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App not listed? Try this RSS linkIn this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan are joined by Amber Canavan of PETA — and her rescued hen, Rosemary — to discuss PETA’s newly released white paper on the failures of cage-free egg labeling. Amber breaks down the gap between consumer perception and the grim reality of cage-free facilities and offers her conclusion that humane-washing labels are actively deterring people from going vegan. She also outlines how activists can take action on the Farm Bill’s dangerous Save Our Bacon Act and a hidden provision that would use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the fur industry.
- Cage-free isn’t cruelty-free: PETA’s white paper, based on peer-reviewed studies and government reports, reveals that cage-free hens still face overcrowding, poor air quality, higher rates of pecking, and barn fires — conditions Rosemary herself survived before being rescued.
- Humane washing may be blocking veganism: Labels like “cage-free,” “free-range,” and “certified humane” are among the most common reasons people give for not going vegan, making label accountability a critical front in animal advocacy.
- Legal pressure is growing: PETA is pursuing FTC complaints, cease-and-desist letters, and consumer protection litigation over deceptive egg and animal product labels — and is actively seeking people who feel misled at peta.org.
- Oppose the Save Our Bacon Act: Already passed in the House, this Farm Bill provision would strip states of the ability to ban the sale of pork derived from gestation crates and foie gras — contact your senators now by calling them at 202 224-3121 and by using PETA’s action alert at peta.org.
- Stop taxpayer subsidies for fur: A tucked-in provision (Section 3201[d]) would allow the struggling fur industry to use federal funds for foreign advertising — call your senators and oppose this section.
RESOURCES
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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Jasmin Singer: Welcome to the Hen Report. This is Jasmin Singer,
Mariann Sullivan: This is Mariann Sullivan.
Jasmin Singer: And today we have an actual hen for The Hen Report, which is so exciting, and a human that goes with the hen. Uh, we'll get, we'll get to Amber and Rosemary in just a second.
I'm so excited. Uh, could go on and on about why I'm so excited, but we'll get to that in a moment.
So just a quick reminder about the Our Hen House podcasts. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report, which is this, on Thursdays, and the long form interview on Fridays. Bonus content for flock members comes out on Mondays. We are a podcast, we're on YouTube, so subscribe, hit like, and comment wherever you listen.
We are so delighted to welcome our wing person, wing man, this week, since it is none other than Amber Canavan, who has been on the podcast more than once, but way back in the day when she was getting arrested for doing undercover and rescue work at Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Now she's with PETA, and she's here to do a quick update on various things, including PETA's position on cage-free egg production, and also to again remind everyone to call their senators regarding the Farm Bill. But most importantly, I think, Amber is being joined by Rosemary, and so if you're not watching this on YouTube, you're gonna want to. Uh, Amber, welcome back to Our Hen House, and Rosemary, welcome to Our Hen House.
Amber Canavan: Thank you so much. It's great to be here, and Rosemary seems pretty happy about it too.
Jasmin Singer: Seriously, I can't believe it's taken us this long to have a hen on The Hen Report, but can you tell us who Rosemary is before we get into the questions we have for you?
Amber Canavan: Rosemary was part of, I wanna say, a historic massive rescue of hens from a cage-free organic farm in Oregon that was shutting down, and she is one of 435 hens who were pulled, um, from that facility and are now living out their lives in, uh, reputable sanctuaries and adoptive homes, and I was lucky enough to adopt Rosemary.
Jasmin Singer: And she was lucky enough to wind up with you. What a sweetheart, my goodness. All right. I might have more questions about her , I admit, but why don't we start with this? Tell us about this recent white paper.
Amber Canavan: Yeah, so earlier this year, PETA released a white paper about the failures of cage-free labels and cage-free standards, and it's pointing out that the image that people may have in their minds about what cage-free means for hens, uh, doesn't quite match the reality behind the scenes of what these egg producers are still able to do, and also points out that whenever you're mass raising animals for food, whether it's, you know, meat, dairy, or eggs, there's always a trade-off.
So whenever you try to tweak something in that system, uh, there are trade-offs to the hens' welfare. Some of which, you know, Rosemary and her flock mates were dealing with, which I, you know, happened to see in person, um, during that rescue. So some conditions, you know, are very, very bad for them, and I can go into that.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Can you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the things you saw?
Mariann Sullivan: Things that you saw, but also things that are, are widespread within the industry, uh, 'cause I'm assuming the place that Rosemary was living was not aberrational.
