Different egg production systems offer different welfare trade-offs, and understanding these helps consumers make genuinely welfare-informed choices.
Welfare trade-offs across systems are genuine and complex. Enriched cages provide protection from aggression and predation but prevent natural movement and dust bathing. Free-range systems allow more natural behaviour but expose birds to higher disease risk and variable outdoor access quality. Organic systems offer the highest standards but at higher cost. Keel bone fractures are a welfare problem in cage-free systems that needs to be addressed through better perch and landing pad design. The overall welfare evidence favours free-range and organic systems when well-managed.