2024 State of the Egg: Colorado Cage Free Law

It seems like for the last few years I’ve written on this topic every winter.   We have a good stock of winter eggs here on the farm, but if your watching the eggs at the store you are probably seeing lots of change.

Especially in Colorado, we are seeing shift in the egg market again. There are several factors to this. The new “Cage-Free” egg law and Avian Flu are the two that are most unique to eggs. Things like increased feed, labor, transportation, and packaging costs are seen across so many markets. 

In July of 2020 House Bill 20-1343 was signed into law, which requires all eggs produced and sold in the State of Colorado to meet cage-free requirements. Making Colorado the second state behind California to enact this law. Since then Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, and Rhode Island have followed suit.

January 2023 started the transition period, requiring producers to start working towards ‘cage-free’ production. 

January 1, 2025, all Colorado producers with more than 3,000 hens must comply with cage-free facilities. All retailers selling more than 750 dozen eggs a week have to stock and sell cage-free eggs.

It’s estimated that these changes have increased production costs by about 30% for egg factories. That 30% cost increase is being passed on in one direction…The consumer.

If you’ve been following me very long you know that I don’t consider Confinement Animal Feed Operations to be farms but rather factories. I believe that bids raised in barns with 30,000-50,000 birds in a single building are a factory, not a farm.

But wait!! If they are ‘cage-free’ aren’t they not confined? I know that’s what we all want to think when we see “Cage-Free” on the label. Tomorrow I will talk about what it means to be cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised. I know if you are reading this, you most likely already have a good understanding, but I find these definitions and explanations help educate others. 

The other major factor in the Colorado egg market is Avian Flu. Almost 2 million egg-laying hens were ‘depopulated’ (killed) this year due to avian flu exposure in large egg factories in Weld County. I believe even with improved cage-free housing for chickens it is still nearly impossible to maintain truly healthy animals when they are in barns with 10’s thousands of other birds and no access to sunshine, clean soil, and fresh air. I think we will continue to see large numbers of bird losses due to avian flu in confinement operations. And since sourcing eggs from other states is harder now given the state’s requirements for cage-free the costs of eggs at the grocery store will continue to rise.

Any time we start the see supposed supply shortages in the grocery store, I always check the USDA food storage report. This time it’s showing fewer eggs available than a year ago. There have been times I’ve seen it the other way. We’ll be told there is a supply shortage while the USDA is reporting that the egg industry is holding a larger than average reserve. This is a rabbit hole I’ll take us down another day. But the concept speaks volumes to what happens when our food system is controlled by a few hands.

As for eggs here on the farm? 

We have a wonderful winter supply. We adjusted the timing on our replacement flock this year. Starting them in April so they were laying their first eggs are we hit the autumn equinox and days were getting shorter. They have continued to lay well as we head into the shortest days of the year. 

In less than 2 weeks the days get longer and we’ll start seeing even more eggs. We have not adjusted our egg prices in over 2 years and right now we intend to keep them as is. We have strived to keep our egg prices consistent while continuing to raise our birds the way we always have. They are out traveling the pastures in the WinniEggos every day possible in our climate.

In the winter months, we mimic the pasture and allow them to continue their natural tendencies in the hoop houses. They get hay and grains daily to provide both nutrition and the activity of scratching and pecking as they do on pasture. They are still getting sunlight and fresh air. 

Over the next few days, I’m going to address why eggs deserve more respect, the nutritional benefits of eggs, the increased nutrients in pasture-raised eggs, and how the “need” for commercial egg production could end. 

I could go on for days on this topic and I’m going to 😀  Hope you join me

Aila

You can order your pasture-raised farm eggs here or come by the farm anytime (in the winter months between 9 am-8 pm) to grab eggs.