Consider advocating for furnished cages instead of cage-free aviaries?

By Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-16T17:47 (+24)

Summary

Conventional (battery) cages remain legal in the vast majority of countries outside Europe. In particular, in ones in Africa and Asia, which are projected to account for 80.2 % of the global population in 2050. However, I am only aware of impact-focussed organisations advocating for companies to source eggs from cage-free instead of caged hens, not from ones in furnished instead of conventional cages.
I estimate moving hens from conventional to furnished cages:
- Increases the welfare of chickens 70.6 % as much as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries.
- Increases the total cost per kg of eggs 24.9 % as much as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries.
So I determine moving hens from conventional to furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens 2.84 (= 0.706/0.249) times as cost-effectively as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries from the perspective of the producers.
I am a bit sceptical that advocating for furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens more cost-effectively than for cage-free aviaries. I understand many people have an intuition that cage-free hens have higher welfare than caged hens. In contrast, the difference between conventional and furnished cages is not obvious. I would still try advocating for furnished cages despite this. It does not directly present a downside, and does not seem like an insurmountable challenge.
My main concern about advocating for furnished cages is decreasing the cohesiveness of global efforts targeting laying hens. On the other hand, furnished cages are an easier ask, and therefore may lead to more welfare reforms, thus creating momentum for the global efforts towards cage-free. I overall lean towards flexibility.

Context

The countries with active national bans on keeping hens in conventional cages are in blue below. They mostly are all the countries in the European Union (EU), where conventional cages have been banned since 2012, and a few more in Europe, including Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK). French Guiana, a department of France, is the blue area in South America, and Bhutan is the one in South Asia. Canada and New Zealand, in yellow below, have passed bans. Australia, India, and the United States, in purple below, have active subnational bans. Yet, conventional cages remain legal in the vast majority of countries outside Europe. In particular, in ones in Africa and Asia, which are projected to account for 80.2 % (= (5.28 + 2.47)/9.66) of the global population in 2050. However, I am only aware of impact-focussed organisations advocating for companies to source eggs from cage-free instead of caged hens, not from ones in furnished instead of conventional cages.

Welfare

I estimate that hens in conventional (battery) and furnished (enriched) cages, and cage-free aviaries (barns) have a welfare of -1.79, -1.09, and -0.798 chicken-QALY/chicken-year. Fully healthy hens would have a welfare of 1 chicken-QALY/chicken-year. The lives of hens with a welfare of -1 chicken-QALY/chicken-year are as further away from being neutral as those of fully healthy hens, but are negative (more suffering than happiness) instead of positive (more happiness than suffering). Based on my estimates, moving hens from conventional to furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens 70.6 % (= (-1.09 - (-1.79))/(-0.798 - (-1.79))) as much as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries. So I believe furnished cages are better than midway between conventional cages and cage-free aviaries.

I got the welfare for different conditions using underestimates from the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI) for the time chickens spend in annoying, hurtful, disabling, and excruciating pain, which is illustrated below. I obtained best guesses for the time in pain adjusting WFI’s underestimates based on comments from Cynthia Schuck. I aggregated all the information about the time in pain with my guesses for the intensities of the 4 categories of pain. I accounted for positive experiences.

I value increasing happiness, and decreasing suffering proportionally to their probability, duration, and intensity. In other words, I only care about increasing expected total hedonistic welfare. In this case, my best guess is that moving hens from conventional to furnished cages is 70.6 % as beneficial as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries. However, I think the fraction would be even higher if decreasing more intense suffering had a special value (higher than proportional to its intensity). The time hens in conventional and furnished cages spend in disabling/excruciating pain is very similar according to WFI’s underestimates, as illustrated above and below. My best guesses are still similar, but less similar because Cynthia noted accounting for the neglected welfare issues would increase the time in pain in the baseline conditions more than in the improved conditions. I got 213 and 195 h of disabling pain for hens in conventional and furnished cages.

Cost

Below is the cost of egg production in Northwest Europe by housing system according to Table 1.1 of van Horne and Bondt (2023). The increase in the total cost per kg of eggs from conventional to furnished cages is 24.9 % (= 0.0526/0.211) of that from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries. In contrast, I determined above it would capture 70.6 % of the benefits.

Housing system	Conventional cages	Furnished cages	Cage-free aviaries	Free range	Organic
Total cost per kg of eggs (2021-€)	0.95	1.00	1.15	1.35	2.14
Increase in the total cost per kg of eggs relative to conventional cages	0	5.26 %	21.1 %	42.1 %	125 %

Cost-effectiveness

From my numbers above, I determine moving hens from conventional to furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens 2.84 (= 0.706/0.249) times as cost-effectively as moving hens from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries from the perspective of the producers. So I conclude it is worth considering advocating for furnished cages instead of cage-free aviaries, especially in countries like China where advocating for cage-free aviaries has had little success.

