you're taking aback even further to the great 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.960 great kids in the Hall. That's right. I can just 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.519 sit here and quote Kids in the Hall one liners 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.760 all day. I love those guys. So that's not what 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.080 we're here to do, though, Chuck, settle down, settle down. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.360 We're going away from the kids in the Hall. Yes, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.680 and since you mentioned that, Uh, what we're also not 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:06.640 here to do is shame anybody or make anyone feel bad, 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.319 or to tell anyone how to live their life and 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.520 eat their breakfast. But we're here to arm you with 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.039 information on this one about uh. And I'm not surprised 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:18.960 you picked this one, but I just thought, since I 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:26.319 had somewhat scarring experience a commercial chicken farming industry. For 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.520 those of you listening that don't know this, one of 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:33.480 my last real person jobs before this job many years ago, 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.640 as I worked for a software company that designed software 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:43.399 for commercial chicken uh operations to better track how they 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.000 lay eggs and how they gain weight and how you're 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.600 feeding them and kind of everything how they're killed uh. 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.600 And I hated that job. It was sold killing and 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.600 I never understood it. I never invested in it, and 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.520 as far as understanding the software, and I was in 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.240 tech support, and so I was terrible at it. But 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.440 my friends ran the company and eventually they fired me 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.560 because I was so bad at it. And that's the 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.399 best thing that ever happened to me, because that led 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.560 directly to getting this job. It's like Garth Brooks said, 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:19.000 some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. All Right, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.040 you know your prayer to be good at your chicken 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.000 killing software job was unanswered and instead an even better 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.920 prayer that you didn't even know you had was answered. Yeah. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:32.560 I didn't have that prayer. I didn't want to be 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.040 good at that job. But yeah, so this is like 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.640 all this is probably pretty well known to you because 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.960 this this is We've been doing this kind of stuff 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:46.120 to chickens for a good seventy years by now, right, Yeah, 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.200 and you know the you know, we're going to talk 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.320 some about factory farming. Finally. I don't think we've dodged it, 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.680 but people have, you know, long said hey, guys, can 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.160 you get into this? And you know we're not touching 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.840 cattle or swine. We're just starting dipping our toe into 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:08.160 it with poultry, dipping our beaks, dipping our beaks untrimmed beaks. Yeah, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.519 I can peck you till the cows come home, which 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.040 is something that happens on the farm. That's right. So 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:19.320 let's enough dancing around, chuck Um. We're talking about today, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.320 not not necessarily factory farming all the like you said, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.919 we have to talk about We're gonna talk about those 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.040 labels that you see on your eggs or on your chicken, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:33.280 usually cage free or UM free range or something along 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.840 those lines, and whether it means anything. But one of 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:42.280 the great successes of the last probably five six, maybe 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:47.760 even ten years or longer Um came very quietly out 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.000 of the effective altruism community. Chuck Yeah, A group of 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.960 effective altruists said, you know, we're always looking to maximize 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:00.240 our charitable contributions. There's a lot of chickens out there 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.880 that are not being treated very well. Supposedly, there's seven 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:09.400 point six billion egg laying hands alone worldwide at any 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.120 given time, almost eight billion, So if you could improve 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.800 the lives of them even by a little bit, you 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.640 would really be reducing a massive amount of suffering. So 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.600 they got three million dollars together, and like um Laser, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:28.800 focused it on advocacy, lobbying, getting legislation put through, and 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.280 then most of all pressuring really really big companies. They 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:37.120 went after some whales um to to commit to going 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.560 on cage free eggs within a very short period of time, 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:46.320 sometimes four sometimes twenty thirty UM but all of these 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.600 huge companies, everybody from dan Owe to Burger King to 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.640 McDonald's to Whole Foods not surprisingly but also like Dollar General, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.880 all of them have signed a pledge that says, all 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.920 of the eggs that our customers buy, whether it's imprepared 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.920 food or eggs you buy in the store, are going 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.720 to be one cage free eggs within the next few years. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:09.920 And they did it with like three million dollars and 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.920 and a lot of elbow grease. I think all those 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:17.120 companies probably said, alright, alright, if they're cheese, if they're 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.719 cage free, eggs out there, will use them stops. That's 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.919 what the burger king said. Yeah, the guy that he 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.360 said it with his mind, yeah, because his mouth doesn't move. 