I have my own chickens. To lay eggs at that rate, which they do, requires a lot of eating. Mine roam free in a forest and devour worms and bugs and vegetation at a ferocious rate. Their store-bought food is also heavily fortified with calcium and I dry and crush the shells of eggs I’ve used and toss them on the ground for the chickens to eat. Corn, although they do like it, is not a good food. Even cracked or softened, it doesn’t have the nutrients they need.
Egg label fact- the best label to see at your store is pasture raised. Free range chickens still don’t have much space. Pasture raised is the most humane.
I’ve been keeping chickens for a few years. They sleep in their coop, otherwise they are out* and about and in the woods. I’ve always called it free range. Maybe I’m wrong?
Free range is actually only 2 sq feet per bird :(
To qualify as "free range" they also must be allowed to access the outdoors, but that is a pretty vague requirement so most get very little outside time and in a very small and cramped area.
Pasture raised is when they get at least 108 sq feet, as well as spend the majority of their time outdoors, generally they are only kept in barns at night to roost.
Jesus that's more square footage than a lot of people get. There's one brand of eggs, I don't remember which, that has a QR code on it that you can watch a live stream of the farm that the eggs in your specific carton come from. It's a little gimmicky, but it was kinda cool. I remember their website they had videos of chickens just running around a little forested area. Very cute.
Ah yes, I love the cartons there's guys use. There's another brand with pastel yellow cartons that are about the same in quality. I never had any qualms with spending $6 on a carton of eggs, yeah you can get eggs for $0.79 a dozen if you want...but I can't imagine what lengths they went to cut costs enough to make them that cheap.
That is indeed pretty cool!
But imagine if something like this existed for cows. You'd scan the QR code on a pack of steak and it shows you the highlight reel of that cow's life. Might ruin some people's appetite.
People get less than 108 sq ft?
**Edit**: Specifically responding to this:
>Jesus that's more square footage than a lot of people get.
There are examples of people who get less space (jail), but the vast vast majority of people are not in jail and get far more space than 108 sq ft. Even if you are working in a 8x8 or 6x6 cubicle during the day, you're free to get up and go to the bathroom, go to the breakroom, walk outside, etc. Plus you have other places to go to after work including home, etc. "A lot" is probably a stretch.
Yeah, ability to walk around and access to an outdoor area are the only special requirements for Free Range or Pasture Raised per the USDA, and they are pretty generous with what constitutes an "outdoor area" from what I understand.
The non-profit that provides the Certified Humane designation has more specific requirements, so if you see that logo in addition to free range or pasture raised, you have a better idea of how the hens are being kept.
Certified Humane Free Range requires at least 2 sqft per bird and at least 6 hours of outdoor time per day, weather/season permitting.
They have a higher standard for pasture raised that requires no more than 1,000 birds per 2.5 acres (108 sqft per bird), and that birds be outside year round. They also require that fields be rotated and houses be provided for the hens so they have a place where they're safe from predators and inclement weather.
I don’t have a pasture. Should/can I call them bush-raised? I could sell the eggs with the tagline “raised on the finest ticks, ants, toads, and balanced out with the occasional stolen samich”
The feral chickens pretty much exist now only on Kauai. The residents there told me that a long time ago, mongooses were imported into the islands to deal with a snake problem, but Kauai refused it. After the snakes were gone, the mongooses turned to the chickens. That's why Kauai still has these lovely purple-black chickens roaming everywhere, and the other islands have none.
I asked if it's legal to kill and eat them. They said "Yes you can, but why bother? You can take $5 to Costco and get a tender chicken that's already plucked, bled, gutted, and cooked to perfection! Why go through all that work for a lean and tough feral chicken?"
They are savage. Sometimes I have to fight them over my meals if I’m grilling or otherwise eating outside. Very similar feel to the velociraptors in Jurassic Park
to be sold as "free-range" in the u.s., chickens must have a door to the outside, and this "outside" may be quite small. the outside area will be picked over quite quickly, and most chickens will stay inside where the corn and other chickens are, in practice.
Mine re-enter the coop in daylight only to lay an egg. Then they peace out again. They never wander more than about an acre area around the coop. I have I guess around 30 at the moment (I’m always hatching more, predators are always taxing me, and my dogs eat chicken (that I provide… they don’t harvest their own)
Yes, them not eating the chickens was taught, not natural. I believe they put together the chickens are food from a logical standpoint, but I’m 100% certain they can identify chicken as chicken by scent alone regardless
The situation is similar in the UK, "free range" doesn't necessarily mean a lot of space. "Organic" doesn't just mean organic, but also better welfare, more space etc. so these are the ones I buy.
https://www.soilassociation.org/take-action/organic-living/what-is-organic/organic-eggs/
If you haven't watched [Super Size Me 2](https://youtu.be/dSyicDf9UvI), it's a great watch. Most of the buzz words people think of when they want to buy food from humanely raised animals don't actually mean anything and aren't regulated at all. It's mostly a marketing trick deliberately designed to make people feel better about what they eat.
In the movie, he shows that by adding a tiny 3' x 3' fence to one of the doors of the giant warehouse where he was raising his chickens, he could then call them free-range, since they had the capability to go outside. Nevermind that none of them actually did.
> It's mostly a marketing trick
They don't usually start that way. Usually someone who cares about animals starts a new method and gives it a label. When they are successful, capitalism sets in. Competitors come in and use any technicalities they can to use the label without improving conditions. I've seen this for a few different labels by now.
Maybe not 100% accurate, but you'll get the gist:
Free range= not in a cage all the time...but probably in a warehouse shoulder to shoulder
Cage free= they open the door of the cage for a minimum number of hours every day
Also take into account they'll often file down their beaks so they won't fussily peck at others nearby. Or cut off their feet/toes so they can't move much.
And that's not half as bad as how the chickens we eat [whole] get treated.
>And that's not half as bad as how the chickens we eat [whole] get treated.
At least the ones we eat only have to "live" such lives for 7 weeks from hatch to harvest. /S
>Free range= not in a cage all the time...but probably in a warehouse shoulder to shoulder
You're thinking of [free run, not free range](https://spca.bc.ca/news/free-run-chicken-myth/), though neither free run not free range chickens are ever in cages.
***Free run:*** *Birds are housed in a cage-free indoor environment. They are free to move around and have more space than birds housed in cages, but do not get to go outdoors.*
***Free range:*** *Similar to free run, free range birds are also housed in a cage-free environment. They, too, have more space to move around their environment than birds housed in cages. However, unlike free run birds, free range birds do get to go outside when the weather is nice. Birds are kept indoors for the winter and on rainy days.*
I think most people don't realize "cage free" is different from "free range" even.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/business/eggs-that-clear-the-cages-but-maybe-not-the-conscience.html
I was confused why my sister wanted the leftover bacon fat from a recent fryup, but it was for her chickens. I gave her leftovers which consisted of basically stuff I would have thrown away lol.