Discussion

I am a bit sceptical that advocating for furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens more cost-effectively than for cage-free aviaries. I model companies as interested in maximising profit as a 1st approximation, and this crucially depends on consumers’ choices. I understand many people have an intuition that cage-free hens have higher welfare than caged hens. One can easily visualise the difference between caged and cage-free hens, and only the latter is compatible with an idyllic view of the conditions of farmed animals. In contrast, the difference between conventional and furnished cages is not obvious. I would still try advocating for furnished cages despite this. It does not directly present a downside, and does not seem like an insurmountable challenge. Each laying hen in a furnished cage in the EU must have “a nest”, “litter such that pecking and scratching are possible”, and “appropriate perches of at least 15 cm”. I assume there are ways of communicating to the public these elements are important. Even if not, there may still be room to advocate for political change in more authoritarian countries like China where companies are less subject to public pressure.

My main concern about advocating for furnished cages is decreasing the cohesiveness of global efforts targeting laying hens. On the other hand, furnished cages are an easier ask, and therefore may lead to more welfare reforms, thus creating momentum for the global efforts towards cage-free. I overall lean towards flexibility. Likewise in the context of increasing the welfare of broilers, where I believe it often makes sense to argue for slow growth breeds or lower stocking density individually instead of all the elements of the European Chicken Commitment (ECC) together.

Some may argue against advocating for replacing conventional with furnished cages due to the increase in welfare being too small. However, I estimate going from conventional to furnished cages increases the welfare of chickens 2.40 (= 0.706/(1 - 0.706)) times as much as going from furnished cages to cage-free aviaries, and many people are on board with advocating for this.

JamesÖz 🔸 @ 2026-02-17T00:44 (+21)

I don't think this is a good idea:

Infrastructure lock-in. Furnished cage systems last 10-20 years. Once companies adopt it, they will likely not want to go cage-free until the end of this lifespan, which isn't great. This creates lock-in against further reform, not momentum toward it.
The public won't be excited/that supportive of this: Corporate campaigns work best when there is public consensus and pressure. "Better cages" likely will not be something many people want to get behind. So you might lose your primary campaign tool and also the potential to bring in future activists.
Advocacy cost (likely) doesn't scale linearly with producer cost. The hard part (I think) is getting companies to change at all. If it takes a similar campaign effort to win either commitment, furnished cages are less effective per advocacy dollar. My guess is that even if furnished cages only cost 5% more (relative to 20% for cage-free), this won't mean the campaigns are 4x easier to win. I would be interested to ask some corporate campaign experts on their best guesses for this number.
Verification is harder so follow-through rates might be lower (e.g. who will audit to make sure there is the right amount of litter area or perch space?).

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-17T10:00 (+5)

Thanks for the relevant points, James.

Infrastructure lock-in

Changing from conventional to furnished cages, and from these to cage-free aviaries is more costly than directly changing from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries. However, the direct change requires a greater initial investment, and has a greater potential to decrease revenue due to increasing the cost of eggs 4.02 (= 1/0.249) times as much as the change from conventional to furnished cages. So I think having furnished cages as an intermediate step may at least in some cases derisk the overall change. 2 changes would still not make sense for a short time between changes. However, even if furnished cages are fully banned in the EU from 2032 on, which I guess is optimistic, there would still have been 20 years (2012 to 2032) with battery cages fully banned, but furnished cages not banned in the EU. Assuming there are still 30 years until 90 % of layers are cage-free, some farms will only make the final transition in 30 years. This could mean 15 years until full implementation of furnished cages, and 15 years from this until full implementation of cage-free aviaries.

The public won't be excited/that supportive of this

I discuss this a bit in the 1st paragraph of the discussion. In addition, I wonder whether the significant reduction in the time in pain as assessed by WFI could be used to get people enthusiastic about having furnished instead of conventional cages.

Advocacy cost (likely) doesn't scale linearly with producer cost

My intuition is that the probability of securing a welfare reform is a sigmoid function (S-curve) of "advocacy spending"/"increase in cost". If so, and furnished cages increase the cost of eggs 24.9 % as much as cage-free aviaries relative to conventional cages, advocating for furnished cages could increase the probability of securing a welfare reform a lot for cases where advocating for cage-free aviaries results in a probability which is still at the bottom of the sigmoid.

Verification is harder

I agree verifying furnished is harder than veryfying cage-free aviaries. Do you know the extent to which this was a challenge in the context of the EU's ban on conventional cages? I assume enforcement is usually more difficult in other regions. On the other hand, they already have the EU as a model to follow.