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:32.440 But it was a big deal. I mean, the fact 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.760 that they got that, that that that's happening. It's a 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.760 big deal. And one it's one of those things where, um, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.400 if you scratch beneath the surface, it's not an intended punt, 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.240 but if you scratch beneath the surface, and a lot 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.720 of these terms and phrases that the U. S d 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.640 A likes to bandy about, things like cage free and 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.080 things like free range and stuff like that, it's often 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.240 really disappointing. But that's one of the things about cage 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.960 free is that it is an actual, substantial will increase 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.880 in the welfare and quality of life for egg laying 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.680 chickens in the in the United States. It's a big, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.680 big deal. And it's not that they're they're they're in 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.920 these amazing conditions all of a sudden with cage free. 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.960 It's that they're in such poor conditions otherwise that this 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.240 is a huge improvement for them. Yeah, and I think 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.119 you know a lot of people agree. Even cage free 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.760 isn't all it's cracked up to be. Um, But there 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.480 a lot of like chicken based idioms that we use. 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:38.039 There's suddenly coming to the Uh. When I worked with 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.480 that company, they made everybody at one point, even if 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.080 you didn't do like project management where you had to 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.120 go to the farms, they made us all go to 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.560 the farms and tech support at one point. And I 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:49.200 know I've told the story before, but it was a 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.839 pretty awful experience. Uh. And it smells really really bad. 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.040 It smells so bad that me and my one friend 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.240 that I worked with, Barry Um, were like, did the 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.120 sort of the silence to the Lamb's trick with dabbing 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:06.960 some uh like menthal on our upper lip under our nostrils, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.880 just so we could walk through these things. Uh. And 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:12.760 you know that I think they thought it would benefit 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:14.560 as just sort of just see boots on the ground. 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.600 What happened. I was like, it's I appreciate the peel trip, 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.640 but it did not benefit me in any way except 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.680 hearing things like oh man, cage or free range just 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.440 means there's a door open, they don't even use it. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:29.200 And I heard this back then. I was like, oh 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.680 my gosh, is that true. And as it turns out, 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.520 as we'll see, if that's kind of true. Yeah, And 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.200 we shouldn't confuse free range with cage free. There are 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.960 two different things. We'll describe them both. But yeah, yeah, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.880 so cage free is a huge improvement. Free range is 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.600 as bad as you'd expect it to be, basic because 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.120 it's coming from the U. S t A. Yeah, So 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.200 I guess let's talk about um let's briefly, and big 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.080 thanks to Dave Ruse for helping us out with this one. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.480 But Dave starts out with a little bit of history, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.760 and I think that's a good place to start because 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:00.480 you don't have to look very far. Are back in 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.880 this country. Uh, it seems like a long time ago, 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.560 but the nineteen forties isn't that long ago in the 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.000 in the lifespan of America. And back then they were 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.240 still like feeding America their eggs or its eggs. I 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:19.760 don't even know what America is um with backyard chickens basically, 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.920 um they were big farms, of course, but they weren't 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.280 like these big, massive battery cages that we see today. 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.880 They were hens living outdoors, generally on farms, laid about 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.520 a hundred eggs a year. Uh. And then after a 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.200 few years when they quit laying eggs, then they would 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.320 be used for meat. They'd turn into Sunday dinner they 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.920 would uh. And these days, starting in like the fifties, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.520 things became a little more industrialized and mechanized, and that's 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.480 when battery cages came into play. Which is the wire 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.040 cage that you might like. If you have friends that 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.240 have backyard chickens, you probably built them a large coupe 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.560 and within that coup some battery ca just but if 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.680 you're a backyard chicken person, you probably have battery cages 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.720 that are very large for two or three for chickens. Yeah, 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.800 these are not the battery cages that they're raised in. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.040 After farming became industrialized in the fifties, like these things 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:18.240 are usually have I've seen anywhere between three and seven 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:23.480 chickens in there, um and usually each one has about 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:28.000 the amount of space about a little lower or a 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.760 little smaller than the size of a standard piece of paper. 