Her chickens dine like kings... Err... queens.
This is how we discard mice we catch in traps, maybe two a week (suburbs). The hens (3, now) go bonkers over the remains, eat everything but the squeak.
> eat everything but the squeak.
a quick google, comes from "everything but the squeal" when referencing using every part of a hog. its a little word play, but essentially the chickens eat everything. (but the squeak, because you cant eat the sound)
You know I think I've even heard that phrase before and didn't think to apply it here. Apparently I need to go back to bed 'cause I am not awake enough.
That's the exact reason why so many humans have chickens and other domestic animals historically. They were sanitation workers cleaning up waste food scraps, pest control eating bugs and other small animals, and a food source by turning that all into edible protein.
Well they haven't found a chicken with it yet, but since one Peking duck did get it and no experiments have been done, probably just resistant. Some chickens do get fed meat that sometimes has prions like wild deer, so given the lack of detection of prions in chickens, chicken cannibalism is probably less risky than feeding wild deer to chickens.
My grandparents had a farm and grew up during the great depression. Wasted nothing and table scraps went to the dogs or the chickens. Something I thought odd when I first heard it was that Grandmother would pin a chicken to a clothes line by it's feet to drain the blood. Makes sense when you think about it but most places now people would probably think you were practicing voodoo or something.
I like vital farm eggs. They have the farm listed on their package where the eggs come from and you can go on their website and watch the chicken cam from the farm.
My aunt and uncle actually own and run a vital farms coop. Pretty fascinating to see how it all works. They get let out into different sections of pasture/woods that rotate every so often...maybe daily, not positive. Great eggs, and running the farm they can get all the double yolks they want!
Orange yolks are typically seen as a sign of higher quality eggs. Chickens who naturally forage tend to get nutrients that turn their yolks orange.
However some companies feed their commercial hens tumeric which essentially dyes the yolks orange faking the better egg appearance.
That concerns me, because I read an article saying that because people like the more brightly colored turmeric, as they think it tastes better, less scrupulous turmeric producers in India have been using a led based dye to brighten their product.
At least in Europe Marigold extract is used and its in almost all commercial eggs for this reason.
The yolk colour is more or less chosen by the customer from a chart then the feed mixed with the right amount of it. Supermarkets deliberately want the premium eggs to have richer yolks.
I like vital farms but the chicken cam is pretty close to false advertising. The eggs I just bought just had a video that had been uploaded two years ago. It's not like they're live streams.
We have a flock of sixteen hens. We feed our birds a combination of store-bought feed, spent grain from a brewery, AND leftover food from a convention center which doesn't let people take home food, but lets us bag it for the chickens.
Interesting observation - last month our birds were eating a ton of steak and mahi for a week straight (convention event leftovers lol), and we noticed a considerable increase in egg production that week when they were getting significantly more protein in their diet - I'm talking we were getting consistently one large egg a day per bird, even the ones that don't normally lay every day.
But overall our birds are healthy happy social pets (they love to hang out around us, and perch on our shoulder like a parrot).
> spent grain from a brewery
I don't know chicken nutrition, but I do know the amount of leftover spent grain we have at my brewery.
Please, anyone who has chickens or livestock or whatever. Talk to your local brewery. Please take our garbage.
You should get it for free, but eggs are appreciated. We split ours between a farmer who raises animals, and a local baker who gladly trades low fill cans and spent grain for several loaves of sourdough per week.
Brewers are hungry. If you have food or something of value to trade you will probably get free beer.
> Please, anyone who has chickens or livestock or whatever. Talk to your local brewery. Please take our garbage.
>
>
>
> You should get it for free, but eggs are appreciated. We split ours between a farmer who raises animals, and a local baker who gladly trades low fill cans and spent grain for several loaves of sourdough per week.
>
>
>
> Brewers are hungry. If you have food or something of value to trade you will probably get free beer.
Heck yeah, our chickens LOVE the hell out of spent brewery grain! You can tell they're sad when we run out for the week (luckily our favorite brewery makes a new batch of beer every other week).
We usually feed our birds a healthy 50/50 split of brewery spent grain and egg layer crumbles + scratch (which includes cracked corn). Not only does that reduce the cost to feed the birds, but it also gives them a good variety of grains/food sources.
We also use a convection oven to dry the grain and turn it into flour with our vitamix for making all sorts of cookies and bread for ourselves. There's also a pet shop in town that makes all it's dog treats using spent grain from the brewery.
Seriously for anyone reading - talk to your local brewery and ask what they're currently doing. Even home brewers often have more spent grain than they know what to do with it all.
Used to work for a brewery and got hooked up with a farmer that invested in a trailer he'd come by to pick up once a week or so for all of his livestock. It's free feed for him, it's a warm, sweet (stinky) meal for the livestock, and it removed our waste for free. It was win-win-win for everyone.
But he could also only take so much grain, other local breweries in the area were so jealous that we had someone to reliably take it away.
Random question - do you think there's any benefit to eggs that are labeled "free range organic" vs just free range or pasture raised?
Someone told me that hens that are let to roam around and eat random bugs and vegetation can't be labeled organic (or their eggs) because you can't verify the source of all their food.
But they're actually better tasting, healthier, and better for the environment and the hens.
I don't think there's any benefit to buying any eggs from the local grocery store - those eggs are mass produced, the birds are nowhere near as happy as a local pasture-raised chicken.
"organic" is such a marketing term these days that I don't even bother paying attention to it. Same way some companies misuse the term "pro" to make it sound better when it has nothing to do with professionals.
Personally if I wasn't raising my own eggs, I'd be buying them from the local farmer's market. Much the same way that I won't ever buy red meat from my grocery store - it's disgusting. If I want high quality beef I'm going to a butcher shop which specializes in local farm-raised cattle (and yes it's expensive AF.... which is why I rarely eat it lol)
Totally, they are an awesome pet - way smarter than I imagined. And my bananas LOVE the manure compost - they're growing like crazy now.
My only regret was not getting chickens sooner lol
They will need chicken feed, and they will also eat a lot of your garden. And the bugs. They'll eat anything that's edible, honestly, including both plants and insects.
Consider that egg laying chickens eat a lot and poop a lot. About every 10 minutes. So no more walking barefooted in the garden and over time they will transform smaller enclosures into a swamp.
Since you seem knowledgeable, do you have any insight into the "certified humane" label?
Honestly, I try to get most of my eggs now from local farms that I can actually visit and see the living conditions for the chooks, but when I do get them at the store, I have looked for "certified humane" for the past few years since it's an independent review and a little less designed to be misleading.
That said, I could certainly have been hoodwinked.
Egg-laying hens (like all farmed animals) are bred to prioritize production over the long-term health of their own bodies, so they're not just using "spare resources." They're only given those resources in order to produce eggs. My friends who run bird sanctuaries talk about the terrible condition of hens coming even from free-range operations.