Joren Vuylsteke @ 2026-02-17T19:40 (+10)

Very interesting discussion - thank you for this!

"However, even if furnished cages are fully banned in the EU from 2032 on, which I guess is optimistic, there would still have been 20 years (2012 to 2032) with battery cages fully banned, but furnished cages not banned in the EU."

I think this scenario is accurate but only if the period between the (first) ban on battery cages and the (second) ban on enriched cages is exactly 20 years.

In this two-step approach, any ban on enriched cages will require a transition period that is approx. 20 years starting from the moment the enriched cages were built. This is the average time companies need to write off their cage infrastructure (Belgian and Dutch studies mention 15 to 25 yrs depending on cage type etc.). Countries will not enforce a ban before the writing off period has ended (unless they are willing to compansate companies for these costs which seems unlikely).

Turning to the EU situation; if the ban on enriched cages is adopted before 2032 (ie. 20 years after the 2012 ban), the enriched cages (built in 2009-2011) will just be written off so EU countries could indeed limit the transition period of the ban to 2032.

However, if the ban on enriched cages is adopted after 2032, many of the 'first generation' enriched cages may have been replaced by new enriched cages. This will push countries to provide a new transition period of 20 years starting from the adoption of the ban. This would mean 2052 or later.

So if we advocate the two-step approach, we must be sure that thesecond ban follows within 20 years. And that's something you can never be sure of (as legislators can always postpone these deadlines).

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-18T11:32 (+3)

Thanks for looking into this, Joren.

You seem to assuming that furnished cages are overwhelmingly built every 20 years, and were last build just before 2012. If this was the case, the vast majority of furnished cages would be renewed just before 2032 without a ban to end furnished caged before then. So I would agree that a ban would as a result happen in 2032 or 2052. However, in reality, I expect furnished cages to be built or renewed gradually, not all at once across the EU in a few years. So I believe a ban on furnished cages does not have to start in very specific years further apart by 20 years like 2032 or 2052.

In any case, I do not think it would make sense to advocate for furnished cages in the EU. Only 38.2 % of layers were in cages in the EU in 2024. So there is already significant momentum for cage-free.

I believe advocating for furnished cases in Africa and Asia would be better (although I am not confident it would be a good idea). The timeline I suggested above of 15 years until full implementation of furnished cages would allow for 75 % (= 15/20) of conventional cages to operate for a lifetime of 20 years. The remaining 25 % could be compensated for the 5 years (= 20 - 15) of fixed costs that did not get amortised. Moreover, there would only be rigid timelines applying to a whole country for political work. For work targeting companies, there could be different timelines, and therefore less need for some producers to end the operations of farms before they operate for their whole lifetime. Companies transitioning to furnished cages earlier could source their eggs from producers which transitioned to furnished cages earlier due to having started with older conventional cages. In addition, they could source eggs produced in furnished cages in the EU.

Joren Vuylsteke @ 2026-02-18T13:27 (+4)

Thanks for the reply Vasco.

However, in reality, I expect furnished cages to be built or renewed gradually, not all at once across the EU in a few years.

My understanding is that the battery-enriched transition did happen all at once in the EU. That's also confirmed here on page 11 (and also here p. 28-33). Battery cage companies waited until 2009-2011 (just before the ban on battery cage entered into force). The only exceptions are the cages that broke/burned down and new cages (in the period 1999-2010) but they are limited. But maybe I underestimate the power of voluntare schemes (such as BCC) nowadays, or the increasing consumer demand for cage-free eggs. This may make it more gradually indeed.

In any event, as a result of this sudden transition in 2009-2011, Flanders provided a transition period for the ban on enriched cages at 25 years starting from 2011 (so 2036). You can see their calculation here on page 36. This was to ensure that almost all enriched cage infrastructure would be written off and companies would not have too much loses. The Netherlands followed a similar reasoning.

So I still think your two-step approach is only a good idea if you are certain the second ban will be implemented within 20 years time. And that's not likely to happen in practise. Look at the EU, where we banned battery in 1999 and now time is running out to ban enriched because of the infrastructure lock-in. Between now and 2032, many companies will change their first generation enrhiced cages, which makes a ban on cages all the less likely to happen soon.

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-18T17:49 (+3)

Figure 3 of the report you linked from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) does show the transition from conventional to furnished cages happened just in 3 years in the EU, from 2009 to 2011. Very interesting. I did not know it happened so fast.

