That’s right.  Seems the egg producers got tired of being “it”, so they tagged someone else.  (Pork?) 
Are the egg producers out of money or out of fight?  They got a pretty good deal if you want to look at it this way: IF Congress passes a law that doesn’t kick in until 2030, every current chicken house will be more than 100% depreciated.  The next 19 years will just be “business as usual”. 
But, and it is a big “but”.  They just gave HSUS a ton of credibility and more clout in fundraising. The cost of new housing will be small compared to that.

I’m getting the tired of the HSUS. Can’t they find real issues to spend their time and money on? Like… how are we going to provide food for double the world’s population in just a few years?  Why do these crazies think animals are equal to people? We want to eat meat, have pets, and raise beef. Leave us alone.

This is great. Both HSUS and UEP gave a lot of ground and made a very reasonable compromise that is in the best interest of large-scale farmers, consumers, and the animals. My only concern is that small, independent farmers were once again left out of the bargaining table.

Boy am I glad we bought our own pullets this year. With all this ridiculousness the price of eggs is going to skyrocket. We have the land to keep them, but I sure pity the poor people who won’t be able to utilize this rich source of protein in their diets at a reasonable price. Our dozen hens have an outdoor fenced yard, so I guess they are free range, but we had to put wire floor and roof on it to keep the predators out. It’s certainly not as the the AR folks would like to think though because those chickens are cannibals. Every day we have to spray half the flock with purple stuff because if one drop of red blood is showing they attack each other until the victim is dead. Then they eat it. I wish I was rich enough to be one of those evil factory farmers who could keep four or so hens together where they could live their lives peacefully, eating, sleeping and laying eggs without constantly running for their lives from their “sentient” sisters. Where, oh where, has common sense fled? If you want free range eggs, from chickens who eat all kinds of filthy stuff, and each other, by all means purchase them. If you want a cheap source of protein for your family, for goodness sake, let the farmers who can produce it do so. Let the farmers who know what they are doing, farm. And let the tree-huggers, who think they know it all, go hug a tree somewhere. It won’t hurt the tree, and the tree won’t give a darn. This old lady is tired of the know-it-alls telling everyone else what to do.

United Egg Producers better beef up their constitution and by-laws so that HSUS representatives cannot gain positions of power within their organization.  HSUS is already operating this way in our legislatures, city and county governments, vet schools and law schools.  It is one thing to deal with the fox, quite another to invite the fox into the henhouse.  (My apologies to foxes!)

Victory snatched from the jaws of weakness is still victory.  The most important result of this agreement is the likelihood that it will set a precedent for federal regulation of farm animal care standards: Those who are familiar with the federal Animal Welfare Act (covering breeding of dogs and assorted other pets and lab animals) will be able to judge how that works. 

For egg producers this will be ‘peace in our time’ though just as in the original there be only temporary peace.  (Roughly until the industry has spent the money to convert to the new system.) The metaphore for other animal agriculture is ‘thrown under the federal/animal rights bus.’

How many farmers—or other citizens, for that matter—believe we need to be expanding the reach of the federal goverment just now?

Independent egg producers, the rest of animal ag, and citizens generally need to mount a campaign against the idea of a federal law about henhouses.

and the APHIS director is a former HSUS attorney. the stage should be set for HSUS to be extremel-l-l-y careful. Maybe retire now before the house comes down on WPs head.

To paraphrase Mike Rowe;  They’re (the chickens) warm in the winter, cool in the summer, they have plenty to eat and drink, they don’t have to combat predators, parasites, disease, or cannibalism - which part is inhumane?

It’s too bad that these idiot activists chose modern agriculture for their road to riches instead of, say, hungry children in the US, or funding some of the marvelous inventions created to replace our dependence on oil.

As late as Summer 2010 Wayne was gloating about how Prop 2 meant California was the jewel in the HSUS crown of cage free chickens.

http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2010/07/california-egg-bill.html

Now HSUS is removing links to every saying that as quickly as they can.

Of course no Californian voted for cage free eggs. Prop 2 required the conditions that enriched caging provided. But that wasn’t good enough for old Wayne. When one of the largest chicken ranches in the state switched over two chicken houses to enriched colony caging, Wayne went on record to say basically - we’ll see you in court.

Now HSUS is retreating from it’s own front. This is in no way, shape or form a win for HSUS. It’s a embarrassing defeat.