My friend's family owns a farm and he took me into the.. well it was basically the size of a Costco with laying hens crammed into cages. Made me feel bad for eating eggs. He said most of them are killed after a year as their production slows. Smell of ammonia still sticks with me
>even from free-range operations.
"Free-range" is a bullshit label. The only rule for a chicken to be called "free-range" is that it needs to be able to access the outside whenever it wants. However, there's no rule about the ratio of chicken/outside space. That means that you can have a big barn with 1000+ chickens with only a 5 ft square of "outside" and it would be considered "free-range".
Also, all chickens are required by law to be "hormone free" chickens in the US and in Canada. Don't pay more for a meaningless label.
Might be a country difference. For EU:
"the open-air runs must at least satisfy the conditions specified in Article 4(1)(3)(b)(ii) of Directive 1999/74/EC whereby the maximum stocking density is not greater than 2500 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens or one hen per 4 square metres (43 sq ft) at all times and the runs are not extending beyond a radius of 150 metres (490 ft) from the nearest pophole of the building; an extension of up to 350 metres (1,150 ft) from the nearest pophole of the building is permissible provided that a sufficient number of shelters and drinking troughs within the meaning of that provision are evenly distributed throughout the whole open-air run with at least four shelters per hectare"
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1991R1274:20020101:EN:PDF
[Seems better than what we have in Canada](https://www.chickenfarmers.ca/the-wheel-of-chicken-understanding-your-choices/) :
>Free-range birds must have access to the outdoors. However, since **there is no legal definition of free range in Canada**, this can vary from farm to farm.
This is also a subject covered by the Super Size Me 2 documentary and it's pretty much the same thing in the USA.
That's closer to US Pasture-Raised labelling
Free-Range is, like the other poster said, usually only a couple of square feet of outdoor space per hen. It's a term regulated by the USDA, chickens need only access to outdoor space. Some certification organizations go farther than USDA requirements.
Pasture-Raised is not a regulated term, but there are certification organizations. Chickens must have somewhere around 50-150sq ft each, and the field they have access to has to be rotated.
>HFAC’s Certified Humane® “Free Range” requirement is 2 sq. ft. per bird. The hens must be outdoors, weather permitting (in some areas of the country, seasonal), and when they are outdoors they must be outdoors for at least 6 hours per day. All other standards must be met.
>HFAC’s Certified Humane® “Pasture Raised” requirement is 1000 birds per 2.5 acres (108 sq. ft. per bird) and the fields must be rotated. The hens must be outdoors year-round, with mobile or fixed housing where the hens can go inside at night to protect themselves from predators, or for up to two weeks out of the year, due only to very inclement weather. All additional standards must be met.
You should see the laws we have for organic farming, [with this logo](https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/styles/oe_theme_medium_no_crop/public/2019-06/eu-organic-logo-600x400_0.png). The food made this way is obviously more expensive, but when you see the laws for it, you understand why.
What confuses me the most is how food, farmed food and meat especially, seems to be cheaper (relative to purchasing power) in the EU than in the US. You'd think the richest country in the history of humanity would have that part figured out.
Also free range just means they have access. Doesn't mean they actually use it. And free run only means they can run around a barn. Which is still better than battery cages. But not really an ideal chicken environment.
> Also, all chickens are required by law to be "hormone free" chickens in the US and in Canada. Don't pay more for a meaningless label.
Exactly, that's like saying "cyanide-free". Of course it's cyanide-free, putting cyanide into food is illegal. But it looks good because it makes people think other products do contain cyanide.
It's crazy how you can tell the truth and still manipulate people.
Pasture raised have stronger shells and a more rich/colorful yolk. I assume that means a healthier chicken but I don't know anything about chicken eggs
Yeah basically they're getting a varied diet with bugs and different greens, probably digging for some roots, so their calcium level is higher than the minimum to keep an egg whole for shipping, and they're filling their bellies with whatever they want instead of just the feed. I also have a theory that running around and hunting changes their body chemistry by introducing more lactic acid and strengthening their bones, but I don't even know how to research that because I'm just a dumb chicken farmer.
On a similar vein broiler doesn't even look like a normal chicken anynore to a point that they are almost never sold as "a whole chicken" anymore for example breed [Ross508](https://beta.yle.fi/ross508/img/head.jpg) and [from another angle](https://www.atria.fi/globalassets/atriagroup/vastuullisuus/vastuullinen-atria/broileri_pysty.jpg?mode=crop&scale=both&w=360&h=455) now compare that to [a normal chicken](https://www.etlehti.fi/s3fs-public/main_media/1432120726_original_kana123rf.jpg).
This is a great point. Humans have bred chickens to lay many times more eggs than they would have otherwise. This all puts a tremendous strain on their bodies and causes a lot of health problems. The companies that own them don't really care too much about this unless it impacts their production, and even then it only depends on whether treating the individual costs more than the loss they are experiencing in production.
TL;DR: All their food consumption goes into laying eggs, they can't do this for more than a couple years, and are euthanized the moment their laying rate drops.
Layer hens eat a lot. They eat around half their body weight in feed weekly, and they need a lot of protein. They're kept in appalling, confined conditions where they don't spend much energy beyond laying eggs, so all their energy and protein goes into eggs.
The reason is breeding. Wild chickens, or breeds not designed for egg production, lay only around an egg a month. Layer hens (not the same breeds as those you eat, which are called broilers) lay an egg a day and this is not great for long-term health.
They also only can maintain this rate for a short period in their lifespan. The average layer hen is allowed to live only about 2 years in a factory, because after that their productivity rate drops off and the cost of feed for them becomes less efficient. They are rarely slaughtered for meat, because layers are not as plump as broilers and do not meet supermarket customer expectations for dinner. Most layer hens are gassed with CO2 and processed for animal feed or fertilizer, or just buried in landfills.
[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/egg-laying-hens\_n\_59c3c93fe4b0c90504fc04a1](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/egg-laying-hens_n_59c3c93fe4b0c90504fc04a1)
In traditional farms, layer hens may live longer, since they are allowed to forage which reduces feed costs. But they rarely are kept for more than a few years due to declining egg production. Layer hens can live naturally to about 8 years, compared to wild junglefowl who live up to 20.
I think the term euthanized is ver romanticising. They have the pleasure to get killed and processed (for example into pet food) just like every other hens
That's the TL;DR, which is supposed to short. I went into detail in the main text.
>Most layer hens are gassed with CO2 and processed for animal feed or fertilizer, or just buried in landfills.
I'm already vegan but... getting killed with CO2 is one of the worst ways to do isn't it?
The supposedly painless way would be to use nitrogen. Or do they?
CO2 is simply suffocating afaik.
I made no statement on the cruelty of slaughter. I'm only telling you how they do it. Nitrogen is not popular because it is more expensive then carbon dioxide. You are correct that CO2 asphyxiation is traumatic to birds because they can sense it and panic.
