And unlike some of the shortages causing empty shelves around the nation, the possibility of an egg deficit has Massachusetts politicians taking it badly .
All this stems from the democratic 2016 vote bill that some saw as supportive of food guard by mandating space requirements for certain grow animals .
Egg-laying hens got 1 and 1/2 squarely feet of floor space under the 2016 jurisprudence that was to become effective this month as regulations drafted by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey went live.
But during the summer, it became clean that few egg producers could meet the Massachusetts standard. State lawmakers jumped in with another law to reduce the minimum required for each laying hen to one square foot .
The switch would bring Massachusetts in production line with other states, bring more egg producers under the standard, and help alleviate an egg deficit .
Massachusetts voters in 2016 passed the jurisprudence for pigs, calves, and laying hens. It required that birds be able to spread both wings without touching the sides of enclosures or have 1.5 square feet of useable floor distance for each hen. Regulations were set to take effect this month, with the law ’ second effective date scheduled for Jan. 1, 2022 .
Senate Bill ( SB ) 2470 is going through the Massachusetts Legislature, which will besides take effect on Jan. 1, 2022. It changes the distance prerequisite to :
“ 1 square animal foot of available floor space per hen in multi-tiered aviaries, partially-slatted cage-free house systems, or any other cage-free house arrangement that provides hens with unchained access to erect quad. .. ”
Read more: Air Fryer Sausages
Massachusetts has to choose. The stream regulations and laws will mean a dearth of eggs because there will be few egg producers for the state of matter. The reason is their standard is out of synchronize with other states .
One of the largest testis producers serving Massachusetts is Hillandale Farms in nearby Connecticut. It is known for investments in cage-free aviaries under the 1-foot standard. More erect aviaries are more common now to allow birds to fly up, perch and roost .
The political campaign director for the 2016 ballot measure says the new charge is reproducible with the first step because voters supported giving hens adequate space to stand up, turn around, and lay down .
Massachusetts is among the states that have required some shape of cage-free house systems to replace alleged barrage cages. The European Union has banned barrage cages since 2012. Those systems cause benefit problems for hens .
Battery cages on average provide only 67 square inches of space per hen, about the size and determine of a desk draftsman — not enough space to in full open wings, let entirely to run, or jumpstart. Layer hens — entail chickens who lay eggs — are kept in these cages for the hale duration of their lives, where they lay approximately an egg per day until they are sent to the abattoir.
Read more: Instacart
battery cages are chiefly designed to achieve high density, by being stacked on top of one another. A single egg-producing grow may confine thousands of hens at a time in these stack cages .
While cage-free house is on the addition, battery cages in 2020 continued to hold about 74 percentage of the national layer hen flock, or about 243 million birds .
(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here .)