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.600 And for the the teenage listeners out there, smaller than 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:39.120 the size about the size of an iPad. Yeah, that's 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.440 a chicken. A chicken. They can't move around, they can't 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:44.640 flap their wings, they can't do a lot of stuff 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.080 that we'll find out is a is a big problem 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.000 in a minute. Um they're meant to be kept basically 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.679 in one place, and because this stuff has all been industrialized, 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.000 their whole job and everything about their life is to 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.040 just sit there and lay egg after or egg after egg. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.520 So they're kept in these battery cages. The battery cages 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.040 are kept off the ground, which is good because it 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.520 means that they're away from parasites and poop borne diseases. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.600 And the eggs are yeah, they when they poop, they 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.000 it falls onto a conveyor belt that carries the poop away, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.520 so it's a little more sanitary. When they lay an egg, 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.880 the bottom of the cage is slanted downward, so it 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.000 rolls downward onto a different conveyor belt thankfully, that whisks 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.080 the egg away. So the whole thing is really automated. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:35.320 And because these cages are are so um uh uniform, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.000 they can be stacked. It's modular, so you can go 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.120 upward with chickens as well as outward too. You can 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.680 really raise a lot of chickens in these battery cages, 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.400 which is good if you're a farmer, not really good 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.520 if you're a chicken though. Yes, and these chickens. You know, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.640 I said that the backyard chickens of your uh laid 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.760 about a hundred eggs a year. Today's chickens lay closer 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.640 to three hundred eggs a year. Because they are bread 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.200 is scifically to do so, and just the way beyond 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.200 being bred to do so, Like you said, they're set 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.440 up as such that it's just uh, you know, they 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.080 have made it a very efficient operation as far as 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.080 how much they can extract from each hen. Yeah, that 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.080 was a real quick check. That was a big part 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.679 of the industrialization of farming. Two is is breeding practices 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.760 to where we started selectively breeding types of chickens that 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:30.400 either laid a perfectly nice brown egg or um ones 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.640 that gained weight in certain places that we wanted them to. Like. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.440 Genetics has been a huge part of that as well. Yeah, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.839 we're really lucky because are really really good friends. Justin 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.520 and Melissa. I've known Justin since college, you know, Justin 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.920 he uh, they have chickens. They have these four beautiful 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.960 ladies in their backyard. Uh. And they have a big, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.840 wonderful coupe but anytime they're outside uh and can safeguard 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.400 them from hawks by keeping an eye on them. Those 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.720 those ladies are running around the yard with their dogs. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.400 They've somehow managed to train these dogs to kind of 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.800 give them their space. Uh. And it's great. And you know, 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.320 they give us eggs and we spend money in their 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.240 wine shop and it's a great symbiotic relationship that is 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.000 really great. Yeah, yeah, it's a good. Uh. We we 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:18.840 save our cartons and stuff when we do have to 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.240 buy eggs, so they have cartons to give out to 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.840 their friends because these ladies are laying a lot of eggs. Lightly. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.240 So Justin has a chickens in a wine shop. Now 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.040 he's living the life. Oh man, it's the American dream 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:38.560 realized by my British import friend. Look good. So he's 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.640 doing it what you could call the right way, I think, um, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.920 which is to say they're very necessarily the profit maximizing way. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.640 But the chickens are, you would guess, much happier than 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.800 the ones that are in these battery cages. And one 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.880 of the reasons why we would say the chickens are 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.480 not so happy in the battery cages because like again, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.080 they can't move. If you put a chicken on a 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.880 piece of paper, it's going to take up most of 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.200 that piece of paper or iPad, right, So when you 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.560 visualize that, you suddenly get like, this is this is 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.800 for the whole for its whole life, usually somewhere around 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.560 seventy weeks. This is how it spends almost all of 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.520 that time in this little cage, just laying eggs, laying 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:26.160 eggs to an unnatural at an unnatural pace. And because 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.880 it's kind of stuck in this this one small place, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.080 there's a lot of things that it can't do that 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.400 people who have studied chickens say, chickens need to do 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.600 this or else they're going to go insane and have 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.840 a really horrific life. Um, and that is kind of 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.800 what the basis of creating like cage free setups or 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.080 like genuine free range setups is. It comes from giving 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.640 chickens a better life while during those seventy or so 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.520 weeks that they're alive. Yeah, I mean, I think it's 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.679 easy for somebody maybe who doesn't think about it much 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.480 to think of a laying hen as just this sort 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:09.080 of organic egg machine, like a living egg machine. Not 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:10.880 organic in