Hens in Pens and What Humane Should Mean

 Whenever I see something like eggs or meat advertised in the grocery store “humanely treated” it, like most people, makes me happy. But it also makes me mad that so many animals we farm are treated terribly to the point that we think it's an exception when they're not treated badly. Yes, it's a whole lot cheaper to cram as many animals as will physically fit into one space, but it would also be cheaper if people only walked places and never went on vacation. If we spend money to make ourselves comfortable, then can't we afford just a little to make animals healthier and more comfortable? When animals are penned and caged too closely together, they spread diseases more easily, and it's more likely to make the people who eat them sick. Many people say that you can taste the difference between an egg laid by a well treated hen and one from a badly treated hen. If people can taste when animals are unhappy, I think that it's really time to change things.

Hens in a commercial cage free farm

I'm really grateful that some places are actually treating the animals well, but doing the right thing should not be something special. Humans are not the only thing that matters, and everyone needs to realize that. Just because humans are the smartest animals does not mean by far that we are the most important. Everything else can feel to, and if we're breeding animals just to eat them, the least we can do is to make them happy. It's the same thing with products that are advertised as being made by people who were paid well and not mistreated. How can money matter more than health and happiness? It's not like the big commercial farms are going to go out of business if they let the animals out of their barns and cages. They would still have a lot of money. I can't see how someone can go to bed after working on a commercial farm and not feel terrible. Worst of all, usually eggs that are labeled cage free, if they're commercial, come from hens packed so tightly in barns that you can't see the floor, and the eggs cost more. If you do buy from farms that actually treat all of the animals humanely, everyone thinks it's great, but hardly anyone thinks it's bad when you buy from places that don't treat animals well. Packaging should stop trying to say that their animals are treated nicely when they're not. Humane should mean that the animals can go wherever they like, eat the food that they're meant to eat, and be happy. Inhumane should not be the standard. Cruelty should not be what everyone is used to.

--Luna