The global transition from conventional battery cages to cage-free laying hen systems represents one of the most significant farm animal welfare policy changes of recent decades, but cage-free does not automatically mean high welfare.
The transition to cage-free production is a meaningful welfare improvement over battery cage systems, but the gap between the rhetoric of cage-free and the reality of some cage-free systems is significant. Hens in poorly managed cage-free barn systems may experience higher rates of feather pecking, more disease, and significant keel bone injury compared to enriched colony cage systems — without experiencing the outdoor access and natural behaviour expression that the cage-free concept implies. The welfare lesson is that system label is not equivalent to welfare outcome: the quality of cage-free housing management, stocking density, enrichment provision, and outdoor access quality all determine whether cage-free translates to genuinely better welfare for individual hens.