the sense that it's you know, sort of 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.480 hard organic, but a living machine that just pumps out 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.760 these eggs that we love to eat for breakfast or 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:22.920 on top of a hamburger or you know, a good meal. Oh, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.800 I don't know about that, but that's not the case. Like, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.840 these birds have personalities and they have behaviors that they 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.120 want to do and that they normally do, like, uh, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.840 it's just a handful of them they love. And you know, 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:39.280 you can see this when I go over to Justin 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.880 and Melissa's house when they're out doing their thing. They're 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.960 preening and they're cleaning their feathers and they're flapping, ruffling 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.560 their feathers around and flapping around, and they take a 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.640 little dust bass, which means they roll around on the ground, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.720 and uh, they're absorbing oil for their feathers, and they're 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.200 getting rid of their dead skin and their shedding feathers 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.960 that they don't need, and little feather mites, and they 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.800 love to nest. And then here's the big one is 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.720 And I've seen it happen and I've tried to guard 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.960 my eyes because I know what's going on. They don't 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.480 like a lot of attention when they're laying these eggs. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:18.360 It's a they're giving birth. It's a private matter to them, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:23.160 you know, giving birth in the figurative sense. But it's uh, 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.080 it's like they're doing their business. They don't want a 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.760 lot of attention. They'd like to do this instinctively in private, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.280 and they're not able to do that there. It's called 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.240 the laying act and it's on full display. And they 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.960 can get so upset about having to do this without 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.960 any privacy in battery cages, not can they do. They 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.360 get so upset they peck at other hens and they 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.800 fight each other. And that's why they end up clipping 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.000 their beaks because the other hens are getting injured from 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.320 being henpecked because they're stressed out from living on an iPad. Yeah. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:02.320 Dr con Conrad Lorenz Or Lawrence Um, who starred in 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.880 our Animal Imprinting episode, I think he's popped up elsewhere. 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.200 He had a quote he said, the worst torture to 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.440 which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.720 retire somewhere for the laying act. The person who knows 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.200 something about animals. It is truly heartrending to watch how 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.840 a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.400 fellow cage mates to search their in vain for cover 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:25.920 because they don't get what's going on too. It's it is, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.880 it's heartbreaking. Yeah, So, like that is an enormous thing. 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.240 Like not only are we forcing them to have more 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.800 eggs every year, we're forcing them to do it against 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.920 their instinct basically every day, and they really suffer tremendous 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.320 amount of distress for that. And then one of the 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.760 other ones, one of the other behaviors that's really really 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.280 big is roaming, their freedom to roam. Chickens are very 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.440 social animals. They like to hang out, they like to 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:54.480 mess with each other, like to pren one another, not 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.720 to supreme themselves, um, but they also need space to 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.960 get away from one another there and when they can't 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.880 do that, that's when things like hen pecking to uh 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.560 to an injurious degree, or cannibalism we're all sorts of um. 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.919 Terrible zookosis can happen when chickens are stuck together in 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.600 a very small area for their entire lives, and that 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.160 is the basis of battery cages. And you said, it's like, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.439 like it makes sense from a mechanized industrial standpoint. But 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.440 back in the day when when when they figured this out. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.840 These are the same people who resisted putting seatbelts and 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.840 cars and got us into Vietnam, you know what I mean? Like, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.040 these aren't exactly the most moralistic generation that we've ever produced. 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.119 They were very sensible and like rational minded and didn't 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.320 take a great deal of humanity into consideration when it 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.560 came to profit maximization. Yes, this is a segment we 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.560 like to call Gen X speaks to millennials and Gen 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:57.760 Z about boomers. That's right, you got that straight. But 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.159 it's true. They also you know, alter their UH diet 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:06.920 and lighting to UH to maximize their output. They don't 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.160 move around, so they're obviously you know what's gonna happen 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.600 when an animal is just sort of stuck in the small, 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.399 tiny thing, They're gonna have no muscle. They have muscle 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.120 loss because they can't move around and do their thing, 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.280 and they basically become what I described, which is these 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.399 living egg laying machines, which is exactly how the industrial 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:30.880 egg complex, if that's a term wants it. But things 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.520 are changing a little bit, and we're gonna walk you 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.680 through some of you know, a lot of these are 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:41.000 