Corporate and legislative cage-free commitments represent a major welfare advance for laying hens. Understanding the welfare reality of different systems helps evaluate true progress.
The cage-free transition represents genuine welfare progress: the elimination of conventional battery cages, which denied hens the ability to stand upright, spread their wings, or express most natural behaviours, removes a significant source of welfare compromise. However, cage-free does not automatically mean high welfare: barn systems with inadequate enrichment, insufficient perch space, or poorly managed litter can produce welfare outcomes that are only marginally better than enriched cages. The welfare potential of cage-free systems is substantially higher than cages, but realising that potential requires management quality, appropriate stocking density, enrichment provision, and active monitoring. Consumer and retailer pressure for genuine welfare improvement — not just a label change — is essential for driving the quality of cage-free management upward.