However, I do not think this implies keeping hens in cages in the EU will be banned from either 2032 or 2052 on. If this was the case, I would have expected bans in the EU to all start in 2032, whereas there are many timelines. 1992 for Switzerland (this one is not relevant for our discussion because it happened before 2012), 2020 for Austria, 2021 or earlier for Luxembourg, 2023 for Iceland, 2027 for the Czech Republic, 2028 for Wallonia (a region of Belgium), 2029 for Germany (2026 for non-exceptional cases) and Slovenia, 2030 for Slovakia, 2035 for Denmark, and 2036 for Flanders (a region of Belgium). Colony cages are still allowed in the Netherlands, and I am not aware of a ban on all cages having been announced there. Did I miss it?

In any case, do you think EU's global influence is sufficiently strong to determine what to advocate for in Africa and Asia? I agree it would not make sense to advocate for furnished cages, for example, in China if this could undermine a ban on cages there from 2032 on (because the new furnished would still be very early in their lifetime then). Yet, I do not see situations like this coming to pass. I expect Africa and Asia to become cage-free at least 20 years after the EU does. So I believe there is time for new furnished cages there to operate for their full lifetime of 20 years.

Joren Vuylsteke @ 2026-02-18T22:08 (+4)

Impressive overview - thanks for sharing this!

And I very much like your idea (20 years enriched before total ban) but only if we make sure there are no second generation enriched cages. And I think the EU situation is now showing us this is difficult to achieve.

The EU countries you mention (BE, FR, GE, SL, SL, DK and CZ) are in the good scenario. If you start counting from 2010-2011 (built date of most cages) these countries all impose a transition period that is 15 years or more, which confirms my assumption that they took into account the infrastructure costs of those cages built in 2010-2011. I think the Luxembourg ban entered into force in 2020 (act of 2018) but I believe they did not have any cages anymore by then.

The problem lies with the other EU countries. If they (or the EU) do not ban enriched cages before the moment most companies invest in a second generation of enriched cages (around 2030-2032), I think we are stuck with these cages for at least another 10-15 years. Banning these second generation cages before they are written off (or at least for most part) seems politically/economically impossible.

"Colony cages are still allowed in the Netherlands, and I am not aware of a ban on all cages having been announced there. Did I miss it?"

No, you are correct. But I believe the infrastructure lock-in is the main reason why NL has these colonies instead of a total ban on cages. When Dutch politicians started pushing for a total ban on cages at the time, the minister asked experts to calculate the cost. And they pointed out that it would really hurt all those companies that had just transitioned from battery to enriched and invested in new cages (leading up to the 2012 ban). So the ban was off the table and eventually the political compromise was to allow transition from enriched to colonies, but only in 2021 to soften the blow. I think this again illustrates the problem of this lock in.

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-19T15:42 (+3)

Thanks for the very relevant sources you have been sharing too. I strongly upvoted your initial comment because I have found this thread valuable.

The report you linked exploring the consequences of banning enriched cages in the Netherlands (here is an English translation) says conventional cages had fully depreciated in 2012.

Generally speaking, the majority of cage rearing systems were built between 1995 and 1998. 1999. With a depreciation period of 15 years, these systems had an average book value of zero in 2012.

2012 is when the ban on conventional cages in the EU started. So the above supports your take that cages will only be banned when they are near the end of their lifetime. However, I do not think this means a ban on cages in the EU will start, for example, in either 2032 or 2047 (= 2032 + 15). I think it just means the ban will have to be announced 15 years before it enters into force such that the economic loss is minimised. This is in agreement with the report above.

The total financial loss from the inventory of enriched cages, cages to be enriched, and rearing cages is €11.8 million. The loss calculation is based on a ban effective in 2012. If the period of use is shorter or longer, the financial loss will also be proportionally higher or lower. If the ban were to take effect in 2017, the financial loss would be €2.1 million. If the end date were to be postponed to 2020, the financial loss would be €0.7 million. In 2022 [15 years after 2007, when the report was published], the financial loss will be zero because the inventory, after a 15-year depreciation period, will have a residual value of zero.

As a result, if the EU announces a ban on furnished cages in 2026, I guess it will only start applying to all cages (instead of just new cages) in 2041 (= 2026 + 15) or so. Here is an estimate of the economic loss from shortening the transition period. From Table 1.1 of van Horne and Bondt (2023), the housing cost for furnished cages is 3.39 2021-€/hen, 4.84 $/hen (= 3.39*1.22*1.17). For hens with a lifespan of 70 weeks (WFI assumes "60 to 80 weeks for all systems"), 1.34 hen-years (= 70*7/365.25), the housing cost of furnished cages is 3.61 $/hen-year (= 4.84/1.34). I estimate there were 149 M hens in furnished cages in the EU in 2024. So I think renewing all furnished cages in the EU would cost 538 M$ (= 3.61*149*10^6), 1.20 $/citizen (= 538*10^6/(450*10^6)). I speculate 50 % of the value can be recovered via exporting the cages to countries outside the EU. Consequently, for cages fully depreciating in 15 years, the cost of shortening the transition period by 1 year would be 17.9 M$ (= 538*10^6*(1 - 0.50)/15), 0.0398 $/citizen (= 17.9*10^6/(450*10^6)).

