As a young veterinarian who has joined the circles of effective altruism, I frequently come across the term 'cage-free campaign.' In veterinary practice, we typically refer to this as the deep litter system, which has well-defined metrics to assess bird welfare. Additionally, there is the free-range system, which shares similarities with deep litter but provides birds with even greater benefits. However, I have yet to come across any reports explicitly linking the cage-free campaign to the adoption of deep litter or free-range systems. This makes me wonder, why does the effective altruism community emphasize the term 'cage-free' while seemingly overlooking other well-established concepts in poultry welfare? Anyone to provide me with an answer or important links to supporting literature? I will be very appreciative.
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Hi, I'm not sure if I have all the answers you need.
I think some reasons for this are:
- The term cage-free' is more understandable for a non-technical audience than deep litter, that as you say is more of a technical term for veterinarians. This is important for public communication and campaigns.
- A campaign message is often benefited by keeping it simple, in this case asking for 'cage-free' and then as companies and governments adopt agree, we see more deeply defined standards developed and adopted, that do not confine birds to cages and also include other criteria like you are mentioning in deep litter and free-range systems.
- USDA and European Union use the term 'cage-free' to describe their standards as do influential organisations in animal welfare advocacy like the RSPCA. As significant advocacy on this issue has happened in these regions, and a large proportion of EA's come from Europe and english speaking countries where this term is used, the term has probably been adopted as a default.
- The terminology might vary by region? I'm not sure where you are based. For example, working in Europe, I have most often heard 'deep litter' used when working with German companies.
Overall, I would emphasise, that cage-free is not a standard that is intended to compete with any other definition of housing for laying hens, rather it is a minimum ask, the birds shall not be confined to cages, which allows for significant reduction in their pain.