Since we now have 4 backyard fresh eggs a day, I no longer need to decipher those confusing egg carton descriptions to make an educated consumer choice at the supermarket to buy eggs.
Recently, NPR has an article called "Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up To Be", which decodes various descriptions often seen on the egg cartons, such as "Cage-Free", "Free-Range", or "Organic", etc. It was an eye opening to see that claims of these carefree chicken life styles and egg productions were often misleading. A research introduction video referred in this NPR article gave an informative overview of the three popular types of laying hen housing systems: Conventional Caged, Enriched Colony, and Cage Free. Surprisingly, the caged free system is not necessary better than the caged system in terms the cleanliness of the environment for the hens, the workers and the eggs. In all three housing types, the hens looked dreadful with missing feathers, nowhere as pampered as the backyard flocks. Most of these commercial laying hens would go to the slaughter house by 72 weeks old.
While I find the terms used on the egg cartons can be quite exaggerated in real life, the puns made in the comments section of this NPR article by the readers were quite amusing.
So if we the BYC flock masters were to market our eggs, how would you describe them?
Recently, NPR has an article called "Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up To Be", which decodes various descriptions often seen on the egg cartons, such as "Cage-Free", "Free-Range", or "Organic", etc. It was an eye opening to see that claims of these carefree chicken life styles and egg productions were often misleading. A research introduction video referred in this NPR article gave an informative overview of the three popular types of laying hen housing systems: Conventional Caged, Enriched Colony, and Cage Free. Surprisingly, the caged free system is not necessary better than the caged system in terms the cleanliness of the environment for the hens, the workers and the eggs. In all three housing types, the hens looked dreadful with missing feathers, nowhere as pampered as the backyard flocks. Most of these commercial laying hens would go to the slaughter house by 72 weeks old.
While I find the terms used on the egg cartons can be quite exaggerated in real life, the puns made in the comments section of this NPR article by the readers were quite amusing.
So if we the BYC flock masters were to market our eggs, how would you describe them?
