Linda Valdez

opinion columnist

Do you think about the chicken when you crack an egg into the pan? I did. And it took me on a strange journey with an oddly happy turn – a turn that shows the power of people to change things.

It involved a long walk down a corridor in a cage-free chicken facility.

I could feel the poop collecting in little globules on the bottom of the disposable booties I had on.

I also wore a white bio-security jumpsuit, hair cap and plastic goggles.

The googles were for my protection. The rest was for the birds.

I was a biohazard

In this environment, I was a potential biohazard.

“We’re frightened to death of Avian influenza,” said Clint Hickman, Maricopa County supervisor and third-generation egg farmer.

A bit of contamination carried in on the bottom of a shoe is enough to cause the deaths of millions of birds. With 7.2 million laying hens in Arizona -- 10 million total in three states -- Hickman’s Family Farms has plenty to lose.

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So even after you get suited up, you still have to step in a vat of blue disinfectant before entering the chicken house.

The 3.2 million hens at the Tonopah farm are part of a state-of-the-art operation. All are housed either in “enriched” cages or cage-free environments.

This wasn't my first chicken tour

Clint Hickman’s nephew Brett Hickman – the fourth generation in the family egg business – is in charge of the cage-free operation that his uncle wanted me to see.

This wasn’t my first chicken tour.

Back in 2008, I wrote about factory farming and posed the question: At what point does this quest for efficiency undermine our moral authority as stewards of the planet?

Like many people, I am troubled by the idea that food animals are treated like units of production instead of sentient beings.

Clint Hickman responded with an offer to tour his family’s operation west of Phoenix.

It was efficient but disturbing

This was Hickman’s Arlington facility. There I saw the style of cages that became the focus California’s Proposition 2, passed in November 2008, to mandate more space for hens.

The chickens were housed in groups in small cages that were stacked high along corridors several football fields long. The eggs rolled onto conveyors and moved to a packing room. Beneath the wire mesh where the birds spent their lives, another conveyor moved the droppings out of the laying houses.

It was efficient. The birds looked healthy. But I didn’t feel good about it.

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Hickman insisted it was the best way to raise chickens.

To prove his point, he arranged for me to tour a cage-free farm in California.

About those pecking-order disputes

At this farm, I saw chickens running free in a large enclosure and laying eggs in their own excrement. I was told many suffered broken bones and cannibalism in pecking-order disputes.

I didn’t feel good about this, either.

I considered backyard chickens. But after a week of taking care of my vacationing neighbors’ birds, I decided chicken wrangling was not for me.

I couldn’t imagine how I’d handle it when they stopped laying.

Apparently a lot of people face the same dilemma.

Eat chicken and dumplings? Naw!

Hickman says his office at Maricopa County regularly fields calls from people wondering if the county has a refuge for aging backyard chickens. (It doesn’t.)

The solution involves dumplings. But many urban egg farmers make friends with their chickens.

That brings us back to commercial egg production.

When people created a demand for more humane treatment of chickens, big corporations jumped on board for the sake of good public relations.

McDonald’s, Target, Costco, Marriott Hotels, Campbell’s Soup and many others announced they would transition to cage-free eggs. For McDonald’s, that’s billions of eggs a year.

How to do cage-free right

This is a demand too big to ignore.

Clint Hickman said they decided to do cage-free right, and that’s what he wanted me to see.

As I walked that long corridor among these uncaged chickens earlier this month, some watched me from roosts at eye level. They cocked their heads to get a good look as I passed by.

The more nervous ones flew overhead or in front of my face, which made me grateful for the googles. Some scurried around my feet.

They lay their eggs in the nest boxes, which keeps the eggs clean.

It’s worth noting that these uber-domesticated birds instinctively use the nest boxes. That’s powerful evidence that even in modern mass farming operations, animals have innate desires to act like animals.

Finally, hens get to act naturally

The 10,000 chickens in each cage-free enclosure have the chance to engage in the behaviors that come naturally, and Brett Hickman says they don’t have a problem with cannibalism or broken bones in this facility.

Uncle Clint isn’t entirely sold. He favors the “enriched” cages, which offer more space, roosts and nest boxes. He says an enriched-cage environment is easier on workers. That might be true.

Brett prefers the cafe-free operation. He says these birds have a better life. That’s undoubtedly true.

The move toward cage-free chickens is the direct result of public pressure and consumer demand. It’s a victory worth remembering.

Because if we are what we eat, this cage-free facility makes us a little more humane.