An image of pink chickens crowded together in a rickety cage appears on the homepage of cagefreemaryland.com under a heading that reads: “University of Maryland’s Eggs: Cruel Enough to Make you Sick.”

The website — which is sponsored by The Humane League, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit animal-rights organization — features one of several petitions circulating the university community asking that Dining Services purchase only eggs harvested from cage-free chickens.

This petition follows the recent national panic over salmonella-contaminated eggs, declaring that chickens confined to the cramped cages typical of traditional poultry farms are more likely to produce infected eggs because of the unsanitary conditions.

Ever since an Iowa farm recalled more than 380 million chicken eggs over the summer for possibly carrying the salmonella bacteria, many students said they are concerned about their eggs.

But Dining Services officials said about 30 percent of its eggs are, in fact, cage-free. However, it uses primarily eggs in liquid form that are not from cage-free chickens. Because liquid cage-free eggs are more expensive, it is financially impossible to make the switch.

“With regard to the liquid egg, there is a tremendous price differential that we continue to look at between caged and cage-free,” Dining Services Director Colleen Wright-Riva said. “As the market gets better, that might be something that we’d explore. But on that one product alone, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars to switch from the liquid eggs that we buy now to a liquid egg that is a cage-free product.”

If keeping chickens in confined spaces increases the risk of contamination, several students said they appreciate what the petition is trying to accomplish.

“It’s wrong to keep chickens in horrible conditions and to put us at risk of salmonella,” sophomore education major Marissa Troiano said. “I didn’t realize this was happening. I’m against it, and it’s terrible.”

Cagefreemaryland.com claims the eggs the university buys are “filthy, cruel and unsustainable.” Representatives from the organization, who have been patrolling the campus collecting student signatures, said they plan to present the petition to Wright-Riva.

Sophomore hearing and speech major Alyssa Cook said she signed one of the petitions because she doesn’t like the idea of mistreating animals when an alternative method exists.

The university has always used some shelled eggs and some liquid eggs, but after a similar petition from the Humane Society of the United States circulated last semester, Dining Services agreed to only use shelled eggs that are cage-free, Wright-Riva said.

According to cagefreemaryland.com, “hundreds of other colleges and universities have already made a switch to cage-free, including local schools like The University of Maryland – Baltimore County, Johns Hopkins, American University, Gallaudet University, St. Mary’s and others.”

But Wright-Riva, Gray and Dining Services Assistant Director Bart Hipple all said such a drastic change is not in the cards for this university.

Chickens that are raised in crowded cages come in contact with the waste products and feces from all the birds kept in the same area, which is the primary route of exposure to salmonella.

But despite the widespread fears of the disease, Wright-Riva said there is “no possibility” eggs used in on-campus dining halls are contaminated because the bacteria die when the eggs are cooked.

“It has been my experience in 10 years as a director that the egg supply is very safe in general,” Wright-Riva said. “I don’t think that cage-free or non-cage-free really changes the risk factor of salmonella. That’s not a driving force in my decision-making. The activists may feel that way, but I don’t necessarily agree with that.”

Some students, however, said they still have doubts and are hesitant to eat any eggs that may be contaminated.

“I think that once it’s cooked, the salmonella is usually killed,” said Juliet Meltsner, a sophomore microbiology major. “But I’m still pretty concerned. This could be serious.”

“I’m worried enough about this to make the dining halls cook my omelet a little bit longer than usual,” Cook added.

egan at umdbk dot com