Experts Back PETA’s White Paper on Cage-Free Failures

The egg industry tells you and me that if we just pay a little more—if we choose the carton with the “cage-free” label and scenic, lush imagery—we can ease our conscience and spare sensitive hens from suffering. But the studies tell a very different story. PETA’s white paper, The Failure of Cage-Free Housing Systems to Reduce Overall Hen Suffering, cuts through the misleading marketing and examines what industrial cage-free systems actually mean for hens.

Leading Experts Stand Behind PETA’s Pinpoint Findings

“Cage-free campaigns have consumed enormous time and resources while leaving the core harms of egg production intact. This paper is an important course correction for the movement. It shows how cage-free campaigns have normalized ongoing harms while diverting attention from egg-free solutions that are needed to protect animals, public health, and food security.”

 —Crystal Heath, D.V.M., Executive Director, Our Honor, a nonprofit made up of veterinarians and animal professionals promoting ethical practices

“Devastating. In stunning and meticulous detail, this report demolishes once and for all the myth that raising hens in ‘cage-free’ environments offers ethically meaningful advantages over other forms of confinement. This is a true game-changer for the animal movement.”

—John Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and author of The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong About Meat, Animals, and Ourselves

“If you think buying cage-free eggs means ‘happy hens,’ you need to read this report. The truth is that these birds are still stuck in massive, dusty warehouses where they often break their bones or even peck each other to death because they’re so stressed. It’s the same industrial cruelty with a different name. It’s time to move past this broken system and switch to plant-based options that are actually kind to animals.”

—Otto Brockway, director of Eating Our Way to Extinction

“I’m disgusted to learn that agribusiness has found a way to use the label ‘cage-free’ to falsely imply compassionate treatment of these sensitive, intelligent, emotional animals. Thank you, PETA, for this important investigative report setting the record straight.” 

—Sy Montgomery, author of What the Chicken Knows and The Soul of an Octopus

“If we, the consuming public, continue to expect easy access to an unlimited flow of low-cost chicken eggs, it must be made absolutely clear to us that the image of the uninjured, unstressed cage-free bird is nothing but a self-serving fantasy.”

—John P. Gluck, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, University of New Mexico, author of Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals: A Primate Scientist’s Ethical Journey

“There is simply no good way of supplying people with eggs: The welfare and environmental impacts are enormous, however the chickens are housed. As this crucial report shows, we just need to stop.”

—George Monbiot, journalist and author of Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet

“This report brings together the strongest available evidence on the real impacts of cage-free systems. Its findings underscore the need to move beyond incremental reforms and toward strategies that eliminate the use of hens in industrial production.”

—Vasile Stănescu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Mercer University, cofounder of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies, and Research Fellow with the Climate Social Science Network at Brown University

“The white paper by PETA on ‘The failure of cage-free housing systems to reduce overall hen suffering’ follows the science on factory-farmed hens closely and reveals that incremental changes in animal welfare may actually increase suffering. Importantly, they call for an end to timorous animal welfare compromises in favor of entirely abolishing an industry and practice that is fundamentally based on animal abuse.”

—Lori Marino, Ph.D., Neuroscientist and Adjunct Professor, Animal Studies, New York University

“I agree with much of what is said in the white paper—because cage systems (of any type) cannot offer a wide enough range of behavioural opportunities to laying hens to provide a good and varied life experience for the animal.”

—Andrew Butterworth, B.Sc., B.V.Sc., Ph.D., Diplomat, European College of Animal Welfare and Behavioral Medicine, and Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons

“A powerful exposé of the ideologies and untruths that conceal the cruel realities of ‘cage-free’ hen housing—and one more reason to consider going vegan!”

—Matthew Calarco, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fullerton, author of The Three Ethologies: A Positive Vision for Rebuilding Human-Animal Relationships

“The egg and poultry industry represents the most egregious forms of ghastliness in the animal industrial complex. The sheer weight of numbers, and the degree of cruelty inflicted on these individual animals, is beyond the comprehension of the decent, ethical, and informed mind. The mendacity and greed of this atrocious industry is obscured by the Niagara of nonsense generated by well-paid lobbyists and their paymasters, well-resourced profiteers. Cruelty is not a ‘bug’ in the system. It is a ‘feature’ in the system. The system cannot be repaired. It can only be rejected. The are no reasons to justify this vile trade. Only excuses. It has no place in civilized society. PETA’s evidence is based on Science and Ethics. It is fact-rich, authoritative, overwhelming and unassailable.”

—Philip Wollen, OAM

“The white paper rightly challenges false notions that chicken behavioural needs are being met in current commercial housing conditions, as well as emphasises misinformation to consumers. Chickens are scientifically documented to behaviourally revert to wild behaviour when given the opportunities to do so, firmly indicating high probability of inherent frustration of biobehavioural needs that are masked by understimulation. Many, if not all, of the frequently severe, negative welfare issues described in the white paper have associations with captivity-stress.”

—Clifford Warwick, Postgraduate Diploma in Medical Science, Ph.D., Chartered Biologist, Chartered Scientist, European Professional Biologist, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology

The Evidence Speaks for Itself—Will YOU Listen to It?

The experts agree: Once you see the evidence, you can’t unsee it. PETA’s white paper lays out the realities of cage-free egg production in stark, documented detail. Prepare to be stunned by what the industry doesn’t want you to know.