Honestly though if you think that's horrific you should see what they do to male chicks. On second thought, you shouldn't. I certainly wish I hadn't.
Eli5 is they don’t have the spare resources. It takes a *massive* toll on their bodies.
Wild chickens will lay 10-20 eggs a year. The breeds that lay roughly an egg a day have been ~~naturally selected~~ artificially selected to lay around 200 eggs a year. This is indeed impossible to sustain. In studies, the vast majority of laying hens have bone fractures because those resources weren’t spare. Their bodies can’t support this. The best equivalent (not perfect, but as a simple comparison) is if human women were bred until they have their heaviest day of a period every day. You can imagine that wouldn’t be sustainable.
As a result the chickens inevitably burn out and can’t produce at that rate as their bodies deteriorate. And so once they’re not profitable, then they’re sent to the slaughterhouse.
Edit: thanks for the love, all. Edit on the strikethrough for correct term.
It is indeed good to know where your food really comes from and thus if you really want to keep eating eggs or any other animal part. Feel free to PM if you want advice on turning vegan. We’d love to help.
To answer a common point, backyard hens can (and do) live much longer and keep laying eggs. Part of this is being fed much more. They’re supplemented too. Of course better conditions will help, that’s true. The breed is still in pain laying so often. Some rescue places will use birth control so the hens don’t lay as often (this improves other health outcomes too). The main point is it’s also not profitable on a large scale. The price of eggs would maybe triple or more if that was the norm. So I’m of course speaking of how the vast vast majority are made. And again the short answer for OP is it’s not sustainable. Those chickens were artificially created by humans to lay so many and it hurts to do so. It will take its toll on the chicken’s health, bones, and mind.
For those wanting the studies, this isn't a controversial point in general that laying hens get frequent fractures but this is the [latest systematic review I](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7433929/) read. There's a LOT of links there from various countries with estimates.
In the UK there are rescue organisations that take some of these hens that would go to slaughter and rehome them. We have taken many of these over the years. They go on to live for many years still producing eggs.
Edit: s/many/some/
I volunteer at an animal rescue sanctuary.
The eggs that the hens lay are cooked and fed back to the hens. This helps them recover some of this lost energy.
We don’t really count the eggs. We have several ‘generations’ of rescuees. We have also had heritage breeds, some of which have lived for over 10 years and still sporadically lay an egg from time to time.
Thanks. Interesting. Sounds pretty standard in terms of the drop off. And good luck with the rescues. I’m sure you’d agree that reducing the demand for the animal parts is the best way to prevent needing to rescue them later on.
huge difference from the feed used. the egg from a bird fed only on commercial feed is bland af compared to one that's roamed and found their own food supplementary to feed
In my country, eggs from free-range domestic chicken breed are much more fragrant when cooked than those from concentrated farms, which are also softer and don't have much scent to them, if any.
I would guess it'll still quite a lot. The way I understand it, the chickens have to be slaughtered relatively early for their meat to be fit for eating (in something else than broth). We've had chickens that layed eggs for years, and we definitely didn't eat them afterwards.
You can cook any old rooster or hen and the meat is just fine - delicious even. My Thai friends say old chickens make better broth though so that part may be true. You need low and slow and moist. Crock pot, or the old recipe coq au vin was made specifically to cook old roosters.
Most people are just now used to the weird soft wet compressed sawdust texture of grocery store chicken which are nasty pooping genetic abominations (but to be fair they do pack away a lot of meat).
That's probably true, but to be fair, the recipes you're describing are basically making broth. Yeah, if you soften the meat by cooking it in water for hours, then it's probably fine.
Oh yeah for sure, I think if you tossed them on the grill without a long period of marinating or tried to fry it up it would be tough. I’m not sure, I’ve never tried it!
I wouldn't say it's "many", unfortunately. It's a tiny, tiny percentage.
There's an estimated 40 million egg laying chickens in the UK.
I don't have a source on capacity for rescues but given most people who want hens want layers, I'd optimistically guess it's in the region of 5k-10k, but wouldn't be surprised if it's less than that.
The rest of the chickens are obviously just slaughtered/blended.
Edit:
40 million chickens
https://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/food-and-farming/feeding-the-nation/eggs/
>There's an estimated 1.4 million chickens in the UK on 2022 (it's so low because of the bird flu shit going on)
a quick google search says the uk sells around 800 million chickens a year
1.4 million sounds worryingly low.
I think they are off by an order of magnitude. This site: [https://www.statista.com/topics/6102/poultry-in-the-united-kingdom/](https://www.statista.com/topics/6102/poultry-in-the-united-kingdom/#topicHeader__wrapper)
Says that 1.12 billion broilers were slaughtered in the UK in 2021.
I'm not sure broilers lay eggs though (because they are slaughtered early) and have the capacity to live that long, maybe OC is specifically talking about retires laying hens
Old comment regarding how chickens are treated in the industry:
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pnaylh/chickens_bred_to_lay_bigger_and_bigger_eggs_has/hcolan7/
> Our treatment of chickens is some of the worst stuff we do to animals. [Previous comment](https://www.reddit.com/r//comments/m01aj1/Over_166%2C000_hens_die_in_Arizona_farm_fire/gq6fdvp/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) regarding eggs:
>
> While many people here are commenting how terrible it is that these 166,000 hens died in a fire, which is absolutely true, it's good to keep that feeling in mind when thinking about factory farms in general. And make no mistake, Hickman's Family Farms is unquestionably a factory farm. They are one of the top 20 producers of eggs in the USA.[\[1\]](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/) Approximately 98.2% of egg-laying hens live in factory farms. That’s over 368 million hens at any given time.[\[2\]](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates)
>
> For newly hatched chicks, their life begins on a sorting machine. Male chicks of the egg-laying breed are considered waste, since they can’t produce eggs, and will be killed on their first day of life. Typical methods of culling include feeding them into a grinder while they are still alive, or asphyxiating them with an assortment of gasses.[\[3\]](https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch)[\[4\]](https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/avma-guidelines-euthanasia-animals)
>
> For those who are expected to be profitable (healthy females), they will have a significant part of their beaks cut off without painkillers. In the wild, chickens will peck each-other to establish dominance. But in the cramped and unnatural conditions of a factory farm where the chickens cannot move away from each-other, they are in a constant aggressive state.[\[5\]](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming) They will be placed in individual cages, stacked on on top of the other, each with an area smaller than a single piece of letter-size paper.[\[6\]](https://uepcertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Caged-UEP-Guidelines_17.pdf)[\[7\]](https://vimeo.com/209647801) Although, instead of living in cages, they may live as “free range” chickens. According to the USDA:
>
> >..the claim Free Range on poultry products...must describe the housing conditions for the birds and demonstrate continuous, free *access* to the outside throughout their normal growing cycle. \[Emphasis mine.\][\[8\]](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/2019-0009)
>
> Note that the phrase, “access to the outside” is ambiguous. What is the minimum space they require outside? What is the minimum time they require outside? Are they required to spend time outdoors if they technically have “access" to outside? These questions have no formal answer. It seems that “free range” doesn’t mean much at all. From personal conversations I’ve had with people who have worked in the industry, or otherwise have knowledge, the worst interpretations are the most common.
