Chicken OUT! was launched by the Vancouver Humane Society in 2002. After many years of raising awareness and educating the public about the plight of battery caged hens, we achieved some real improvements for hens starting in 2007 when cities and schools began implementing our recommendation to go cage-free. In other words, we encouraged them to adopt purchasing policies that favoured the purchase of eggs from free-range hens, and to stop buying eggs from hens confined in cages.

 

Cage-Free Campuses

To date, The Vancouver Humane Society’s Chicken OUT! campaign has encouraged 16 Canadian post-secondary institutions - including UBC, SFU, McGill, Guelph and Ottawa - to adopt cage-free egg purchasing policies for their campus food facilities.

 

Cage-Free Communities

City councils are also embracing cage-free initiatives. To date, 15 communities in BC – including Burnaby, Richmond,Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler - and two communities in Ontario have demonstrated their opposition to battery cage eggs. The Metro Vancouver Regional District also adopted a cage-free egg policy for its headquarters cafeteria.

 

Cage-Free Companies

Our work with the food distribution industry has encouraged Compass Group Canada to adopt a cage-free egg purchasing policy as part of its overall sustainability plan.

 

Cage-Free Restaurants

VHS is now working with restaurants to encourage them to switch to cage-free eggs as well. We believe that a cage-free egg policy should be as widely accepted and practiced within the restaurant community as “Fair-Trade Coffee” and “Oceanwise seafood” policies. In Vancouver alone, there are over 80 restaurants that serve cage-free eggs.

 

See our Campaigns section for more information about each of these ongoing programs.

 

Help Us Help the Hens

Making the switch to a more humane product is a simple task that each one of us can do to significantly improve the lives of animals. If you would like your city, school, corporate café or your favourite restaurants to go cage-free, we’d love to help – send us an email to info@chickenout.ca.