The Wake

It’s happened to the best of us. Just hanging in Coffman, waiting in line for a bagel, we’ve cast a curious sideways glance and spied a television airing images of overcrowded, bloody, dirty and downright unhappy hens.

Some of us might have canceled the egg on our bagel and maybe others just grinned and reminisced about that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where he works in a hen barn … haha, oh Napoleon.

But these images are no laughing matter to Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA), the student organization that has been showing the documentary “Meet your Meat” in Coffman. The group of about 200 active volunteers has been campaigning for several months in hopes that University Dining Services (UDS) will begin serving Certified Humane cage-free eggs.

“Certified Humane” implies strict standards and inspections and is backed by the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Currently, UDS orders 90 percent of its eggs from Michael Foods—which does not meet requirements to carry the lower United Egg Producer’s certification, the CAA says.

Karen DeVet, assistant director of dining services, says that UDS is open to considering the idea. The switch has been forecasted to raise meal plan prices 0.4 percent (two to four cents per meal), so UDS will need student feedback, she explains. All students living in the dorms must purchase a meal plan.

The Graduate Student Association, the UDS Advisory Board, and over 2,000 residents have come out in support of the campaign, but UDS is waiting to hear from the Residential Housing Association (RHA). After hearing from RHA, UDS will make a decision. Implementation will depend on an administrative request for an increased budget, DeVet explains. “I would anticipate a decision [from UDS] by the first of March,” DeVet says.

Donny Mansfield, CAA officer and coordinator of the campaign says, “It can seem like a fringe issue, but that’s not the case.” CAA says over 75 universities have switched or are in the process of switching to cage-free eggs. Nearby Macalester College, fellow Big Ten school the University of Iowa, and several schools who contract with Aramark (UDS’s food service provider) serve cage-free eggs.

CAA wants the university to add itself to that list because “the suffering in factory farms is so bad,” Mansfield says. “It’s the worst form of animal cruelty.”

At Michael Foods’s farms, hens aren’t given proper space to move, groom themselves or perform other natural functions, the CAA says. They also don’t have perches or nesting materials. Contrarily, in certified humane facilities, hens have perches, nesting spaces, and litter to bathe in. In these facilities, all hens are inspected twice daily, sick hens are segregated and severely injured hens are “humanely euthanized,” the CAA explains.

However, Dr. Jacquie Jacob, professor in the Department of Animal Science, argues in her article, “The welfare of the laying hen: The science behind the caged versus cage-free debate,” that it is “difficult to speculate about how birds ‘feel.’”

“Neither system [caged nor cage-free] is perfect. If you do not manage them properly, there will be problems with both systems,” she explains.

“Cage-free” does not mean the hens will be reared outside, Jacob says, even if they are Certified Humane eggs. Cages were first developed for use in these indoor farms to prevent “parasitic problems,” she says. Cages serve to “separate hens from their manure” and prevent diseases, she explains.

Jacobs also pointed out in her article that a study in the European Union, which will ban cage-rearing in 2010, found cannibalism, bacterial infections and eggshell contamination to be at a higher risk in cage-free barns.

Jacobs contends that, as of right now, caged facilities are “better for the welfare of the birds and the consumers.” There is ongoing research, some of it at the university, to further develop cage-facilities, she says. “It is kind of a wait-and-see approach.”

But for now, she writes, “Eggs coming from modern egg-laying production facilities in the United States are the cleanest and safest in comparison to any in the world.”

The CAA disagrees, and hopes to “show UDS there is a lot of student support for cage-free eggs,” Mansfield says. “The focus is just to reduce suffering,” he says, “and I think the outlook is looking really good right now.”