Amber Canavan: Right. Um, so you know, Rosemary, just like other birds being raised in cage-free conditions, are still raised in these massive sheds with tens of thousands of other birds. PETA has done investigations into cage-free facilities and, you know, found 20,000 hens are crammed into a shed, and instead of the, you know, walls of the battery cages, it's just a wall of other birds, the bodies of other birds that are just surrounding them constantly.
Studies have also found that, you know, since the birds are moving around on litter and the feces gets kicked up into the air, the air quality can be worse. Rates of, of pecking can actually be worse, so you know, birds unfortunately cannibalizing each other from the stress of their environment, and a bunch of other things that I can't even get into.
The rates of barn fires is also higher because of the particulate in the air. Um, Rosemary herself, uh, she's, you know, a beautiful plumage now. Uh, she was plucked almost bare... Ooh, she wants to show us. Okay, there we go. Um, so I mean, she was plucked almost bare entirely on her back end, uh, when she was rescued, and now she's doing well.
But, she also was spared one of the more common things in cage-free, um, if she might come over to show us in a second. Uh, but she was not debeaked like most hens in the, uh, egg industry are, whether they are come from cage-free or from conventional or battery cage facilities. So again, they were spared that horrible pain of having the tips of their beaks, uh, chopped or burned off, uh, but then of course the injury from being pecked by other stressful hens, um, was worse.
Mariann Sullivan: How did you do the research for the white paper so that people would think it's not just PETA telling us this, it's... this is real information?
Amber Canavan: So the white paper was, um, compiled from peer-reviewed studies and government reports on the industry, um, as well as, you know, just looking at the United Egg Producers... Yes, I know. Um, looking at the, uh, United Egg Producers' cage-free standards as well is, is quite illuminating, where you can, you know, see exactly what is and isn't allowed, um, by those standards.
Jasmin Singer: Speaking of the standards, do cage-free systems vary? Are some worse than others?
Amber Canavan: Yeah. So, you know, aside from the standards themselves, you know, management can, can vary quite a bit.
Mariann Sullivan: Can I just interrupt you for a second? By the standards themselves, you mean the United Egg Producers' standards? Is that what you're referring to?
Amber Canavan: Yes. There of course are, you know, different standards, like companies might have different standards.
Mariann Sullivan: Right. Different companies have different...
Amber Canavan: So Rosemary came from a facility where they were already reducing the population of hens. So it was, you know, much smaller flock size and flock density than even, you know, most cage-free standards allow. And, you know, the living conditions for her and the rest of the flock, even in this like half empty shed, um, was still, you know, not something that any living being should be subjected to.
Um, and I can only imagine how much worse it was for these birds when that shed was actually you know, fully stocked to what the industry is allowed to do. Um, so for context for these birds, that means between one square foot of floor space and one and a half square feet of floor space per bird.
Um, and as you can see, that doesn't allow... it technically allows them to be able to turn around and and open their wings. Um, but to be able to actually do that without bumping into or jostling another bird is a, is another story. Um, and I think that's something that people aren't really thinking of when they hear, you know, the, the benefits of cage-free.
Um, what does it actually mean for the daily life for these birds? And how, uh, intelligent and feeling and what their needs actually are, are just not being, um, met by cage-free standards. And I think that, uh, when, uh, you know, even I worked early on on cage-free campaigns. I actually, uh, canvassed for the Massachusetts cage-free law, um, way back in the day, and unfortunately, that, that cage-free law would've been one of the strongest in the country.
It actually got rolled back to be in line with Prop 12. So, um, unfortunately, I think the hope was that we'd have cage-free standards and that, uh, eventually we could get stronger and stronger standards and kind of regulate the industry out of profitability and, you know, out of business while we were, you know, pushing for vegan eggs and, and everything like that.
Um, unfortunately, what we're seeing is that the stronger cage-free standards have actually been rolled, rolled backwards, in the case of the Massachusetts cage-free law.
Mariann Sullivan: Can I just return to that standards question? I just-- So there are standards in some, in some of the laws, in some of the states that have passed, which is very few s- a, a few states. I mean, there have been a few, and they might have standards. Then there's United Egg Producers, which is of course the big industry, uh, I don't know, trade group, and they have standards. And then there are individual companies that rather they either have their own standards or they sign on to, uh, some third-party, uh, regulator. And are all those standards very different? Are they all similar? When you say it's between one and one and a half, are those the outside limits for all of the standards?