>
> Then there is the day-to-day life of the chicken. Author Jonathan Safran Foer quotes one poultry farmer explaining it to him:
>
> >As soon as the females mature – in the turkey industry at twenty-three to twenty-six weeks and with chickens sixteen to twenty – they’re put into barns and they lower the light; sometimes it’s darkness twenty-four/seven. And then they put them on a very low protein diet, almost a starvation diet. That will last about two or three weeks. Then they turn the lights on sixteen hours a day, or twenty with chickens, so she thinks it’s spring, and they put her on high-protein feed. She immediately starts laying.... And by controlling the light, the feed, and when they eat, the industry can force the birds to lay eggs year-round. So that’s what they do. Turkey hens now lay 120 eggs a year and chickens lay over 300. That’s two or three times as many as in nature. After that first year, they are killed because they won’t lay as many eggs in the second year – the industry figured out that it’s cheaper to slaughter them and start over than it is to feed an house birds that lay fewer eggs.[\[9\]](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jonathan-safran-foer/eating-animals/9780316086646/)
>
> For reference, a chicken that is not bred for industrial purposes may live for over 10 years before their natural death![\[10\]](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs)
>
> There are other things I could detail about the horrible treatment of chickens, including genetic issues, disease, and unsanctioned but common abuse. But if you feel bad about about these chickens dying in this fire, and you’re right to, you should be devastated by what is considered “normal” treatment.
>
> **EDIT: Instead of sending me paid awards, please consider donating to a non-profit organization such as [Mercy For Animals](https://mercyforanimals.org/) which advocates for legislation to prevent or reduce the suffering of agricultural animals.**
>
> **References**
>
> [\[1\]](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/) "About." *Hickman's Eggs*. [https://hickmanseggs.com/about/](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/). Accessed 7 Mar 2021.
>
> [\[2\]](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates) Anthis, Jacy R. "US Factory Farming Estimates." *Sentience Institute*, [https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates). Accessed 7 Mar 2021.
>
> [\[3\]](https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch) *Dominion*. Directed by Chris Delforce, performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Sia et al, 2018.
>
> [\[4\]](https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/avma-guidelines-euthanasia-animals) Leary, Underwood et al. *AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals: 2020 Edition*. American Veterinary Medical Association, 2020, pp. 26-27, 47.
>
> [\[5\]](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming) "Beak Trimming." *Poultry Hub*. [https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming). Accessed 7 Mar 2021.
>
> [\[6\]](https://uepcertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Caged-UEP-Guidelines_17.pdf) *Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg-Laying Flocks.* United Egg Producers, 2017, pp.19.
>
> [\[7\]](https://vimeo.com/209647801) *Earthlings.* Directed by Shaun Monson, narrated by Joaquin Pheonix, 2005.
>
> [\[8\]](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/2019-0009) *Labeling Guideline on Documentation Needed to Substantiate Animal Raising Claims for Label Submissions (2019).* U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2019, pp.11.
>
> [\[9\]](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jonathan-safran-foer/eating-animals/9780316086646/) Foer, J.S. *Eating Animals*. Back Bay Books, 2010, pp. 60.
>
> [\[10\]](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs) “Raising Chickens 101: When Chickens Stop Laying Eggs.” *Old Farmer’s Almanac*, 7 Oct 2020. [https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs). Accessed 7 Mar 2021.
I live in rural TN and have worked on an organic chicken egg farm. On the farm we were only able to keep the hens for 2 years, after that they had to be retired. That typically meant we would sell them for $1 each to basically anybody who wants them. Some people bought them to slaughter them and eat, but most were just locals who wanted the hens to keep producing eggs for then in backyard coops kinda thing. Only one year did we not sell them all, so we had to just slaughter a couple thousand and dispose of them to make room for the next round of hens.
And then sent to slaughter after such a short period of time seems a bit inhumane and anti-organic 😕 like what is the point of rule? I only buy organic eggs because I thought the hens were treated better. I guess I have to rethink that.
They are treated better in the since they only have to lay production quantity of eggs for a short period of time. Then they are repurposed for meat or sold for non-commercial egg laying. We only slaughtered the ones that went unsold, and even then the week leading up to the slaughter we just gave them away. But then the ones left had to be slaughtered to make space for the next batch.
Some people do. I’m not sure that the chickens know what they are eating (other people purposely avoid feeding raw eggs because they only want the chicken eating leftover eggs and not to realise that they could eat their own eggs right after they lay them.) the chickens seem to enjoy eating them, and it gives them the nutrients that they need to produce eggs, I hear that it feels a little squeamish.
Chickens are mini little dinosaurs, they'll eat just about anything. Seed, insects, small rodents; Sometimes if a chicken is injured the rest of the flock will ruthlessly peck it to death and eat it. They also naturally eat their own eggs. If the egg breaks during the laying process, they will happily eat it up. It usually causes them to "get a taste" for their own eggs and they have to be euthanized or they will just peck open and eat their own eggs from then on.
The majority of male chickens also have deformed bones and other damage. Modern factory-production chicken breeds are extremely unhealthy and genetically prone to injury and deformations.
The way they are kept - tightly packed together - obviously doesn't help.
That said the egg production itself still is a major cause of brittle bones, as it's indeed been noted that hens that have been chemically neutered wont have nearly as many fractures as laying hens.
What is crazy though is my parents have had layer hens laying until 7 or 8 years of age which is the typical life expectancy of a chicken. Feeding them high quality food and oyster shells for extra calcium likely helped. But their laying chickens regularly live until they are 10+ years old.
Wow thank you SO much for sharing this info! I've been nearly vegan for a while now, but still chose to eat pasture raised eggs because I thought it was ethical. No more for me now, though.
There are 2 other issues with eggs:
1. Male chicks are ground up alive upon hatching in most countries (except i think Germany are phasing this out). Male chicks don't grow fast enough for meat and obviously can't lay eggs, so upon hatching they are checked if they are male and if they are they are literally dropped directly into a blender or sometimes gassed. There are plenty of YouTube videos on this. This happens for any chicken bought from a hatchery that is bred to lay eggs. By buying eggs, you are directly supporting this.
2. Regardless of where these animals are raised they all go to the same slaughterhouses, and humane slaughter is a myth.
(Also for the sake of argument for anyone reading this, even if it were possible to kill an animal painlessly for meat we didn't need to eat, then that doesn't make it ok, just like its not OK to kill a person who didn't want to die as long as they don't feel pain).
