Saint-Nazaire-en-Royans (France) (AFP) – A few feathers on the ground, a stripped iron frame and the word “battery” fading on old numbered panels. Outside the shed, remains of cages pile up in dumpsters: in a few months, the redeveloped building will now house its chickens on the ground.

Published on: 09/30/2026 - 10:38 Modified on: 09/30/2026 - 12:03

So-called cage-free eggs, "it's the demand, we have to produce what sells, it's in the spirit of the times", explains breeder Yvan Moréon, 57, to journalists during a visit organized by the egg inter-profession (CNPO) in Hostun, in Drôme.

His company, which raises chickens and packages their eggs, mainly sells to wholesalers who supply out-of-home catering (restaurants, canteens, etc.) or sometimes to manufacturers.

These categories mainly consume eggs code 2 (chickens in buildings but on the ground) and 3 (chickens in cages). In supermarkets, the French prefer free-range (code 1) or organic (code 0) eggs, which together represent half of the French market.

The inter-professional organization has set itself the objective of moving to 90% of hens outside cages by 2030, compared to 78% today in France. Of the remaining 147 buildings with cages, the majority have planned work to meet this schedule, according to the latest CNPO survey.

30 euros per hen

Last July, the European Commission promised that it would publish a proposed animal welfare law at the end of 2026 for poultry farms, citing a "transition towards cage-free farming systems" and the abolition of the crushing of male chicks. This practice is no longer authorized in France and cages are also prohibited in new buildings.

This European promise arrived after several years of waiting from animal welfare defenders, who had gathered 1.4 million signatures in 2021 as part of a citizens' initiative calling for the abolition of cages.

For Yves-Marie Beaudet, breeder and president of the CNPO, the European calendar will be largely respected by France, engaged in a "voluntary" approach: if the project is submitted at the end of 2026, it will perhaps be voted on in 2028 with a transition which could take up to ten years... On condition of convincing rather reluctant countries, such as Poland, because they are very dependent on cages for their production.

Yvan Moréon and his son Andréa have decided to transform one of their four buildings each year from 2025 at a cost of 30 euros per hen, or some 1.2 million euros per building of 45,000 hens.

The cost of a new building today exceeds 50 euros per hen.

“Educate” the chickens

The work will last four months to redevelop the building before the arrival of the pullets (young hens), who will need a month to acclimatize to the aviary and learn to lay eggs in the nests. They will stay there for a little over a year before going to the slaughterhouse.

For six months, the breeder and his son deprived themselves of a quarter of the production because of the work. As during periods of "crawl space" between two batches of hens, they compensate by buying eggs elsewhere, even in the Great West, the main producing region, to package and resell them.

This allows them to make profitable the three million euros invested in recent years to automate the grading and packaging of eggs in their mini factory.

Yvan Moréon optimized the redevelopment of the buildings to be able to put as many chickens on the ground as he previously had in the cages.

Organization possible thanks to the wide aisles between the old two-story batteries. Usually, moving from cages to the ground causes breeders to lose between 10 and 20% of hen places, with the number of square meters per hen being regulated: 13 hens per square meter in cages, compared to 9 on the ground.

“In a building with chickens on the ground, you have to be more attentive, it’s more technical,” explains Andréa, 23, third generation of breeder in the family. But it also takes "more time", especially when the chickens arrive when they need to be "trained". And a little more money because they consume more food.

© 2026 AFP

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