Hens confined in battery cages are unable to walk freely or stretch a single wing.
Hens confined in battery cages are unable to walk freely or stretch a single wing.
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Sick or diseased factory farmed animals receive no veterinary care.
Sick or diseased factory farmed animals receive no veterinary care.
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Corpses are often left to rot in cages with hens laying eggs for human consumption.
Corpses are often left to rot in cages with hens laying eggs for human consumption.
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Up to 13 hens are crammed in a single battery cage.
Up to 13 hens are crammed in a single battery cage.
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every egg eaten sentences a hen to over 24 hours in a tiny battery cage.
the rotten egg industry
Over 95% of the chickens raised to lay eggs in the U.S. are forced to live crammed together inside battery cages, small barren wire cages stacked in rows inside filthy windowless sheds that can stretch the length of two football fields.[1]
To see a battery cage from the hen's perspective, click on the animation below:
Typical battery cages confine five to 11 hens. With each hen given less than half a square foot of living space (an area less than a standard 8.5" x 11" piece of paper), she is unable to walk freely or even fully stretch her wings.[2]
Virtually every natural instinct and desire is thwarted by the battery cage, denying the hens the ability to build a nest, forage, roost, dust bathe, see the sun, or even feel the earth or grass below their feet.
In addition to the severe mental and social deprivation, forcing a naturally active bird to spend her entire life in a cramped and nearly stationary position causes numerous health problems including lameness, bone brittleness, and muscle weakness.[3]
Nearly 30% of hens have broken bones at the time they are slaughtered.[4]
Sickness and disease run rampant in these squalid living conditions, but in an attempt to minimize costs, even the sickest of hens are denied veterinary care.
Because egg laying is cyclical, and waiting for that cycle to proceed naturally does not always maximize profits, many egg farms use a technique called "forced molting" in which hens are starved for up to 12 days in order to stress their bodies into another egg laying cycle.[5] Poultry researcher Dr. Ian Duncan calls forced molting "a barbaric practice" which causes "great suffering", but the practice continues in the name of profit.[6]
Since 2000, numerous undercover investigations at egg farms in Ohio[7], Connecticut[8], Minnesota[9], Maryland[10], and New Jersey[11] have illustrated that cruelty is not the exception, but rather the rule.
The investigations have documented the following widespread abuses:
Hens with broken, damaged, and feces-covered feathers packed into tiny wire battery cages so small they cannot even spread their wings.
Diseased hens suffering from huge, untreated growths and infections, as well as blindness, and birds unable to walk.
Hens trapped in the wire of their cages, left without any access to food or water.
Dead hens left to decompose in cages with live hens still producing eggs for human consumption.
Hens who have escaped their cages wandering in manure pits with no access to water.
Live hens thrown away in trash bins or dumpsters, left to die among carcasses.
For every egg-laying hen confined in a battery cage, there is a male chick who was killed at the hatchery. Because egg-laying chicken breeds have been genetically selected exclusively for maximum egg production, they don't grow fast or large enough to be profitably raised for meat. Consequently, male chicks of egg-laying breeds are of no economic value and are literally discarded the day they hatch, usually by the cheapest, most convenient means available. Every day, hundreds of thousands of male chicks are killed by suffocation in plastic bags, decapitation, gassing, being left to die in dumpsters, or being thrown alive into grinders.[12,13,14]
Once a hen's egg production declines, she will either be slaughtered for low-grade chicken meat products or disposed of like her brothers by being thrown alive into a grinding machine or suffocated in a plastic bag or dumpster.[15,16] Another method of disposal used by the egg industry is to pack the live hens into containers and bulldoze them into the ground, thus burying them alive.[17]
During the pre-dawn hours of a cold December morning, two undercover Mercy For Animals investigators discovered a hen they later named Hope. She had been tossed in a trashcan by a worker at the egg farm and left to die amid the rotting bodies of countless dead hens.
As one investigator recalled, “The already unbearable consciousness of this hell worsened when I noticed movement in one of the trash bins. I easily would have mistaken this hen, determined to survive, for a lifeless corpse had she not lifted her tiny head, stared at me with curiosity, and blinked her eyes from atop the pile.”
Hope was given a second chance at life that morning when investigators reached into that rusted steel bin and lifted her to safety. Today, after being left for dead by the egg industry, Hope has fully recovered. Her sinus infection, wing hematoma, bruises, abrasions, and damaged feathers have all been treated and cured. Today she lives free of the cruel battery cage, enjoying the company of other rescued chickens on a wonderful farmed animal sanctuary.
Rollin, B. E. (1995). Farm Animal Welfare (p. 134).
13
Tribe of Heart. (2004). Peaceable Kingdom.
14
Henry, F. (2003, June 1). Megafarming: size brings conflict. The Plain Dealer.
15
Feedstuffs. (1994, October 24).
16
Grandin, T. Corporations can be agents of great improvements in animal welfare and food safety and the need for minimum decent standards. Paper presented at National Institute of Animal Agriculture, April 4, 2001.
During the pre-dawn hours of a cold December morning, two undercover Mercy For Animals investigators discovered a hen they later named Hope. She had been tossed in a trashcan by a worker at the egg farm and left to die amid the rotting bodies of countless dead hens.
Hope was given a second chance at life that morning when investigators reached into that rusted steel bin and lifted her to safety. Today, after being left for dead by the egg industry, Hope has fully recovered. Her sinus infection, wing hematoma, bruises, abrasions, and damaged feathers have all been treated and cured. Today she lives free of the cruel battery cage, enjoying the company of other rescued chickens on a wonderful farmed animal sanctuary.
