The Greens will shoot themselves in the foot if this goes through - nobody but the most hardcore animal rights nut is going to cough up $15 for a dozen eggs, so everybody will just start buying cage eggs instead. Another win for animal welfare.

It doesn't matter whether the chooks are free range or caged. They are nearly all fed on the same pellets anyway. Nutritionally, the commercial eggs are all the same. I can't understand why people allow themselves to be conned into paying $8 a dozen when they can get cage eggs for less than half of that.

David

This was a disturbingly slapdash argument, David. The current dispute concerns the accuracy of the 'free range' designation of egg production. Egg producers who feel threatened by growing community consciousness among the minority who are concerned about the cruelty frequently involved in commercial egg production will naturally seek to subvert the meaning of 'free range' production: that's the nature of competition. Your reliance on the fact that the general public might be happy to accept 20,000 birds per hectare as 'free range' production is quite irrelevant. The designation 'free range' is meant to inform the minority who are concerned to set standards that will mitigate or eliminate the cruelty involved in commercial egg production.

If it was so cruel, the chooks would go on strike and refuse to produce eggs. They are sentient beings you know.

David

Actually, Connelly, it IS all about perception - and little else.

Since, as you admit, this is merely "growing community consciousness among the minority" and since "free range" has no objective meaning, why would we allow that minority to impose its own definition on a concept that does not entail any such definition?

It is more likely to do with claims of free range. We do not have a legal definition, of what space a chook needs to be classed free range. Of course a chook would like no fences at all, but it is not practical whether it is layers or growers for meat, Chooks are farmed like any other animal or bird, so there has to be fences, it is a matter of space.

>> Of course, a chook would like no fences at all...

You've been talking to your chook again, 579? And she's talking back now?

You can have anything you want, so long as you pay for it.

Free range has been a fuphy for years.

Clever marketing, that's all it is.

Now once someone can tell a free range egg from a cage egg, just by looking, then you may get somewhere.

In the mean time we just have to trust egg producers who, lake most other businesses, are under preasure to meet their commitments.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The conscious awareness level of a chook, is one level up from a sea squirt!

"Nutritionally, the commercial eggs are all the same. I can't understand why people allow themselves to be conned into paying $8 a dozen when they can get cage eggs for less than half of that"

The desire to not be an accomplice to torture, perhaps?

Plus, if one is silly enough to buy their eggs in a supermarket, they may well pay $8/dozen - I pay $5 for two dozens in the open market, free range of course.

But if my concern was specifically about nutrition, then I would buy "organic" at $6-$7/dozen. The definition of "organic" includes free-range by the organic-associations standards, which bypasses any government-imposed definitions, thus the $15 scare is untrue. Of course, those who like to go to bed with the government may well pay $15 for that pleasure.

Yuyutsu, the reason you are buying your eggs for $5 for 2 dozen, is purely due to the fact that you are buying them illegally from an unregisterd trader/seller, who does not pay rent, wages, insurances, nor do they have health laws to comply with, all of which adds to the difference between your price and the shop price.

So by all means save the chooks from what you say is a life in hell, but at the expense of both the tax payer and the workers alike.

Seems a bit odd that you would put the chooks welfare ahead of your fellow man.

"you are buying them illegally from an unregisterd trader/seller"

No, there is nothing illegal about buying my eggs, by myself and 100's of others who go there. It is all in the open. There may or may not be something illegal about selling them, which neither I nor yourself knows, as I have not asked any questions and you haven't even been there.

I do hope that the seller pays their income tax (and GST I believe is not applicable on raw foods), but as for the other red-tape measures that you mentioned, I couldn't care less. In fact, I would be honoured (if that's indeed the case) to purchase from someone who is willing to risk defying them, which is a victimless crime.

"but at the expense of both the tax payer and the workers alike."

As for the tax, I hope they paid it (or will pay).

