‘. . . in every pane of glass [of Paul Sweedlepipe’s house] there was at least one tiny bird in a tiny bird-cage, twittering and hopping his little ballet of despair, and knocking his head against the roof: while one unhappy goldfinch who lived outside a red villa with his name on the door, drew the water for his own drinking, and mutely appealed to some good man to drop a farthing's-worth of poison in it.’
Do chickens kept for their eggs fare better? After all, you’ve seen the ads and egg boxes that proudly declare ‘country fresh’ and ‘farm fresh’. Surely this means the hens are free to roam the fields and woods? Not so. Today about 98% of hens in egg production (in the USA) are caged, most for their entire lives. They can never spread their wings, scratch in the Earth, perch or make a nest, dust-bathe, search for food that is tasty and natural, or even walk or run.
Instead, five to seven hens are packed into a cage of only 1.48 ft x 1.64 ft (slightly bigger than your average microwave oven) and are never allowed out again until they are taken for slaughter. The average wing span of a hen is 2.5 ft. so movement and natural behavior is severely restricted.
Thousands of cages are stacked into windowless sheds – with artificial lighting for about 17 hours a day to promote egg laying. Up to 100,000 birds are packed in these sheds which may be staffed by one or two attendants. They are all fed, watered and have their eggs collected by an automatic system. When a hen lays an egg, it rolls onto a conveyor belt and is taken away to be boxed. Birds of 18 weeks old are put into these cages and are not removed until they are 18 months to two years old, when they are killed. Try to imagine the frustration, the boredom, and the anger that this system creates. Hens in more natural conditions will often live for seven years – sometimes much more. Slaughtered battery hens are processed into soups, baby foods, stock cubes, school dinners or used in the restaurant trade.
And what happens to the male chicks? Because battery hens are bred to be lean, to eat little and lay a lot, 200 million male day old chicks are killed every year – too skinny for meat, unable to lay. Their bodies are used as fertilizer or as feed for farmed animals.
Hens in the wild lay only 20 eggs a year, which will mostly have been fertilized by a male and will hatch. There are no males in battery sheds so all eggs are infertile. The battery hen has been bred to produce an unbelievable 275 eggs a year. However, this breeding has not stripped them of their instincts and desires. Like hens in the wild, they need a safe, private place to lay their eggs, something which is not available when sharing a cage with so many other birds. The process can take up to an hour or more, during which time they will attempt to hide from their cage mates. The frustration often makes them aggressive. Hens lay eggs because it is a bodily function which they have no control over, not because they are ‘happy’.
When the hen’s output cycle begins to decline, U.S. hens are either sent to slaughter or ‘forced-molted’. Forced-molting involves starving the hens and keeping them in total darkness for up to 18 days in order to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle. The birds may lose more than 25% of their body weight and it is common for 5% to 10% to die.
Creatures whose nature is to move around almost ceaselessly during daylight hours must, when restricted like this, somehow substitute their desire to peck and scratch in the ground. The only source of interest left to them is the feathers and flesh of their cage mates which they frequently peck – sometimes to death. If five humans were squashed into a phone booth, they would probably become aggressive after a few months (or even days?!).
These ‘vices’ could be stopped by providing a decent amount of space. Instead, most farmed birds are debeaked – a red-hot blade removes part of the beak which contains sensitive tissues. Some birds die from bleeding or shock.
The combination of a lack of fresh air and daylight, selective breeding, and caging in overcrowded conditions has led to the spread of diseases and to distress and suffering.
Prolapses (the entire uterus is expelled along with the egg), egg peritonitis, cancers, infectious bronchitis and Gumboro disease (viral infection where afflicted birds suffer severe liver and kidney disease and are listless, nervous, sleepy, dehydrated and have a whitish diarrhea) are just a few of the conditions that thrive in battery houses. The bones of battery hens are often so brittle that they will snap like dry twigs. The Agricultural and Food Research Council states that one third of battery hens suffer from broken bones.
The above article on battery hens was copied from Viva! USA. Please visit their website:
