Hickman’s Family Farms

 Cheryl Evans / Arizona Republic 2013

PHOENIX — State lawmakers are moving to ensure that all eggs sold in Arizona come from cage-free hens.

But the 6-5 vote Monday by the House Committee on Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs comes not necessarily because lawmakers want happier hens or think the current practice of cages of less than one square foot per hen is cruel.

Instead, it’s because the owners of Hickman’s Family Farms, the state’s largest egg producer, figure that House Bill 2525 is less onerous than an initiative that could get on the 2022 ballot.

That initiative, being promoted by World Animal Protection, would not only require cage-free systems by May 2023, but would make violations a crime.

Company president Glenn Hickman said he would rather have the legislation that gives him until 2025 to come into compliance, with no criminal penalties.

HB 2525 simply says that after that date the only eggs available to Arizona consumers would have to come from cage-free hens, whether the eggs were laid here or elsewhere.

Company lobbyist Joe Siig said he has been assured by World Animal Protection that it will not pursue its initiative if this bill is passed and signed into law.

Hickman’s support for the measure, which he said would cost him an indeterminate amount of money, was crucial to the measure getting out of the committee. He has the only egg production facility in Arizona that would be affected, as the proposal by Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, does not affect any operation that produces fewer than 3,000 eggs a year.

“Confining chickens to less than one square foot, I think, is really cruel,” Kavanagh told lawmakers. “Granted, they don’t have very high levels of sentient awareness.

“But they feel pain, and they’re prevented from engaging in natural and instinctive behaviors, even to the point of spreading their wings or being able to sit down when they lay their eggs,” he said.

Kavanagh pointed out his proposal would not mandate that all eggs come from free-range hens, which would also require that hens have access to the outdoors at least part of the day.

Instead, think of large barns — up to 300,000 square feet — where the hens could wander about. Hickman said it would allow hens to “express their natural behaviors.”

“They can perch, they can use a nest box, they can scratch, dust bathe, all of those kinds of things,” he said.

Hickman said while he still produces some eggs from cage-confined eggs, some of his clients already are moving away from that. He said those include Costco and McDonald’s, both of which want cage-free eggs.

But Hickman said he would rather do it on the schedule in HB 2525 than what the initiative would require. And he said the initiative group has a 100% success rate in getting its measures approved.

None of that convinced Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Payson. She lashed out at out-of-state interests who use the initiative process “to change the hearts and minds of people who have no idea where their eggs come from and don’t know the difference between different kinds of milk.”

Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, said approving this under the threat of an initiative amounts to government being “held hostage by what I call a terrorist organization.”

That still left some lawmakers with one question for Hickman: Are eggs from cage-free chickens of higher quality than those from their more-confined cousins? He said there’s no simple answer.

“You feed the chickens the same,” Hickman said. It’s like brown versus white eggs, with no real difference, he said.

“But there are some studies that suggest that chickens who have less stress tend to have more natural defenses, immunities, if you will, and are therefore healthier,” he continued. “And that would translate potentially into maybe a different composition of egg.”

Maybe.

“You’re making some scientific leaps,” Hickman conceded.

The measure now needs House approval.

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