The EU cage ban for laying hens is transforming European egg production. Understanding what welfare improvement this represents - and where gaps remain - is important for consumers.
Laying hen welfare has improved significantly since the battery cage ban, but enriched cages still fall far short of genuine welfare provision. Hens in enriched cages can perform some natural behaviours but cannot express the full range: outdoor foraging, extended ranging, complex social structures, and natural dustbathing in real substrate. Free-range systems, when well-managed, provide significantly better welfare - but overcrowded free-range units with inadequate range access can have welfare problems of their own. The consumer choice between cage, barn, free-range, and organic is a welfare choice: understanding what each system actually provides enables more welfare-informed purchasing.