Campuses are starting to follow a trend of harvesting eggs from chickens kept in barns.

STORRS, Conn. (AP) – Bobbing in a pan of steaming water, the hard-boiled eggs served at the University of Connecticut’s Whitney Hall seem unremarkable.

But to students such as Emily Sullivan of Newington, the presence of those eggs is an important social statement, because they were produced by chickens on a New Hampshire farm that live in barns, not in cages.

At the request of student activists who believe conventional farming methods are cruel, Whitney Hall launched a pilot program in January to start serving cage-free brown eggs, joining scores of other campus dining halls nationwide that have switched in recent years away from conventional eggs produced by caged hens.

“I eat them at home, so I was really glad when they started having them here,” said Sullivan, 21, a senior. “I feel better that the chickens aren’t in cages. It’s better for them, and I think they taste better.”

The increasing use of eggs from cage-free chickens is part of a movement on many campuses toward offering socially conscious foods.

Campus dining halls are increasingly stocking up on items such as locally or organically grown vegetables, hormone-free milk and “fair trade” coffee produced by farmers who receive a guaranteed minimum payment and other benefits in return for using environmentally friendly farming methods.

But it remains to be seen whether the cage-free eggs at UConn, which cost twice as much as conventional eggs, are all they are cracked up to be.

“I’d love to see us switch to these eggs all across campus, but even at a small dining hall like ours, we have to keep the bottom line in mind,” said Rebecca Gorin, assistant manager of Whitney’s cafeteria, the smallest of UConn’s nine on-campus dining halls.

The university pays 67 cents per dozen for conventional eggs. The cage-free eggs cost $1.45 per dozen. Whitney’s dining hall serves almost 1,300 each week – fried, hard boiled or baked into chocolate-chip cookies and muffins.

UConn is among at least 75 colleges and prep schools nationwide whose dining-hall directors or food vendors have partially or fully ended their use of eggs from caged hens, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

At least six other New England colleges have joined the trend: University of New Hampshire, St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine; Clark University in Worcester, Mass.; Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass.; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Emmanuel College in Boston.

The Humane Society and student activists at several campuses nationwide, including UConn, have been campaigning against the use of chicken pens known as battery cages, saying the practice is cruel to the egg-laying hens.

Battery cages are popular at factory farms because they allow many hens to be stored in small, safe spaces, according to egg producers. But the Humane Society claims that the cramped quarters lead to weak or broken bones and chronic pain.

According to the United Egg Producers, a Georgia-based industry group, Americans eat about 250 eggs per year per capita.

That organization is phasing in recommendations to producers to increase the cage size for egg-laying hens from 48 square inches of living space to 67, and it also directs egg farmers to better monitor the hens’ feed, water and beak lengths.

At UConn, feedback cards posted by students on the Whitney dining hall bulletin board show their enthusiasm for the change to cage-free eggs.

Several offer praise and thanks, along with the occasional request for items such as more vegan desserts and shade-grown coffee, which uses beans grown in areas where deforestation is kept to a minimum.

Although many of the diners are enthusiastic about the change, at least one person does not plan to try the cage-free eggs. Zaac Chaves, 24, the now-graduated student who led the charge for the switch, is a vegetarian.

He hopes the change that he championed makes other students consider the source of the food that ends up on their forks.

“Students usually eat what the university serves because it’s there,” said Chaves, of Colchester. “I’m sure that when they learn more about it, more students at the university won’t want their tuition to support battery-cage eggs.”