As a side note, the calculations for the Netherlands did not account for the possibility of exporting the cages.

Because the systems are permitted in other EU countries, it is possible to sell enriched cages, and to a lesser extent, enriched cages, on the international market. Any potential proceeds from such a sale have not been taken into account in these calculations.

Joren Vuylsteke @ 2026-02-19T16:57 (+3)

Agreed on the 15 years. My good/bad scenario was a bit too black/white indeed.

And good point on export. FYI: p. 10, 30-31 of the Flemish study also explains that it did not tak into acount the exporting option (because lack of data). But the study does mention that they did some interviews with companies and they replied that they were not eager to export outside EU because they did so with the battery cages at the time and this increased competition they considered unfair. Not very scientific of course but this makes is very difficult to argue (in a political) that export should be taken into account.

Max Taylor @ 2026-02-18T14:37 (+3)

Thanks for sharing Vasco! On the point about public support - sadly I don't think that Welfare Footprint's data will be enough to convince people about these kinds of reforms. I think welfare reforms have to almost immediately make intuitive sense for them to receive mainstream public support. E.g. organizations have been doing a great job trying to popularize the term 'Frankenchickens' as a way to make the welfare issues of broiler chicken breeding more salient, but that's still been a really heavy lift and comparing two different kinds of cages seems even harder.

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-18T16:20 (+3)

Hi Max. I very much agree WFI's estimates alone will not be persuasive to the public. However, I wonder whether it would be possible to communicate the importance of nests, perches, and litter. The EU banned conventional cages. So at least some decision-makers and citizens in the EU had to prefer furnished cages over conventional cages. Maybe these were people that engaged more with the topic, and such level of engagement cannot be reached as a result of public campaigns targeting companies. In this case, as I say in the post, "there may still be room to advocate for political change in more authoritarian countries like China where companies are less subject to public pressure".

Mia Fernyhough @ 2026-02-18T17:25 (+7)

Vasco, I have read your analysis on advocating for furnished cages with great interest - thanks for posting it. While I appreciate the rigorous attempt to quantify welfare impact using a cost-effectiveness framework, I believe the resulting conclusion—that we should pivot to advocating for furnished cages—relies on a clinical interpretation of data that conflicts with the biological and operational realities of egg production & hen welfare.

As a welfare specialist with experience measuring these systems on-farm, I would like to offer a counter-perspective on why furnished cages are not a "stepping stone," but a strategic dead end.

1. Improvement vs Acceptability

Your model suggests that furnished cages capture ~70% of the welfare benefits for a fraction of the cost. This relies on the premise that welfare is a linear scale where "less suffering" equals "adequate welfare."

This is a false comparison. A furnished cage might be cheaper to install & run than a cage-free aviary, but it fails to solve the fundamental problem. To use an analogy: A bicycle is significantly cheaper to buy and run than a car, but if your requirement is a 100km daily commute, the bicycle is not a "70% solution"—it is functionally insufficient.

Similarly, while a furnished cage is empirically better than a barren battery cage, it still abjectly fails to meet a hen’s most basic ethological needs. It provides a slightly less bad life, but it does not provide a life worth living. It offers almost no opportunity for positive experiences or pleasure (let alone basic needs), which are critical components of any welfare assessment. I’m interested to understand how you accounted for positive experiences?

2. The Reality of "Furnishings" - and a correction re cage standards

You mention that furnished cages in the EU require specific resources, such as "at least 250 cm² of littered area per hen". This is incorrect. That specific requirement is for non-cage systems.

The requirement for furnished cages is "litter such that pecking and scratching are possible." In practice, this usually manifests as a small area of Astroturf. On farm, we see these resources failing consistently:

Nesting: The "nest" (not 1 per 7 hens as suggested in your post) is often just a curtained corner. It lacks the seclusion hens are highly motivated to seek, and because space is so limited, these areas are frequently dominated by higher-ranking hens, blocking access for subordinates, resulting in stress and frustration
Perching: The perches in furnished cages often have limited head height and hinder movement around the cage. Birds resting on them are frequently disturbed or displaced by active hens because there is nowhere else to go.
Dustbathing: This is a high-priority behavior for hens. It is simply not possible in a furnished cage.
Claw shortening devices: these are required because the hens can’t engage in appropriate floor scratching behaviour , which would lead to natural claw shortening

Advocating for furnished cages would amount to welfare washing. It allows the industry to claim they have "reformed" the system by adding token resources that do not meaningfully improve the bird's subjective experience.

