*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.