Amber Canavan: Good, good question. So most of the state laws, as far as I know, are on the 2017 United Egg Producers cage-free standards. Um,
Mariann Sullivan: Okay, so that's all the same?
Amber Canavan: That's all the same. Yep. The one square foot to one and a half square foot actually has to do with whether the hens are provided with vertical space or not. So if they are not provided with vertical space, it is one and a half square feet of space.
If they provide vertical space, which is like, you know, a roosting bar up on the machinery, um, they can provide as little as one square foot of floor space.
Mariann Sullivan: Are the individual companies that are selling at a premium or the, um, third-party certifiers like, um, I, I forget it's
Amber Canavan: Certified humane...
Mariann Sullivan: Are they also one square foot or do they vary all over the place?
Amber Canavan: So there can be some variations among companies. Um, so for instance, uh, Nellie's Free Range, uh, again, that's free range, not, um, cage-free, um, but they'll maybe provide like one and a half, uh, you know, square feet of space even though they only had to provide 1.2 square feet of space, and then they get to say that,
you know, they're above industry standard, um, which,
Mariann Sullivan: Right.
Amber Canavan: is that really significant?
Um, but it allows them to be able to make that, that claim.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I mean, I'm not making the argument that, that it's ok.
I, I just trying to clarify like where, where the, what the standards are and how people would know and, and, uh...
Amber Canavan: That, that's kind of the thing too is that, um, there are so many, um, labels out there, and it's confusing, and it's also misleading.
Jasmin Singer: So you mentioned that you used to do some cage-free, or you have done, uh, some cage-free campaigning. Uh, we have this in common. I did back in 2007 or 2008, Prop 2, I was with Farm Sanctuary at the time, so my messaging was different than at, at the time they were called HSUS, who were, uh, touring with us throughout California, and I was always saying, you know, "And go vegan," and giving out the vegan recipe guides.
But at the end of the day, I was campaigning for the ca- the, you know, the, r- welfare reforms. And I just wanna say, uh, that Our Hen House is founded on kind of the idea that there is no one right way to change the world for animals, and so I'm not making a statement on what is or isn't effective 'cause I kind of have no idea, and we've been doing this for 16 and a half years. But I will say that I think that people should be true to themselves and their-- and, and where they feel comfortable putting their energy. And with that said, I would not work on cage-free again. I'm not saying it's, like, negative for others to. Uh, I have a sign in back of me that says, "Liberation." And, um, I, I don't think anyone listening to this podcast would be deceived that cage-free housing is okay. Mariann likes to call it a higher circle of hell, which I think expresses the idea that maybe some people think it's better than battery cages, but that that's hardly saying very much. What about you? Are you taking the position that it's not even always better than battery cages?
Amber Canavan: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lot of nuance here for sure. The white paper takes the position and, and, you know, PETA's views on this have evolved as well. You know, back in the '90s, you know, cage-free again, there was kind of this thought process that said, you know, again, we can like regulate this industry into the ground and it will not exist anymore.
Um, unfortunately, we have lobbying and very powerful industry interests, which I know we're gonna be talking about in a little bit when we talk about the Save Our Bacon Act and things like that. Um, but one, you know, we're seeing even when stronger standards are put into place, such as Massachusetts, and then they get rolled back to be in line with all of the others, so we're not seeing, you know, that progress that was made.
Um, so many companies now that made cage-free promises a decade ago have failed on them, and now even more resources are being, um, put into trying to get them to, you know, follow up on the promises that maybe the previous CEO three times removed made.
But to get back to the kind of core of your, your question is, one, you know, obviously the movement has limited resources, and we all have limited time as activists. Um, I'm glad I worked on campaigns, you know, 10 years ago and, and had that experience but, you know, I would not feel good personally campaigning to put Rosemary into the situation that she was living in, um, ever.
And on the other side of this, and one of PETA's main concerns is this rise of humane washing and the labels. Um, we've had to do so much work investigating farms that have these nice-sounding labels that sound like they are gonna be, you know, the best thing for animals to switch to, whether it is the GAP Animal Welfare, uh, labels, the cage-free, the free-range, and then we go and look behind the scenes and find that the animals are suffering sometimes even more. So our, uh, the GAP campaign for Whole Foods, for instance, our turkey investigation had one of the most amount of cruelty charges of any farmed animal cruelty case in the country, and that was a GAP-certified being sold at Whole Foods, for example.
