Egg-laying hens in Colorado will get more living space starting January 1. The new rule will limit how many chickens can be kept in each cage, and it鈥檚 part of legislation passed in 2020.
According to that same , all eggs sold in Colorado must come from cage-free hens 鈥� but that rule doesn鈥檛 fully kick in until January 1, 2025.
According to Bill Scebbi, Executive Director of the , the new give egg farmers two years to ramp up to a fully cage-free environment. 鈥淭hat still doesn't mean that hens are running around a huge facility all willy-nilly and doing their chicken thing. But it does give their hens a different environment to live in,鈥� Scebbi explained.
In the meantime, the state鈥檚 egg-laying chickens will get a little more room: at least one square foot per bird, starting January 1st, 2023. 鈥淭he conventional housing is being changed in 2023 to a larger space for the hens,鈥� said Scebbi, adding that in a conventional egg-laying operation, that amounts to fewer birds per cage.
The change for this coming year is relatively small. The cages aren鈥檛 going away just yet, and the inside of the barn may not look much different to a casual observer. In , before the new rules take effect, confines 5 to 7 birds.
鈥淭hey have conveyor belts that move the manure away. They have another conveyor belt that moves the eggs away into the distribution area,鈥� Scebbi said. 鈥淭hey have feeders that provide adequate feed for them on a 24/7 basis.鈥�
In a cage-free setting, on the other hand, 鈥渢hey'll be in an open space where they can fly onto the ground and scratch, like hens do,鈥� Scebbi explained. 鈥淭hey have a place to roost so they can lay their eggs.鈥� There may be fencing to separate a large flock into smaller groupings, but there are no cages, and the automation systems aren鈥檛 as achievable. 鈥淎nd so, it's a different environment,鈥� Scebbi said.
Cage-free environments compliant with the new law must include enrichments, such as scratch areas, perches, nest boxes and dust bathing areas, that allow chickens to express natural behaviors.
That鈥檚 why it costs more to produce cage-free eggs. It takes more manpower to wrangle chickens on the loose. 鈥淲hen you have a structured environment where people can go down the alleyways, the manure is already moved out of the way. The eggs are already collected with conveyor belts and it's more automated,鈥� Scebbi explained. 鈥淏ut where we go to this new cage-free area, they will be able to be more like chickens on the ground, and they'll have freedom.鈥�
鈥淚f you think about it, if you have to look at 1.5 million hens, which our farms have, that's a lot of hens,鈥� he added. 鈥漈here's this thing called the pecking order. You have hens that are hogging all the food or hens that don't want other hens to be around them.鈥� Dealing with those behavioral issues in a cage-free environment is more labor-intensive.
Nationally, of laying hens are managed in a cage-free environment.
The new rules come as a continues to impact the industry. Farms with fewer than 3,000 egg-laying hens are exempt from the new rules.
