Dr. Tina Widowski has been granted $770,000 to research welfare issues related to different types of housing for laying hens.
The money comes from the Egg Farmers of Canada, the national agency for supply management, and is one of three research chairs it intends to fund. It has yet to announce the other two.
Widowski is Director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph.
Widowski presented a literature review of research on this very issue last year at a meeting organized by the Poultry Industry Council. The review made it clear that there are benefits and drawbacks to all forms of housing, including allowing hens freedom to range outdoors.
Cages allow manure to fall away, so the birds don't tramp in it and that results in better health and lower mortality rates.
But cages also deny birds their desires to nest and dust bathe.
One alternative is housing birds in an aviary where they can roam across a floor, scratch in bedding and perch on roosts. Those birds have more leg problems and diseases and a higher mortality rate.
Allowing birds freedom to range outside is appealing to many city people and critics of caging birds, yet that's the riskiest alternative from a bird's point of view. They are exposed to more diseases and parasites and their mortality rates are higher than the alternatives.
There are quite a few options, including offering more space in cages and "enhancing" cages with roosts and nesting boxes.
Critics of caging birds have spent small fortunes to sway public opinion and recently have been focusing on meetings with executives of supermarket chains and fast-food restaurant chains, persuading them to promote cage-free and free-range eggs. Loblaws, for example, has promised that it will ban caged-egg production for its President’s Choice line, but informed sources say that fulfilling that promise has been challenging in terms of lining up supplies.
There are rumours that Loblaws will soon reach deals with suppliers so it can announce a launch before the end of May. One of the big questions is whether Canadian producers will be able to meet the demand; if not, Loblaws and/or the grading stations that supply its supermarkets will be applying to import cheaper eggs from the United States.
Both Grayridge and Burnbrae, which hold more than 90 per cent of the Ontario market and have nation-wide business, already offer free-range eggs to major retail customers, such as Wal-Mart and Loblaws.
Svante Lind of Best Choice Eggs made a proposal a couple of years ago that egg producers willing to undertake the higher costs to produce cage-free and free-range eggs get a break on a limited amount of quota. The egg board rejected that proposal.
It’s general manager, Harry Pelissero, has consistently said that the board does not favour one production approach over another and that it’s up to farmers and their customers to decide what to produce under the quota they hold.
That's what Pelissero says for public consumption. Court records contain e-mails among Pelissero, Bill Gray of Grayridge and Burnbrae indicating they are concerned that demand for niche-market eggs will threaten their businesses.
The e-mails are in court files relating to lawsuits between Lind and Burnbrae, Grayridge and the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board.
