Does 'cage-free' mean a better life for chickens?

It's not a clear choice which of the possible living conditions for egg-laying hens -- enriched cages, cage-free systems, free-range setups -- serve them the best. The philosophical question of whether animals deserve any kind of moral consideration has been debated at least since the ancient Greeks. Cage-free and free-range systems clearly do a better job of allowing hens to express behaviorsthat are similar to those of wild jungle fowl. They can move around, and they have better opportunities for scratching, dust bathing and foraging. However, in comparison to enriched cages, hens in cage-free and free-range facilities suffer injuries simply because they move around more. Access to the outdoors often means that predators also have access to hens, and some are inevitably taken by hawks, foxes or the like.