Egg products served at ASU dining facilities may soon come from chickens raised in more natural habitats.
Students from the Student Animal Legal Defense Organization are trying to convince ASU Campus Dining officials to purchase eggs only from chickens raised in free-range conditions.
This comes on the heels of a broader effort by the Humane Society of the United States to get cage-free egg policies established in food stores and universities across the country.
Reasa Haggard, president of the group, decided to lobby for cage-free eggs at ASU after she learned about the brutal conditions for chickens living in cages.
"About 98 percent of the 300 million laying hens in the United States are confined in barren, wire 'battery cages' so restrictive the birds don't even have enough space to spread their wings, turn around or lie down comfortably," she said.
The chickens' beaks are cut off at birth to prevent them from attacking each other in the cages, Haggard said, adding that the confined quarters help lead to weakened immune systems and make the chickens more prone to catching viruses, such as the Avian influenza that recently broke out in China.
Haggard said ASU should take a cue from UA, Marist College, and other institutions that have moved toward implementing cage-free egg policies. She added she believes ASU could set a great example for others if it implemented the policy.
Using cage-free eggs could encourage farm settings where chickens could engage in more of their natural behaviors, Haggard said. Adopting this policy could also improve the quality of the food humans get, Haggard said.
"In these cages, they have to give these chickens a lot more antibiotics to keep them in these very close and crowded surroundings, so eggs from cage-free chickens are actually healthier," she said.
A few weeks ago, Haggard took her campaign directly to Ben Hartley, general manager for ASU Campus Dining. Hartley said that because he works for a division of Sodexho USA, one of the nation's largest suppliers of food for college campuses, there are "some pretty specific rules about what [they] can buy and who [they] can buy it from."
Product liability insurance would have to be taken out, and potential suppliers' facilities and distribution systems would have to be inspected to make sure their products were safe for consumption, Hartley said.
The manufacturers also would have to offer a competitive price for their product so that students would not have to begin paying a lot more money for products made with eggs, Hartley said.
"I would hate to say ... unfortunately your breakfast burritos are now going to cost $8 instead of $2," he said. "I don't know if that does the students as a whole much justice."
However, Haggard said she felt the cage-free eggs would not be much more expensive and that students would be willing to support more humane choice for the animals.
"I think it's kind of logical to assume that given the option, students would rather eat eggs from animals that have been treated humanely as opposed to an animal that lives in a cage in darkness," she said.
But bioengineering sophomore Brandon Deason said most students don't care about the process that brought their food to the table.
"I just get the eggs and eat them," Deason said. "I don't really think about where they come from or the conditions of the chickens that lay them."
Reach the reporter at grayson.steinberg@asu.edu.
