[hirundo]

People care enough to pay extra for cage-free chicken eggs at the supermarket. My local Safeway has about as many cage-free offerings as not. So people do care, and enough that catering to it is profitable. The question is whether they care enough to pay enough extra to significantly affect treatment of animals.

And who knows what the limit is as we grow wealthy enough to willingly pay extra to salve our souls. With enough wealth and wokeness, could we someday provide our livestock with an actually good, and perhaps even idyllic life ... before we kill and eat them?

[wes-k]

Eh yes and no. Many may care enough to buy these labels but not enough to do research or accept the BS of most of these labels.

NPR did a great break down of all the trending terms for eggs: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/23/370377902/fa...

[pera]

Because of how confusing all those labels are, here in Seattle some grocery stores display a cheatsheet explaining the difference between them and even some info about the certifications.

[btcindivist]

Cage free is still factory farming, there's just no cages, but a huge big closed dark cage. I'm in no denial when I'm buying those eggs.

[hirundo]

But you and I do pay extra even for that small improvement, to buy eggs with a little less self imposed shame. We'd probably pay a bit more for a bit more improvement. It'll never be as cheap to raise animals without cruelty. But we could become wealthy and horrified enough to be willing to pay the difference.

[dilap]

you can get pastured eggs. those are (supposedly) happy chickens running around, living a very good chicken life.

the difference in the eggs is striking: thicker shells, much deeper orange yolks.

[em500]

Yolk color is fully controlled by the producer using feed supplements: https://www.dsm.com/markets/anh/en_US/products/products-caro...

[dilap]

interesting!

[ianai]

The orange is probably still vitamin b supplementation

[icebraining]

My grandmother raised chickens; they had a huge field just for them (easily 10m² for each). The eggs were essentially the same as store-bought.

[drewmol]

>could we someday provide our livestock with an actually good, and perhaps even idyllic life ... before we kill and eat them?

I would say yes. It's certainly not a new concept, if unfamiliar with Judiasm, part of the Jewish dietary laws knows as Kashrut (where the term kosher is derived) address this.

[chrischen]

To be completely honest I’ve always thought cage-free branding meant the eggs taste better.