Fri, Nov 21, 2025 page4

• Animal group pushes cage-free chicken farms

  • By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
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  The Environmental and Animal Society of Taiwan yesterday urged the government to ban building more henhouses with cages and begin a 10-year transition to cage-free status to improve animal welfare in line with international standards.

  The society this year examined eggs sold through outlets of Taiwan’s four major retailers.

  PX Mart Co underperformed the most in animal welfare, as nearly 80 percent of eggs available at its stores nationwide were cage-raised, it said.

  

  An official takes samples to test for pesticide at an egg farm in Changhua County, home of the largest caged chicken farms in the country, in an undated photograph.

  Photo Courtesy Of Changhua County Government

  PX Mart also went back on RT-Mart International Ltd’s cage-free egg commitments made in 2021 after acquiring the company and rebranding it as Mega PX Mart in August, causing its cage-free eggs to decline from 37 percent in 2021 to 7.14 percent this year, the report said.

  Carrefour Taiwan pledged to source 100 percent cage-free eggs by the end of this year, but only its upscale supermarket chain Mia C’bon has achieved the goal, it said.

  Its budget hypermarkets and supermarkets were halfway toward the goal, and whether the pledge would be fulfilled after it was taken over by Uni-President Group remained to be seen, the report said.

  Costco Taiwan is moving toward the goal of 100 percent cage-free eggs set by US-based Costco Wholesale Corp last year, but its 48 percent achievement this year lagged far behind its South Korean counterpart’s 100 percent, it said.

  City’super Taiwan, a Hong Kong upscale supermarket chain funded and operated by Far Eastern Group, in 2018 set the target of sourcing 100 percent cage-free eggs by this year and has achieved about 50 percent, the report said.

  However, the company quietly removed the pledge originally published on its official Web site and refused to reply to queries from the society and animal rights groups based in Hong Kong, it said.

  Society deputy executive director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said that cage rearing ruins hens’ physical and mental health, and many countries are planning to abolish the approach, particularly since the EU implemented a ban in 2012.

  Western countries such as Switzerland, Finland and Germany, as well as 10 US states, have banned cage rearing, while Asian countries including South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines have adopted regulations to promote industrial cage-free transition, she said.

  About 75 percent of egg farms in Taiwan still use cage rearing. The biggest production line is in Changhua County, where eggs with excessive levels of the pesticide fipronil sulfone were identified two weeks ago, Chen said.

  Some egg farmers would secretly spray the pesticide at henhouses with cages to prevent hens from ceasing egg laying due to illness, as the tight spaces and accumulated bodily waste make it impossible for them to move freely and clean themselves, she said.

  Chen called for substituting cage-free floor systems — also known as barn systems — for cage rearing, as the manure at such systems would become sandy, lose its odor and can be processed into organic fertilizers.

  Switching from cage rearing to barn systems can reduce costs not only because the total manure weight would decline by about 80 percent, but also because the land area required for flat floor housing would be only half of the henhouses with cages used for the 40 million hens nationwide, she said.

  Research from the society showed that barn-laid eggs are not as expensive as imagined, as they cost about NT$7 to NT$13 each at retail outlets, Chen said, adding that some cage-reared eggs are even more expensive.

  The government should follow the international trend of phasing out cage rearing by banning constructing or expanding henhouses with cages as soon as possible, and set a 100 percent cage-free egg target over the next decade, Chen said.

  It should assist egg farmers with technological transformation and require retail giants to stick with their targets of zero cage-reared eggs, she added.
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