3. Infrastructure lock-in

You argue that advocating for furnished cages could "create momentum" for global efforts. I strongly disagree. I think it would present a strategic risk.

Producers operate on long investment cycles. If we convince a producer in a developing market to invest millions in furnished cages today, we are not creating a stepping stone; we are cementing a ceiling for the next 20 years. Once that capital is sunk, the economic incentive to upgrade again to cage-free vanishes.

We have seen in Europe that welfare in cage-free systems improves over time as producers gain experience. The cage-free system has a high ceiling for welfare potential; the furnished cage has a very low one. By advocating for the latter, we are complicit in locking millions of birds into a system that the rest of the scientific & advocacy community recognises as negative for welfare. I am in total agreement with you that advocating for furnished cages would decrease the cohesiveness of the existing community working to improve the lives of laying hens globally

Conclusion

Your calculation determines that furnished cages are "cost-effective", but it prioritises economic efficiency over the subjective experience of the animal. A system that denies a bird the ability to dustbathe, escape aggression, or experience pleasure should not be considered a welfare reform (rather a system reform), regardless of what the data says.

We should not dilute the global standard. Cage-free is currently the only commercially feasible option that meets what the scientific welfare and advocacy community almost unanimously recognises as the minimum threshold for acceptable welfare.

Angelina Li @ 2026-02-18T22:33 (+5)

I am really glad for your engagement on this question, Mia! I found this part of your comment interesting, especially the bolded part:

We have seen in Europe that welfare in cage-free systems improves over time as producers gain experience. The cage-free system has a high ceiling for welfare potential; the furnished cage has a very low one.

Do you have a quick explanation for why this is the case? I guess it makes sense intuitively to me (e.g. cages impose a fixed physical restriction on how much space a hen can have).

It is also really interesting and encouraging to hear that you think welfare in some cage-free systems is continuing to improve over time. I didn't realize that! If you have a quick sense for how much you think welfare is empirically improving in the European context, I would find this very interesting.

No worries if you don't have capacity to respond :)

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-19T09:27 (+4)

Hi Angelina.

It is also really interesting and encouraging to hear that you think welfare in some cage-free systems is continuing to improve over time.

Relatedly, Schuck-Paim et al. (2021) "conducted a large meta-analysis of laying hen mortality in conventional cages, furnished cages and cage-free aviaries using data from 6040 commercial flocks and 176 million hens from 16 countries". Here is how they describe their findings in the abstract.

We show that except for conventional cages, mortality gradually drops as experience with each system builds up: since 2000, each year of experience with cage-free aviaries was associated with a 0.35–0.65% average drop in cumulative mortality, with no differences in mortality between caged and cage-free systems in more recent years. As management knowledge evolves and genetics are optimized, new producers transitioning to cage-free housing may experience even faster rates of decline. Our results speak against the notion that mortality is inherently higher in cage-free production and illustrate the importance of considering the degree of maturity of production systems in any investigations of farm animal health, behaviour and welfare.

Angelina Li @ 2026-02-19T15:11 (+4)

So interesting, thanks! :)

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-18T19:26 (+2)

Thanks for looking into this, Mia.

This relies on the premise that welfare is a linear scale where "less suffering" equals "adequate welfare."

I do not rely on the concept of "adequate welfare" in my analysis. I estimate welfare from "time with positive experiences"*"intensity of positive experiences" - ("time in annoying pain"*"intensity of annoying pain" + "time in hurtful pain"*"intensity of hurtful pain" + "time in disabling pain"*"intensity of disabling pain" + "time in excruciating pain"*"intensity of excruciating pain". My assumptions for the pain intensities imply each of the following individually neutralise 1 fully-healthy-chicken-day:

10 days of annoying pain, which I assume is 10 % as intense as hurtful pain.
1 day of hurtful pain, which I assume is as intense as fully healthy life.
2.40 h of disabling pain, which I assume is 10 times as intense as hurtful pain.
0.864 s of excruciating pain, which I assume is 100 k times as intense as hurtful pain.

It [a furnished cage] provides a slightly less bad life, but it does not provide a life worth living.

"I estimate that hens in conventional (battery) and furnished (enriched) cages, and cage-free aviaries (barns) have a welfare of -1.79, -1.09, and -0.798 chicken-QALY/chicken-year". Values below 0 imply more suffering than happiness, and, in this sense, lives not worth living. At the same time, I estimate the welfare per chicken-year increases by 39.1 % (= (-1.09 - (-1.79))/1.79) when chickens go from conventional to furnished cages.

It [a furnished cage] offers almost no opportunity for positive experiences or pleasure (let alone basic needs), which are critical components of any welfare assessment. I’m interested to understand how you accounted for positive experiences?