As for workers - well who said there are any? why assume that the seller didn't pick up and packed the eggs himself - or even if others helped him, perhaps friends and family members, how can you criticize the arrangements made between them without knowing what they are? so long as those arrangements were made voluntarily, they are fine, even if the government doesn't like it.

"Seems a bit odd that you would put the chooks welfare ahead of your fellow man."

Was the possibility of torturing humans ever brought up in this context?

*The conscious awareness level of a chook, is one level up from a sea squirt!*

DD, you really don't know how conciously aware a chook is, you
are simply guessing and could well be wrong.

Personally I don't see any need to torture chooks for my eggs, but
that is just my choice. There really is no good reason for battery egg
farming these days.

Quite right, backward butcher.

No costs of doing business, no food safety management.

Eggs possibly from diseased or infected chooks are potentially a health risk and it's only "victimless" until the day someone is poisoned. Commercial egg farms are subject to regular inspection by health authorities, backyard amateurs with half a dozen chooks are not. "Free range" means the birds are available for attack by dogs, cats, rats and raptors. Any wound could become infected.

There's a lot narcissism and moral posturing about this sort of stuff. It's more about the egos than the chooks.

Interestingly, the question of "free range" doesn't seem to apply to the chooks that are killed and eaten in their millions.

Yuyutsu, I just paid $2.41 for a dozen caged eggs in Coles and I would bet that the chooks are fed on the same pellets that the chooks that your eggs came from. So called free range eggs in the up market greengrocers were $8.50. The free range eggs at the local Farmer's Markets sell for around $8.00. It is the food which keeps them happy, not the extra space contemplated in the legislation.

David

*It is the food which keeps them happy, not the extra space contemplated in the legislation.*

You've clearly never bought some battery chooks, taken them home
and let them live a real chook's life, David.

First they can actually stretch their wings, as chooks do. Next
they have to learn to walk properly, as their feet are deformed from
the wires. Next they can regrow their missing feathers. etc.

Its quite a sight and you can't compare cage prices at Coles with
free range at gourmet place, the margins are different.

But you've saved a dollar or two, if that is all in life that
matters to you, well so be it. Sorry, but I agree to disagree.
My sense of morality is a bit further developed then that.

Yabby:

...True! But I do know what “Coccidiosis” is though. It also LOVES free range chickens!

Ah DD, but coccidiosis also happens in broilers etc. That is why
they put coccidiostats in the feed.

Adult birds tend to have resistance.

Your kids might get threadworms. Putting them in a cage is not
the best of solutions.

It's quite simple:

For 21c/egg, I am happy to compromise on nutrition - I am content with the fact that the chickens whose eggs I eat were not served with caviar. I am even happy to take a certain level of health risk (and for now it is not even established that the vendor does not maintain health standards: perhaps they actually are in touch with the so-called "health-authorities", or perhaps they keep even better standards without bothering to invite those blood-suckers to their premises).

What I am not willing to compromise, is becoming a party to torture - no matter even if I received the eggs for free or even if I got paid to take them.

Yuyutsu,

I certainly hope you do all your own food preparation then - because I can assure you that any commercially cooked foodstuff containing eggs almost certainly contains cage eggs. And you'd be surprised at just how many things eggs go into (some wines, for example) - not to mention all those products you'll have to give up because they 'may contain traces of (cage) eggs'.

Yabby:

...Interesting yes! But pre “coccidiostats”, was the fracture point between free range (intensive sheds), and cage birds. The cage system was instigated to combat the devastation of coccidiosis on flocks; it worked! Now with coccidiostats, the cages are less imperative to animal hygiene, however it is well to remember the reason for cages in an historic sense.

...Cages gave the animal a freedom from disease, it gave the farmer greater economy and ease of maintenance of his flock, and most heavenly, clean eggs!

I wonder what do-gooders have to say about wild bird populations, like these penguins, inhabiting what seem to be grossly overcrowded rookeries:

http://artwolfe.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/South-Georgia-Island/G0000A89Ve7xjrhc/I0000rRvwmKyTffc

Has anyone ever read them their rights?

Shame!