marketing terms, but some of them are legitimate um terms 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.040 that the USDA allows them to use. Uh, in addition 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.000 to these great pictures that you see on your egg 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.760 cartons of chickens, like, you know, smiling under the sunshine 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.359 on a rolling pastoral scene. Uh, they're allowed to do 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.400 stuff like that, but the words that they use are 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:03.399 regulated to an extent. And if you really, really really 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.480 want to do your due diligence, though, you've got to 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.280 know what all this stuff means and then even do 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.000 a little more investigation. Yeah, typical U. S d A 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:13.840 type stuff. But let's take a break and then we'll 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.440 get into cage free. How about that, Let's get out 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.400 of the cage. If you want to know, then you're 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:44.400 in luck. Just chuck. Okay, So we're talking cage free, 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.280 and I think I already let the cat out of 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.600 the bag, although hopefully not in the chicken cooper um 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.920 that cage free actually does have some meaning like actually, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:57.359 if you if you look at it compared to the 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.879 battery cage operations of your or actually I shouldn't say, 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.920 of yours are still most chickens in the United States, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.639 at least they're still in battery cages. I think something 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:11.320 like se which amounts to two and thirty million hens 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:16.280 are currently in battery cages. Um, so it's still going on, 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.679 still happening. But if you if you compare the battery 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.080 cage to the cage free operation, it is a substantial difference, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.560 for sure. Yeah, Like the more we describe this stuff, 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.760 there are levels of getting better, for sure. Uh in 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.040 cage free is better. Uh, it is greater than it means. 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.119 And this is a direct quote from the U. S 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.479 d A means the eggs must be produced by hens 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.800 housed in a way that allows for not only unlimited 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.000 access to food and water. And you might think, well, duh, 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:50.000 but they used to like keep food from hens. Uh, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.199 so different things would happen with their production and they're like, 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.359 you can't do that at all anymore, and then the 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.439 rest of it goes. But unlike eggs from caged hens 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.640 also provides them freedom to roam during the laying cycle. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.880 That's huge. But here's the deal is, they are there 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:12.560 aren't any guidelines about what that access to outdoors means uh, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.920 it doesn't say how much space there needs to be, 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.040 And so basically what you're still seeing is a big, 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.200 long barn with a bunch of laying hens packed inside there. 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.560 They're just not in those wire cages. No, they have 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.080 now instead of about an eight by eight square of 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.800 space available to them like they do in the battery cages, 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:37.159 typically a hand in a free or cage free situation 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.200 has about ten and a half inch by eleven inch 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.159 space available to them per bird, And it's not like 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.440 it's designated. That's what they can move around. At least 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.560 they can move around these giant, giant barns. The problem 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:53.040 is that there's tens of thousands of hens also in 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:56.120 these barns, and they just don't have that much room 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:58.200 to move. If they had a ton of willpower and 0:21:58.240 --> 0:21:59.840 they decided they were going to go to point B, 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.720 they could conceivably make their way there. But it's not 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:05.679 going to be easy and it's not like they're just 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.520 roaming around and they have a bunch of free space 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.960 to move around in or do much in. Again, compared 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.880 to the battery cages, where they had no chance of 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:19.520 moving away from their little cage, it is a huge improvement. 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.000 But then when you see a picture of what a 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:26.359 cage free barn looks like, it's it gets a little 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.480 depressing again. Yeah, and you know some of these egg 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:35.400 producers are not the hens, but the operations. Obviously there's 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.479 only one egg producer in the scenario. Um. They do 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.560 have some perches that are built up, and they do 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.360 have some nesting areas so they can hop up there. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.000 They can stretch their wings, but they're not required to. 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.240 That's not part of the U s d A requirement. 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:53.400 If you want to look for requirements that you could 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.480 look for a label from the United Egg Producers. They 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:00.040 have a different certification guideline for cage free that's a 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.840 little more um, I guess open than the U s 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.400 d A s are restrictive. I guess if you're a farmer. Uh. 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.280 They must allow hens to exhibit natural behaviors that we 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.480 talked about and include enrichments such as scratch areas, purchase, 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.359 and nests, so they have to have those, and then 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.080 they must have access to litter. And litter is just 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:21.200 like the stuff on the ground that they like to 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.880