Um, but the misleading nature and the humane washing, you know, I still do street activism myself, doing one-on-one outreach with the public to, you know, get a sense. And the most common objection I hear from people, aside from that they need protein, is that they, they buy cage-free eggs, and they buy stuff with the nice humane labels, and that is the most common excuse and objection that I hear from people.
It's having a powerful impact on preventing people, um, from taking that leap to go vegan.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that's really interesting. I, you know, I, I always kind of say that humane washing is not as big a concern as I would like it to be because a lot of people just don't seem to care at all. But your experience is that perhaps times are changing and people are paying more attention to these labels. Uh, you know, cage-free has now become a very major part of the movement, a very major campaign. People aren't going to just stop doing it. But I'm wondering, one of the things that PETA has done, and I'm wondering if this is part of your, your plan is, um, litigation. Because once you have something like cage-free, and once you have humane washing, you usually have lies that have been told, and that means that you usually have somebody who can be sued.
Is that, is that part of the plan?
Amber Canavan: Yes, we actually do have a form at peta.org if anybody feels like they or their family members have been misled by humane labels, and that includes cage-free, free-range, pastured, animal welfare certified, certified humane. I could go on and on. There's so many labels. Um, we are always looking for people to talk to who feel like they have been m- misled.
Um, PETA has also, you know, in addition to filing for, you know, cruelty complaints when we actually find illegal cruelty happening to animals, such as our, uh, GAP, uh, investigations, we've also filed FTC complaints. Uh, we've sent cease and desists to, uh, there were some celebrities who were promoting, uh, brands of cage-free eggs in a misleading manner.
We are looking into those avenues as well. Um, but unfortunately, the industries have found all the fun buzzwords that make the consumer more comfortable that are so broad and vague that they sound so feel-goody, but what do they actually mean? So for instance, free-range doesn't require that the animals got outdoors for any length of time.
It just requires that they have access to the outdoors. And if you check out PETA's, uh, Nellie's Free-Range investigation, our investigator found 20,000 hens crammed into a shed with these little pop holes on the side of the shed where they could go out to, like, a barren field. Um, and that doesn't really match the consumer expectation because they've already filled in their head what they think free-range is for the hens.
Mariann Sullivan: Well, not to get my totally favorite topic in the world but I still think there's openings for litigation, and I think that PETA itself has, has pursued some because the great thing about consumer protection litigation is even if there's a definition in the law that is deceptive, as with free-range, if the consumers are deceived, you probably can still sue.
So I think there's lots-- I, I think you should be suing everybody. I, I'm very excited about hearing about more cases.
And as I said, PETA has already brought a number of them, uh, so this is definitely something you guys are onto. And it's not ju- you know, they can't just say, well, the law says, the law says that free-range means this because they don't, they don't own the language and the law doesn't own the language.
If people think free-range means something lovely, then they have a problem. That's my spiel on hopes for more con- more and more consumer protection litigation.
Jasmin Singer: What do you hope will happen as a result of this white paper?
Amber Canavan: The white paper is really, uh, to get all that information all in one place, um, and also to, you know, spark what we think is a very important discussion we need to be having within our, our movement. Even before I visited this, uh, cage-free farm that Rosemary came from, I-- you know, you don't get the sense of, of how much of a literal factory farm these places are when you go to the store and you see, like, a carton that has, you know, a little girl with a hen sitting in her arms, and she's surrounded by tall grass.
Mariann Sullivan: I mean, moving on from, from whether anybody should be doing cage-free campaigns, I would say that most of our listeners are not into cage-free campaigns at this point. They're u- they're mostly run by these big, big, very well-funded effective altruism organizations. And, and, um, I would say our, our listeners are more likely to be grassroots supporters of veganism. And, um, just wondering in what ways PETA is assisting activists who wanna fight factory farming, who really are focused on eggs. Um, is it, is it just a go vegan campaign or do you have any special, special help for activists who are into this issue?
Amber Canavan: Yeah. So, you know, PETA has our, um, action team, which is the activist list that's meant for people who want to get, you know, more involved hands-on in activism, you know, more so than our amazing people who sign our action alerts and, and make calls and things like that, which again, I know we're gonna talk about soon with the Save Our Ba-Bacon Act and the Farm Bill.
