Egg Fight Breaks Out Over Chicken Welfare Law

Industrywide, chickens are now provided an average space the size of an 8-by-11 sheet of paper.

The new regulations approved in November don't take effect until 2015, but the egg fight has already come to roost in the state Capitol, where lawmakers are being lobbied by producers to clarify the requirements and address the added cost to meet them.

"You still have an industry in denial," state Sen. Dean Florez, chairman of the Food and Agriculture Committee, told The Associated Press after a hearing this week.

Though last year's ballot measure didn't specifically call for cage-free hen houses, the Humane Society of the United States admittedly sponsored and wrote it so no currently available cage systems could meet the requirements.

"Cage-free was what we were talking about," said Jennifer Fearing, who guided the Proposition 2 campaign for the organization.

In a 63.5 percent landslide last November, eight million voters decided the state's 19.4 million confined, egg-laying hens must have room to stand up, turn around and extend their wings.

California egg ranchers contend the requirements will add a penny to the cost of every egg and could put them out of business as they try to compete with operations in other states that don't face the same rules.