Calming the Flap over Crowded Henhouses

Chad Gregory, senior vice-president of United Egg Producers, didn’t tell members of the nation’s biggest egg lobby when he met secretly last year with their longtime nemesis: Wayne Pacelle, chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States. “I thought I could lose my job over this,” says Gregory. “But I didn’t want to spend the next 20 years fighting.”

More to the point: Gregory didn’t want to lose another fight to Pacelle. In 2008, California voters approved a ballot measure requiring egg producers to give hens more room in their coops, just one of numerous Humane Society-backed efforts over the past decade to crack down on farmers raising livestock in cramped quarters. Pacelle’s group won over Californians with TV ads that juxtaposed images of hens freely roaming in pastures with footage of birds packed into fly-infested indoor cages, struggling to flap their wings. When the Humane Society vowed to do the same in the 24 states that allow referendums, Gregory decided he needed to do something drastic—or egg producers risked losing control over their industry as each state imposed its own restrictions.