PHOENIX — Arizona egg producers don’t have to create cage-free environments for their hens unless they want to, a judge has decided.
And it’s all because the owner of some Tucson restaurants claimed that it would cost him more.
In a new decision released Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney rejected arguments by the state Department of Agriculture that it has broad authority to regulate all matters of “poultry husbandry.” And that, said attorneys for the agency, includes the power to determine by rule that the long-standing practice of putting laying hens in cages — as small as 67 square inches — was no longer acceptable.