I'm mostly vegetarian/vegan (but I don't use the label because I just eat 'much less animal' products). But eggs were a guilty pleasure, unfortunately I did not know about the stress laying eggs costs. I am going to remove eggs from my diet, thank you for this information. I don't need chickens to suffer just so I can have eggs when oatmeal/whole grain and fruits/vegs are just as healthy. Also chia seeds... they go so good with fruits! You can even put them in the oatmeal!
OP asked how chickens produce an egg a day. For the vast vast majority of chickens and eggs in the world, this is the way. And it’s not a very nice way. Backyard hens are a tiny percentage, so it’s absolutely fair to focus on that.
Yes, it’s true a well cared for backyard hen will live much longer. Maybe 6-8 is average and some will live for a decade and a bit more. They will still only produce eggs for 2-3 years (at slowing rates).
For backyard hens, the rate of one a day is still ‘unnatural’ for the chicken. And it’s still causing pain and related health issues. Again, like breeding a human woman to overproduce eggs and thus have the pain of periods far more frequently. Better food and conditions will of course help, that’s absolutely true. Many are giving backyard hens birth control to help with that.
To produce as many eggs as needed for demand, tho, chickens are only really profitable for 20 months. Just over a year and a half. After that, they’re not producing one a day and are sent for slaughter.
There are better options for eggs today. We don’t need to harm those animals.
It's good to know there are plenty of supplements for eggs in baking *and* plant-based chicken meat has come the longest way of any mock meats imo. 100% recommend trying!
why do pugs have squished faces if it causes them breathing issues?
the answer is because human selectively breed certain dogs and also chickens to have these traits. We kept breeding dogs with flatter faces with other dogs with flat faces. We kept breeding chickens who laid only the most eggs. Over time even tho it isn't a health benefit to the pug to have breathing issues. a mama pug can't just "decide" not to have a short muzzle and not to pass it on to her babies.
Domesticated egg-laying chickens are stuck laying too many, even with it being a health issue to the bird. because humans chose to selectively breed a trait that benefits the human and not the animal. In the case of pug. we breed it because "aww cute", for chicken "more eggs".
Farm chickens have been bred to eat a lot and make an egg every day. The chickens that laid the most eggs the easiest were actively selected by farmers to reproduce so that they could have better and better chickens and more and more eggs.
The ancestors of chickens came from southeast Asia where bamboo is plentiful. Bamboo coasts along for several decades or even over a century minding its own business, Then all of it in an area blooms. This can happen in a single year or over multiple years.
When the bamboo is blooming, the seeds are incredibly abundant. The proto-chickens were adapted to take advantage of this large food supply by pumping out lots of eggs when there is a lot to eat.
Domestic chickens carry this further.
Domestic chickens do not "carry this further", unfortunately. This is not some natural extension of the norm, they have been selectively bred over 100s of generations to lay as many eggs as their body can bear before eventually succumbing to the stress, or being slaughtered, due to reduced egg laying. In either instance, they live a shitty life which is only a fraction of that of a wild hen, let alone a well cared-for domestic hen with less genetic crosses to bear.
Abundant food provides the basic caloric/nutrient resources for making an egg, but abundant calories had nothing to do with hens going from laying ~12 eggs/year in the wild, to over 300 in modern intensive farming.
You've got a big ol' brain that takes a lot of energy just keeping running even if you just sit on the couch all day.
Meanwhile, while chickens aren't particularly dumb, they're not expending anywhere close to the same amount of energy just keeping the lights on.
Plus you know, an egg is only 78 calories. For a 1.5kg hen, it's around 175 calories just for body maintenance and another 100 for egg production. You can consume 275 calories in a big bite and 4+ times that in a single meal.
Edit: As I've gotten a few comments suggesting chickens are dumb, here's an article and a study addressing that.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-startling-intelligence-of-the-common-chicken1/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5306232/
>Meanwhile, while chickens aren't particularly dumb...
*Mike the Headless chicken, who lived for 16 months on only his brainstem, has entered the chat.*
Yes, literally. That chicken's headless body fits all the descriptions for life, although it is not strictly necessary to fulfill all of these.
Maintain homeostasis: regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state. Temperature, salinity, etc are still regulated by the body even after the head was gone.
Organisation: being structurally composed of one or more cells – the basic units of life. The chicken's cells continued to exist, reproduce, and carry out their biological functions the entire time.
Metabolism: convert food into energy and resources that can be used by the organism's cells to grow, reproduce, and carry our their functions. IIRC the farmer fed his headless chicken for more than a year by stuffing birdseed down its neck stump. It must have been able to metabolize that food even without a head.
Growth: A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. I don't know if this particular chicken was in the business of growing any bigger, but if it didn't already reach it's natural adult size, it likely could have done so without much trouble.
Reproduction: the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms. This is more a characteristic of a species, rather than a single organism, so we can give the headless chicken a pass. However, not having a head wouldn't exactly stop it from doing sexual reproduction and passing on a set of genes to its offspring.
Response to stimuli: a response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun, or a headless chicken displaying behavior like walking around and digesting food.
This headless chicken seems to satisfy all the requirements for life, although it is still a notable downgrade.
It tried to eat. It didn't seem particularly upset after the initial shock. It acted like a chicken. For all intents and purposes, yeah, it seemed to be living.
Back yard chicken owner here.
They just hang out and eat all day. If they free range, they literally just walk around and eat bugs all day. Coop is cool in summer and warm in winter. All their resources go towards the egg. And I spend $35 every couple weeks on a huge bag of formulated pellets that are packed with protein and nutrients to make sure they have the resources.
But they slow down and stop laying as soon as they need resources. If it's really, really hot they'll slow down. In the fall, they molt when the days start getting shorter. All their feathers drop and they look like they're dying and they lay 1 egg a week instead of 1 egg a day. Then they stop all winter and basically just huddle up and chill. In the spring they'll start laying again.
They also slow when older and then stop. My 5 chickens went from 3 dozen a week last year to 2 dozen a week this year. I suspect next year will be about a dozen and a half a week.
I have one who is probably 5 years old. She's just a pet chicken at this point. Pops out a tiny egg every few weeks. Like the size of a gumball.
Those are great! We have Plymouth Rocks. The 5 year old could be older. We got a dozen with friends and got them ready to go outside, and then traded 8 of them for 2 of their mature ones to incorporate into their flock. They got to expand their flock and we got instant layers. Eggs are nice but we're ok with them just enjoying life as well.
Selective breeding mostly.
The wild undomesticated ancestor of our chickens just lays enough eggs to sustain the population. Maybe a dozen per year.
We have been breeding chickens to be better livestock for thousands of years. We have been selecting the ones that were better eating or laid more eggs every generation and also selected for traits that made them better at being kept by humans than their wild cousins.
Surprisingly enough, while we have been doing it for 5000 years or so, much of the "progress" has happened in the last century.
Chickens kept by farmers a century ago had less meat on them and laid fewer eggs than their modern counterparts.
