I was actually surprised to see the results of Prop 2.  I thought it may have been a closer race.

Proposition 2 was a California ballot proposition in that state’s general election on November 4, 2008. It passed with 63% of the votes in favor and 37% against. The ballot measure was officially known as the Standards for Confining Farm Animals initiative statute. The official title of the statute enacted by the proposition is the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act. The proposition adds a chapter to Division 20 of the California Health and Safety Code to prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs. The measure deals with three types of confinement: veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates.

The statute will become operative on January 1, 2015. Farming operations have until that date to implement the new space requirements for their animals, and the measure will prevent animals in California from being confined in these ways in the future.

The LA Times stated The head of the Humane Society of the U.S., which sponsored the campaign, said farmers would adjust to meet an increasing demand for eggs from cage-free birds. “For them to say ‘we’re all going out of business because we have to let the birds stretch their wings’ is absurd,” said Wayne Pacelle, the group’s president.

In addition, California imports a third of the shelled eggs it consumes from out-of-state producers, which are not subject to the new regulations. A new study from the UC Davis Agricultural Issues Center said there would be no reason for a jump in the price of those eggs. 

But Ryan Armstrong, an egg farmer in Valley Center, Calif., predicted he would have to leave the state rather than convert to cage-free housing. “We haven’t quite figured it out. We’ll probably in the next month or so let some employees go and slim down our operations,” Armstrong said Wednesday. “Our goal is probably not to stay in the egg business.”