Egg prices about to go up a bit more in Arizona due to new rules

Those already expensive eggs at your local grocer are about to get a tiny bit more costly, and potentially less available.

It's all in the name of humane treatment of animals.

New Arizona regulations that took effect at the beginning of the month require that laying hens kept in cages have at least one square foot — 144 inches — of usable floor space. Until now, cages could be less than half that size.

Also, beginning in 2025, all major producers must go to cage-free.

How much that will cost depends on how many eggs a year you eat. 

The state Department of Agriculture puts average annual per capita consumption at slightly more than 270 eggs a year. Figuring the new rules would add somewhere between a penny and 3.25 cents per egg, that comes out to somewhere between $2.71 and $8.79 a year.

But Chelsea McGuire, lobbyist for the Arizona Farm Bureau, which opposed the rule, thinks those numbers are soft.

At best, she said, they are speculative, as the full rules for cage-free housing are not in place. McGuire argued the estimates the state used didn't really take into account all the costs.

And she said costs are only part of the problem consumers will face since shoppers are sometimes finding no eggs available at any price.

Much of that is due to an outbreak of avian flu that requires farmers to destroy whole flocks even if just one hen tests positive. A ban on selling eggs from traditionally caged hens only adds to the problem, McGuire said.

"We're restricting the supply from which we can choose the eggs that we can bring into the state,'' she said, noting the rule affects not just Arizona-based egg producers but any firm that wants to sell eggs to Arizona consumers.

"We're locking producers into this premium product and doing so unnecessarily,'' McGuire said. She said it's all being done "without a public health or safety justification or a scientific justification.''

What's "necessary,'' however, depends on point of view.

Cruelty arguments

Some animal rights groups argued it's cruel to keep the laying hens in tiny pens.

McGuire sniffed at that contention. "Stress indicators on hens, things like that, are really no different between conventional confinement cages and cage-free production systems,'' she said.

That was not the assessment of then-Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, when he wrote Arizona legislation in 2021 to require cage-free housing by anyone producing more than 3,000 eggs a year.

"Confining chickens to less than 1square foot, I think, is really cruel,'' he told colleagues.

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"Granted, they don't have very high levels of sentient awareness,'' Kavanagh continued. "But they feel pain, and they're prevented from engaging in natural and instinctive behavior, even to the point of spreading their wings or being able to sit down when they lay their eggs.''

The Farm Bureau managed to kill that measure. But that didn't end the matter because the state Department of Agriculture concluded it already had the authority to approve its own rules. And that's what it did. 

Largest producer supported new rule 

It turns out the agency had an important ally on its side: Hickman's Egg Ranch, located west of Phoenix, the state's largest egg producer. Hickman's worried failure to take voluntary action would result in something more onerous.  

In 2021, when lawmakers were considering the Kavanagh measure, company President Glenn Hickman told lawmakers he was concerned voters would adopt an initiative being pushed by World Animal Protection.

It would not only have required cage-free systems by May of this year but would have made violations a crime. By contrast, the legislation — and the state rule that eventually followed after the bill failed — gives him until 2025 to come into full compliance, with no criminal penalties.

The company already has been moving into the cage-free market. Hickman told lawmakers in 2021 that some clients, including McDonald's and Costco, were demanding cage-free eggs. Also, other states already had enacted similar rules, meaning Arizona producers who want to sell their eggs elsewhere would have to go along eventually.

But Hickman's Egg Ranch told state officials it could not convert the remainder of its production facilities to cage-free housing by May 31, 2023, as would have been required by the World Animal Protection initiative, and might have to euthanize a portion of its flock to avoid criminal penalties if the ballot measure passed. 

The final Arizona rule is more liberal than what lawmakers had rejected. It exempts any producer that has fewer than 20,000 egg-producing hens.

It also does not require that all eggs come from free-range hens, which would have required that they have access to the outdoors at least part of the day. Instead, they can be kept in large barns of up to 300,000 square feet, where hens can wander about.

Higher-quality eggs?

McGuire, however, said she remains convinced none of this was necessary. She argued that Arizonans would have rejected the initiative for cage-free eggs.

The record suggests otherwise. Arizona voters in 2006 approved a ban on "gestation crates'' for pig and cattle ranchers.

And the Department of Agriculture cited "the success of recent animal welfare ballot initiatives in Arizona and elsewhere'' to justify the rule.

In debating the 2021 legislation, lawmakers asked Hickman if eggs from cage-free chickens are of higher quality than their more-confined cousins. He said there's no simple answer.

"You feed the chickens the same,'' Hickman said. He said it's like brown versus white eggs, with no real difference.

"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. And that would translate potentially into maybe a different composition of egg," he said, though he added, "You're making some scientific leaps."