Um, but, we have resources for people who want to get involved in advocating for farmed animals. Um, so right now we are piloting a program where people are, um, taking video footage, um, from cage-free facilities outside of places like Whole Foods, and we also have a fund, um, to give away, uh, packages or samples of like JUST egg so people can see how tasty and delicious vegan egg is since, you know, a vast majority of the public has never tried a vegan egg in the first place. Um, so that's also a big first step.
Mariann Sullivan: If there's anybody listening who hasn't tried it, I just want to say it's really g- it's a little pricey, but it's really, really good.
Amber Canavan: Yeah. we've been, um, giving away coupons and things like that as well for JUST egg 'cause, you know, again, people just need to try it.
Jasmin Singer: Let's talk about the, uh, Save Our Bacon Act because we keep kind of dancing around it and, and I, I think that one thing that everyone in the movement is, is agreed on, probably, is the Save Our Bacon Act. And, and we, we do want to offer an apology to our listeners because when we discussed the proposed act last week with Matt Dominguez, we weren't aware that the current version in the Farm Bill did not cover egg production, though its reach is otherwise very broad and it covers meat, including from birds, and milk production.
So sorry about that. So anyway, this isn't relevant to the cage-free issue, but it's still very important. Can you offer PETA's perspective on the Save Our Bacon Act and what people should do?
Amber Canavan: If people wanna take action, um, they should, uh, contact their senators. It already did pass the House, unfortunately, the other week. PETA does have an action alert on our website at peta.org to sign, and that will go directly to your, um, senator. But, uh, the Save Our Bacon Act, uh, in particular is part of the farm- the Farm Bill's obviously this very large thing that deals with-- so much stuff gets snuck into it.
It deals with budgeting and, and regulations and rules. And Rosemary's very angry about it. But, uh, the side of things that the industry is trying to sneak into the Farm Bill is basically allowing, um, the meat and, fur industry as well to gut certain regulations to their benefit. So it would wipe out states' abilities to ban things like gestation crates for pigs, where the pigs are kept unable to turn around for their entire pregnancies.
Um, it could also affect foie gras sales bans, for example. So the other side of the Farm Bill that has a lot of people worried is that the fur industry has lobbied to try to get something snuck in that would end a long-standing rule that said the fur industry cannot use its taxpayer funding for foreign advertising for their industry.
So basically, they want to be able to advertise American-grown fur farmed products in places like China, um, and you know, other parts of the world. And in effect, this would be a subsidy for the fur industry. It would be opening up all this, um, taxpayer money for the industry to market their products and try to get that industry reset, um, going.
So the fur industry has been struggling for years, for decades because of the great efforts by activists and organizations to make it less popular, to, you know, help regulate it through fur sales bans like passed in California. Um, but the vast majority of fur grown in the US is actually not sold domestically. So obviously, that would be-- no one wants taxpayer money going to the fur industry, and that is trying to be snuck in.
Mariann Sullivan: a terrible provision. And I just want to add too, I think that when you call-- I think you should call your senators in addition to filling out the PETA form. And, and I think you can safely say, "Don't pass the Farm Bill if it has the Save Our Bacon Act in it," 'cause they will know what that is. But for the fur provision, you might want to use the number, 'cause I'm not sure it has, it, it has a name, uh, like the Save Our Bacon Act does, and it's Section 3201D, D as in dog. It just infuriates me that they're gonna use our tax money to subsidize, uh, selling, selling fur.
Amber Canavan: Yeah. And, and, you know, this is like hopefully one of the last dying gasps of the fur industry. Um, I mean, most cities, if they don't have a fur sales ban in place, um, because of successes with, you know, getting Nordstrom and, and the big players, uh, that were selling fur just a few short years ago, um, to stop selling it, um, you know, we're very, very, very close here. But the fur industry is obviously pulling out all the stops to try to, to revive themselves.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, desperate last gasp
Jasmin Singer: Yeah, totally.
Mariann Sullivan: I really just wanna reiterate how important it is to call your senators. This is just... These bills are a disaster. A disaster. They really are just the last gasps of, of an industry trying to save itself by using your money.
So, um, so Yeah. I, even I will call, and you know how much I hate to use the phone. and, uh, and just, uh, Thanks so much to Amber, for joining us today to explain this to us, and explain what's going on with cage-free. Don't forget to watch our other podcasts. Rising Anxieties, comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report on Thursdays, and the long form interview on Fridays. Bonus for flock members comes out on Mondays.
And see you next time.
Jasmin Singer: Thanks to Rosemary too. Thanks, Rosemary.
Mariann Sullivan: Thanks, Rosemary!
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