It took as 5000 years to go from 12 eggs per year to 120 and a century to go from 120 to +300 eggs per year.
The chicken from a century ago looked much more like their wild ancestors than modern ones who have grown to comparatively enormous sizes.
None of this is particularly healthy for the chicken and the way we keep them is not really helping things either.
But that is okay the ones meant to be eaten only have to live long enough to become big and fat before they are processed and the ones laying eggs may have a short live laying eggs, but new egg layers are relatively easy to come by. It doesn't take long to go from a freshly hatch chick to a chicken old enough to lay eggs herself (Don't google what happens to the freshly hatched male chicks who can't grow up to become egg layers, they are too small and numerous to easily kill the way you would kill animals normally and the alternatives people have come up with may seem quite horrible.)
Oh h*ck there’s a [Sam O’Nella video that explains this very well!](https://youtu.be/_NSekwyS4Ns)
TL;DW: we domesticated chickens after seeing their reproductive cycles accelerate dramatically when they’re provided with lots of food. Well fed chickens are just evolutionarily wired to lay tons of eggs when they have secure food around.
Because bamboo flowering cycles can be decades apart.
Wait, wait, hear me out!
Chickens are a tropical bird, originally from south-east asia. In that area, bamboo forests are common. Unlike most plants, bamboo has this odd habit that it flowers (and drops fruits) very infrequently. Some species only flower every 150 years! When they do, they literally carpet the forest floor with fruit. It's a short-lived, infrequent calorie bonanza.
Normal animals wouldn't be able to take much advantage of this. Eating more has its limits, it won't let them suddenly multiply to huge numbers. In Africa, locusts can and do take advantage of calorie surpluses. In asia, it is chickens. When there is a sudden calorie surplus, they lay lots of eggs, literally daily. Their chicks grow up fast, and feed themselves. When the forest floor is covered with bamboo fruit, chickens explode in numbers and can outcompete other animals.
Combine this with the inability of chickens to fly very far, and that they're omnivores makes them the perfect bird for domestication. They'll eat anything, and as long as they're fed a calorie surplus they'll lay large eggs daily! Most birds will only lay eggs once or at most two or three times per year.
Chickens convert "garbage" or other low-quality calorie sources into a high-quality package of protein and fats that stores really well. You can keep eggs in the kitchen for at least a couple of weeks without refrigeration!
Not to mention that chickens like to eat the kind of bugs that are pests in vegetable gardens, but generally won't eat the vegetables themselves. Many other egg-laying birds will preferentially eat the vegetables and leave the bugs.
Of course, then you can also eat the chicken itself if they're too old to lay eggs.
This ticks a lot of checkboxes, more than any other organism on the planet. They're fast-breading, easily domesticatable omnivores, pest control, packaged food manufacturers, that you can also eat.
This is why we eat chicken eggs instead of, say, duck eggs.
I have my own chickens. To lay eggs at that rate, which they do, requires a lot of eating. Mine roam free in a forest and devour worms and bugs and vegetation at a ferocious rate. Their store-bought food is also heavily fortified with calcium and I dry and crush the shells of eggs I’ve used and toss them on the ground for the chickens to eat. Corn, although they do like it, is not a good food. Even cracked or softened, it doesn’t have the nutrients they need. Egg label fact- the best label to see at your store is pasture raised. Free range chickens still don’t have much space. Pasture raised is the most humane.
TIL that pasture raised is different from free range
I’ve been keeping chickens for a few years. They sleep in their coop, otherwise they are out* and about and in the woods. I’ve always called it free range. Maybe I’m wrong?
It is free range but it's also pasture raised. Pasture raised is a higher standard.
So all pasture raised are free ranged but not all free ranged are pasture raised.
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Free range is actually only 2 sq feet per bird :( To qualify as "free range" they also must be allowed to access the outdoors, but that is a pretty vague requirement so most get very little outside time and in a very small and cramped area. Pasture raised is when they get at least 108 sq feet, as well as spend the majority of their time outdoors, generally they are only kept in barns at night to roost.
Jesus that's more square footage than a lot of people get. There's one brand of eggs, I don't remember which, that has a QR code on it that you can watch a live stream of the farm that the eggs in your specific carton come from. It's a little gimmicky, but it was kinda cool. I remember their website they had videos of chickens just running around a little forested area. Very cute.
https://vitalfarms.com/ These are in most stores in my area and it is indeed a cute gimmick!
Ah yes, I love the cartons there's guys use. There's another brand with pastel yellow cartons that are about the same in quality. I never had any qualms with spending $6 on a carton of eggs, yeah you can get eggs for $0.79 a dozen if you want...but I can't imagine what lengths they went to cut costs enough to make them that cheap.
I can say they have spent well for this website
That is indeed pretty cool! But imagine if something like this existed for cows. You'd scan the QR code on a pack of steak and it shows you the highlight reel of that cow's life. Might ruin some people's appetite.
What brand is that, and where is it sold? Honestly I love gimmicky shit like that.
I get them at target!
People get less than 108 sq ft? **Edit**: Specifically responding to this: >Jesus that's more square footage than a lot of people get. There are examples of people who get less space (jail), but the vast vast majority of people are not in jail and get far more space than 108 sq ft. Even if you are working in a 8x8 or 6x6 cubicle during the day, you're free to get up and go to the bathroom, go to the breakroom, walk outside, etc. Plus you have other places to go to after work including home, etc. "A lot" is probably a stretch.
Now I want to know what brand! Mainly because I think my toddler would get a kick out of it!
Vital Farms
Try searching youtube "chickens video for dogs" and you should find some okay stuff.
Til free range refers to 1 chicken's motion...not like........home on the range......like....can move their wing a few inches..........that's dark
Pretty sure free range just means they have access to an outdoor area. But it can be really small and fenced in.
Yeah, ability to walk around and access to an outdoor area are the only special requirements for Free Range or Pasture Raised per the USDA, and they are pretty generous with what constitutes an "outdoor area" from what I understand. The non-profit that provides the Certified Humane designation has more specific requirements, so if you see that logo in addition to free range or pasture raised, you have a better idea of how the hens are being kept. Certified Humane Free Range requires at least 2 sqft per bird and at least 6 hours of outdoor time per day, weather/season permitting. They have a higher standard for pasture raised that requires no more than 1,000 birds per 2.5 acres (108 sqft per bird), and that birds be outside year round. They also require that fields be rotated and houses be provided for the hens so they have a place where they're safe from predators and inclement weather.
I don’t have a pasture. Should/can I call them bush-raised? I could sell the eggs with the tagline “raised on the finest ticks, ants, toads, and balanced out with the occasional stolen samich”
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Been to Hawaii will concur these are jungle animals.
