The article in Tuesday's Colorado Daily about CU's push for cage-free chickens ("Group: CU should go cage-free," Dec. 8) is interesting but missing the point. The activists who are pushing CU to switch to cage-free eggs clearly have their hearts in the right place, but not the facts: As was printed in Elephant the other day, and is basically common knowledge, cage-free eggs are not really any better ethically than your average dozen.

Seeing footage and knowing how egg-producing chickens are actually treated is enough to turn someone off eggs -- the familiar story of chickens kept in skin- (or feather-) tight cages, in the dark with clipped beaks raised on antibiotics -- makes eating many foods a big dilemma.

Thus, cage-free seems like a good idea; however, as Jonathan Safran Foer writes in his book "Eating Animals," it is now widely known that cage-free eggs are really just as cruel, as the chickens in question still have the same amount of space (about 67 inches) in which to live their whole lives, except that they are all crowded together in a big shed, thus being "cage free."

Most male chicks even in the cage-free environment are tossed into jaws of death since they will never be egg layers. This is sad, and does not warrant the extra expense for the so-called "cage-free" eggs. "Organic certified" are still OK, according to an article in Christian Science Monitor, but "animal care certified" is basically a bogus term.

So, the best place for CU activists to place this compassionate intent towards animals may be into the next frontier of egg production -- well the old frontier, really -- raising chickens ourselves for their eggs. This can be accomplished easily in Boulder, as, unlike in Longmont, keeping chickens in the back yard is legal. Omelets and pets in one package!

Just Google "urban chicken" to get hip to the eggvolution.

Instead of asking CU to spend thousands of dollars to change its menu to another possibly slightly lesser-evil ingredient, perhaps some funds can be put towards researching the best way to keep urban chickens in Boulder, and implementing sustainable systems for students, like a chicken farm included in off-campus dorms or research stations which perhaps the biology or ecology department would be also able to dig out some grant money for.

Ignorance of the truth doesn't help either animal activist or those who want to keep plugging along in the same old outdated system of consumption.

Annie Shapiro

Boulder