The transition from battery cages to cage-free systems represents welfare progress, but cage-free systems have their own welfare challenges requiring careful management to avoid trading one problem for another.
The cage-free transition is genuine welfare progress, but it requires acknowledging that freedom from confinement creates new welfare challenges that poor management converts into significant harm. Hens that can move freely and injure each other require better stockperson skills and more attentive management than caged systems. Keel bone fractures from poor perch design are painful and prevalent. The welfare lesson is that removing one constraint does not automatically produce good welfare - active investment in system design, management quality, and ongoing monitoring is required to translate the behavioral freedom of cage-free into genuine welfare improvement.