I speculated chickens have positive experiences when they are awake, and not experiencing hurtful, disabling, or excruciating pain. In addition, I guessed the positive experiences to be as intense as hurtful pain. WFI will publish a book this year with estimates for the duration of positive experiences for 4 levels of intensity. I am looking forward to these, and may use them to produce updated estimates for the welfare of layers.

You mention that furnished cages in the EU require specific resources, such as "at least 250 cm² of littered area per hen". This is incorrect. That specific requirement is for non-cage systems.

Great catch. I copy-pasted from the wrong place. I have corrected that sentence of the post to the following.

Each laying hen in a furnished cage in the EU must have “a nest”, “litter such that pecking and scratching are possible”, and “appropriate perches of at least 15 cm”.

Furnished cages must have “litter such that pecking and scratching are possible”, but no minimum area is specified.

Advocating for furnished cages would amount to welfare washing. It allows the industry to claim they have "reformed" the system by adding token resources that do not meaningfully improve the bird's subjective experience.

Very interesting. Does that mean you very much disagree with WFI's estimates implying that chickens experience significantly less pain in furnished than conventional cages (illustrated in the 2nd graph of my post)? They calculate there is 64.0 % (= (431 - 155)/431) less disabling pain per hen in furnished cages than in conventional cages. Maybe you think WFI's estimates only hold water under idealised conditions which are rarely present in practice? @cynthiaschuck, do you have any thoughts on how having more realistic generalisable studies would change the comparison between conventional and furnished cages?

Producers operate on long investment cycles. If we convince a producer in a developing market to invest millions in furnished cages today, we are not creating a stepping stone; we are cementing a ceiling for the next 20 years. Once that capital is sunk, the economic incentive to upgrade again to cage-free vanishes.

I agree. However, advocating for furnished cages could still make sense in regions which are only expected to become cage-free in more than 20 years, like some countries in Africa and Asia?

ASuchy @ 2026-02-21T08:25 (+3)

I like the style of promoting this conversation! Thanks for starting it.

A few additional points that might be useful.

Furnished cages typical lifespans are considered to be 15-25 years. If there is uncertainty and financial strain, it is likely that this will be pushed to the further end of that and beyond it. A typical response I've heard regarding the shift away from cages is something like "the farmer is going to keep this going as long as they can and then retire".
Beyond just the systems, the houses they are built in have lifespans of around 50 years. Due to different needs for cage vs cage-free systems, a house built for a cage system may not be able to easily or at all be converted to house cage-free systems.
@JamesÖz 🔸 points about advocacy cost and public support resonate with me. My understanding is where we have seen furnished/larger cages pop up, like in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea briefly in the US. This hasn't been an advocate push. The push has been for cage-free and the industry has lobbied to have that lowered to furnished/larger cages.
@Mia Fernyhough point about any cage putting a cap on welfare improvement resonates. I see
@Joren Vuylsteke shared a chart of the change and I think by starting from 2009, it misses some of the shift to cage-free which was already happening in advance of that. I can share a chart in DM if anyone would like. ~50M was cage-free in 2003, ~75M in 2006. Countries like Germany leading this.
Overall, one of the strongest things points from my perspective is being aware that there are definitely waves of change in the systems that we can benefit on focussing on. These waves are also present in the US, where changes in standards happened around the year 2000. I think advocacy in many places has the power to shift the choices when change needs to be made. Ie a laying hen system needs to be replaced/refurbished, the obvious choice then being cage-free. This from my perspective is one of the key differences and increased challenge in doing broiler work, these moments of capital investment do not occur in the same way as in cage-free. And where loans for new 'higher welfare' buildings (capital cost) is a clearer investment case when it comes to cage-free, the same situation is not present for broilers where the costs are almost exclusively related to operating costs (feed etc).

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-21T10:08 (+3)

Hi Alex. Thanks for the summary and additional points.

Furnished cages typical lifespans are considered to be 15-25 years.

I agree with this range. This assessment of the economic impact of phasing out furnished cages in Flanders analyses depreciation periods of 20 and 25 years in Figure 7, whose translation to English is below.

This report exploring the consequences of banning enriched cages in the Netherlands (here is an English translation) discusses "a depreciation period of 15 years".

Beyond just the systems, the houses they are built in have lifespans of around 50 years.

I assume this is not a determinant factor. Otherwise, I would have expected economic assessments to consider a longer depreciation period than 15 to 25 years, and transition periods longer than this too. Across 10 bans in Europe, I got a time between the annoucement of the ban until it starts applying to all systems ranging from 4 to 28 years, with the mean being 12.2 years.

@JamesÖz 🔸 points about advocacy cost and public support resonate with me. My understanding is where we have seen furnished/larger cages pop up, like in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea briefly in the US. This hasn't been an advocate push. The push has been for cage-free and the industry has lobbied to have that lowered to furnished/larger cages.

