The transition from battery cages to cage-free housing for laying hens is important progress, but significant welfare challenges remain even in cage-free systems.
The cage-free transition represents genuine progress — hens can move, spread wings, and use perches. But cage-free is not welfare-neutral. At commercial densities, hens compete intensely for resources, keel bone fractures are endemic from poor perch design, and smothering deaths increase. The welfare goal should not be cage-free as a destination but as a stepping stone toward lower densities, better perch design, and genuine outdoor access. Positive welfare indicators — expressing natural behaviours, dust bathing, foraging, resting without competition — should be the standard against which systems are assessed.