Student Environmental Campaigns: Cage-Free Eggs

Problems with Corporate Operations:

On big egg farms, as many as 11 laying hens are confined in single “battery” cages with little or no room to engage in natural behaviors such as standing up, stretching their wings, dust bathing and nesting. The egg industry standard allots each hen about 67 square inches of space, less than an ordinary size sheet of paper. The hens live short lives of less than two years and spend 24 hours in a cage for every one egg they produce.

Student Iniatives at Denison for Cage-Free Eggs: 

Animal Liberation League, the campus animal advocacy organization, has led a campus campaign for our dining facilities to exclusively purchase eggs from cage-free farms since Fall 2006.

Cage-free farms, while not idyllic, restores many natural conditions for laying hens, including space for hens to nest and forage.

The cage-free egg campaign received endorsement from The Denisonian editorial board, well over 600 student petition signatures and a unanimous resolution passed by the Denison Campus Governance Association (DCGA) in September 2007.

The proposal is currently going to pass through DCGA once more because of concerns risen over the cost increase for student meal plans that purchasing cage-free eggs would induce.

For more information, contact Jeff Green at green_ja@denison.edu or visit http://student-orgs.denison.edu/animal-liberation/index.html.