While cage-free housing represents a significant welfare improvement for laying hens, achieving high welfare in cage-free systems requires addressing additional challenges around dust bathing, perching, and air quality.
Cage-free commitments represent genuine welfare progress, but the cage-free label covers a wide spectrum of welfare outcomes. Hens in overcrowded, barren cage-free barns may suffer from feather pecking, respiratory problems, and limited access to key resources. True welfare improvement requires not just removal of cages but provision of meaningful enrichment — perches, dust baths, and nesting boxes — at adequate ratios, proper stocking densities, good air quality management, and natural light. Consumers and companies should push beyond cage-free certification to higher standards that guarantee positive welfare experiences.