Tuesday, August 20, 2013

No yolk. Uncle Sam may require $11.2B chicken cage investment

QUESTION: If a chicken rancher has 50,000 chickens and he has to pay $40 a hen for new roomier cages to meet a state mandate how much of the cost are consumers going to absorb? ANSWER: All $200,000. Chicken ranchers have until 2015 to comply with a law adopted five years ago by state voters barring the sale of eggs in California unless they are laid by chickens who are kept in cages larger than the conventional cage size of 67 square inches. Just how big those cages have to be has left a lot of chicken farmers scratching their heads. That’s because the 2008 Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act failed to specify an exact size. That has left farmers to try to answer a question as mind numbing as the old what came first question about either the chicken or the egg? Dianne Feinstein, the mother hen of the U.S. Senate, in May laid out a federal solution known as the Egg Products Inspection Act. It would create a standard for American chicken cages to replace the scattering of various laws that dictate different sizes in various states. A similar bill was introduced in the House by Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, and Kurt Schrader, D-Oregon. The bills would adopt the decade-old European Union standard calling for chicken cages to have 116 square inches complete with a required nesting box as well as place to perch and scratch. The proposed legislation would also prohibit the sale of any eggs that aren’t laid by chickens in roomier cages. As surprising as it may sound even though the Humane Society is behind the bill there are animal rights groups opposed to it. Organizations such as the Humane Farming Association are crowing up a storm about states’ rights and even claiming that besides pre-empting state laws it is a “direct assault upon egg laying hens” and voters. They also are madder than a wet hen because the Humane Society joined forces with the United Egg Producers.The two adversaries said the bill was introduced “to protect the economic interests of the egg industry.” United Egg producers represent 95 percent of America’s egg farmers...more

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