I wonder whether some sympathy from animal advocates towards furnished cages relative to conventional cages was needed to get furnished cages. Without that sympathy, in cases where cage-free was not really on the table, the outcome could have been conventional instead furnished cages? If so, animal advocates could still advocate for cage-free, but make it clear that furnished cages are better than conventional cages.

@Mia Fernyhough point about any cage putting a cap on welfare improvement resonates. I see

Did you mean to add something else? The sentence above does not end with a dot.

@Joren Vuylsteke shared a chart of the change and I think by starting from 2009, it misses some of the shift to cage-free which was already happening in advance of that. I can share a chart in DM if anyone would like. ~50M was cage-free in 2003, ~75M in 2006. Countries like Germany leading this.

Eyeballing Figure 3 of this report from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the one below which Joren was referring to, there were around 80 M cage-free hens at the start of 2009 in the countries in the EU today, 60 M in barns, and 20 M in free-range. In addition, it looks like there were 220 M in cages, which implies a total of 300 M (= (220 + 80)*10^6), of which 26.7 % (= 80*10^6/(300*10^6)) were cage-free. The EU banned conventional cages 3 years later. It looks like around 10 % of laying hens in China are cage-free. So I wonder whether there are tractable ways of pushing for a ban on conventional cages there, or more states in India.

Overall, one of the strongest things points from my perspective is being aware that there are definitely waves of change in the systems that we can benefit on focussing on.

Agreed.

ASuchy @ 2026-02-21T11:00 (+3)

I assume this is not a determinant factor. Otherwise, I would have expected economic assessments to consider a longer depreciation period than 15 to 25 years, and transition periods longer than this too. Across 10 bans in Europe, I got a time between the annoucement of the ban until it starts applying to all systems ranging from 4 to 28 years, with the mean being 12.2 years.

I've been looking at this housing part more in the US and that high A-frame era of barns was then followed by 'manure belt' farms around the 00's. I am of the understanding that many of the A-frame era barns no longer exist and are replaced by new cage-free barns. Whereas the 'manure belt' era farms are likely the ones still with cages in them. I see what you mean about the bans in Europe. Two things on that, 1. In all the cases you're describing there was a shift from battery cages to enriched cages. So that is two eras of cages potentially in one overall housing unit. 2. I think there is also additional years in advance of a ban to be considered, markets, particularly now on cage-free in Europe have shifted significantly in advance of the bans announced and I think the same thing is happening in countries we will soon see bans from.

I wonder whether some sympathy from animal advocates towards furnished cages relative to conventional cages was needed to get furnished cages. Without that sympathy, in cases where cage-free was not really on the table, the outcome could have been conventional instead furnished cages? If so, animal advocates could still advocate for cage-free, but make it clear that furnished cages are better than conventional cages.

I've not seen that sympathy expressed. Not saying it isn't or wasn't there. I think this might be more a result of the power struggle.

Did you mean to add something else? The sentence above does not end with a dot.

Probably, but I forget what :-)

Eyeballing Figure 3 of this report from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the one below which Joren was referring to, there were around 80 M cage-free hens at the start of 2009 in the countries in the EU today, 60 M in barns, and 20 M in free-range. In addition, it looks like there were 220 M in cages, which implies a total of 300 M (= (220 + 80)*10^6), of which 26.7 % (= 80*10^6/(300*10^6)) were cage-free. The EU banned conventional cages 3 years later. It looks like around 10 % of laying hens in China are cage-free. So I wonder whether there are tractable ways of pushing for a ban on conventional cages there, or more states in India.

Yes, there are definitely opportunities to be found. I think part of that is identifying the waves and power. China went rather rapidly from non-intensive egg production cage-free. 90's was the first wave of this, and then there was a bigger push to industralize and move to cages in the 00's. I'm hopeful about work in China creating positive changes for laying hens.

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-21T13:08 (+2)

1. In all the cases you're describing there was a shift from battery cages to enriched cages. So that is two eras of cages potentially in one overall housing unit. 2. I think there is also additional years in advance of a ban to be considered, markets, particularly now on cage-free in Europe have shifted significantly in advance of the bans announced and I think the same thing is happening in countries we will soon see bans from.

Makes sense.

JoA🔸 @ 2026-02-16T18:11 (+3)

Thanks, Vasco, very helpful! I've asked myself this question a few times, and I hadn't even considered the cost aspect while doing that. I also expect that there will be some informed considerations in the comments highlighting some counterarguments to this that I haven't considered yet.

Vasco Grilo🔸 @ 2026-02-16T18:17 (+5)

Thanks, Joseph. The post is a bit in the spirit of Cunningham's Law. "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer", although I do ask a question in the title.