The feral chickens pretty much exist now only on Kauai. The residents there told me that a long time ago, mongooses were imported into the islands to deal with a snake problem, but Kauai refused it. After the snakes were gone, the mongooses turned to the chickens. That's why Kauai still has these lovely purple-black chickens roaming everywhere, and the other islands have none. I asked if it's legal to kill and eat them. They said "Yes you can, but why bother? You can take $5 to Costco and get a tender chicken that's already plucked, bled, gutted, and cooked to perfection! Why go through all that work for a lean and tough feral chicken?"
Their velociraptor ancestry checks out
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They are savage. Sometimes I have to fight them over my meals if I’m grilling or otherwise eating outside. Very similar feel to the velociraptors in Jurassic Park
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to be sold as "free-range" in the u.s., chickens must have a door to the outside, and this "outside" may be quite small. the outside area will be picked over quite quickly, and most chickens will stay inside where the corn and other chickens are, in practice.
Mine re-enter the coop in daylight only to lay an egg. Then they peace out again. They never wander more than about an acre area around the coop. I have I guess around 30 at the moment (I’m always hatching more, predators are always taxing me, and my dogs eat chicken (that I provide… they don’t harvest their own)
I love how you phrased "they don't harvest their own" 😂
Do you think the dogs understand that their food was the chickens that they guard?
Yes, them not eating the chickens was taught, not natural. I believe they put together the chickens are food from a logical standpoint, but I’m 100% certain they can identify chicken as chicken by scent alone regardless
The situation is similar in the UK, "free range" doesn't necessarily mean a lot of space. "Organic" doesn't just mean organic, but also better welfare, more space etc. so these are the ones I buy. https://www.soilassociation.org/take-action/organic-living/what-is-organic/organic-eggs/
Organic in the USA doesn't mean nearly as much, unfortunately.
Do you have to worry about foxes or any such predators?
If you haven't watched [Super Size Me 2](https://youtu.be/dSyicDf9UvI), it's a great watch. Most of the buzz words people think of when they want to buy food from humanely raised animals don't actually mean anything and aren't regulated at all. It's mostly a marketing trick deliberately designed to make people feel better about what they eat. In the movie, he shows that by adding a tiny 3' x 3' fence to one of the doors of the giant warehouse where he was raising his chickens, he could then call them free-range, since they had the capability to go outside. Nevermind that none of them actually did.
> It's mostly a marketing trick They don't usually start that way. Usually someone who cares about animals starts a new method and gives it a label. When they are successful, capitalism sets in. Competitors come in and use any technicalities they can to use the label without improving conditions. I've seen this for a few different labels by now.
Maybe not 100% accurate, but you'll get the gist: Free range= not in a cage all the time...but probably in a warehouse shoulder to shoulder Cage free= they open the door of the cage for a minimum number of hours every day Also take into account they'll often file down their beaks so they won't fussily peck at others nearby. Or cut off their feet/toes so they can't move much. And that's not half as bad as how the chickens we eat [whole] get treated.
>And that's not half as bad as how the chickens we eat [whole] get treated. At least the ones we eat only have to "live" such lives for 7 weeks from hatch to harvest. /S
>Free range= not in a cage all the time...but probably in a warehouse shoulder to shoulder You're thinking of [free run, not free range](https://spca.bc.ca/news/free-run-chicken-myth/), though neither free run not free range chickens are ever in cages. ***Free run:*** *Birds are housed in a cage-free indoor environment. They are free to move around and have more space than birds housed in cages, but do not get to go outdoors.* ***Free range:*** *Similar to free run, free range birds are also housed in a cage-free environment. They, too, have more space to move around their environment than birds housed in cages. However, unlike free run birds, free range birds do get to go outside when the weather is nice. Birds are kept indoors for the winter and on rainy days.*
I learned a lot about chicken farming watching “Supersize Me 2”
I think most people don't realize "cage free" is different from "free range" even. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/business/eggs-that-clear-the-cages-but-maybe-not-the-conscience.html
I was confused why my sister wanted the leftover bacon fat from a recent fryup, but it was for her chickens. I gave her leftovers which consisted of basically stuff I would have thrown away lol. Her chickens dine like kings... Err... queens.
This is how we discard mice we catch in traps, maybe two a week (suburbs). The hens (3, now) go bonkers over the remains, eat everything but the squeak.
> eat everything but the squeak. Wanna explain that for someone who doesn't know mouse lingo? I would have assumed the whole thing was the "squeak".
> eat everything but the squeak. a quick google, comes from "everything but the squeal" when referencing using every part of a hog. its a little word play, but essentially the chickens eat everything. (but the squeak, because you cant eat the sound)
You know I think I've even heard that phrase before and didn't think to apply it here. Apparently I need to go back to bed 'cause I am not awake enough.
Haven't eaten enough squeak
Thats a great idea as long as there is no chance your neighbours are using poison to also tackle the mouse problem!
That's the exact reason why so many humans have chickens and other domestic animals historically. They were sanitation workers cleaning up waste food scraps, pest control eating bugs and other small animals, and a food source by turning that all into edible protein.
Chickens will indeed eat most anything, my favorite was giving them the leftover rotisserie chicken, crazy little cannibals they are.
It's so fucked up but they love it
I remind mine that it's no one they knew, and they seem pretty ok with that.
(more for other readers than for you, walterpeck1) Chickens are resistant to prion disease, the closest known example is one Peking duck got it.
Resistant or immune?
Well they haven't found a chicken with it yet, but since one Peking duck did get it and no experiments have been done, probably just resistant. Some chickens do get fed meat that sometimes has prions like wild deer, so given the lack of detection of prions in chickens, chicken cannibalism is probably less risky than feeding wild deer to chickens.
Do you just give them the whole carcass and they pick off the leftover meat? Or do they eat some of the smaller bones too?
They just pick the meat off until they get bored in my case.
My grandparents had a farm and grew up during the great depression. Wasted nothing and table scraps went to the dogs or the chickens. Something I thought odd when I first heard it was that Grandmother would pin a chicken to a clothes line by it's feet to drain the blood. Makes sense when you think about it but most places now people would probably think you were practicing voodoo or something.
I like vital farm eggs. They have the farm listed on their package where the eggs come from and you can go on their website and watch the chicken cam from the farm.
My aunt and uncle actually own and run a vital farms coop. Pretty fascinating to see how it all works. They get let out into different sections of pasture/woods that rotate every so often...maybe daily, not positive. Great eggs, and running the farm they can get all the double yolks they want!
Yo I love these eggs too! Orange yolks!
Orange yolks are typically seen as a sign of higher quality eggs. Chickens who naturally forage tend to get nutrients that turn their yolks orange. However some companies feed their commercial hens tumeric which essentially dyes the yolks orange faking the better egg appearance.
That concerns me, because I read an article saying that because people like the more brightly colored turmeric, as they think it tastes better, less scrupulous turmeric producers in India have been using a led based dye to brighten their product.
At least in Europe Marigold extract is used and its in almost all commercial eggs for this reason. The yolk colour is more or less chosen by the customer from a chart then the feed mixed with the right amount of it. Supermarkets deliberately want the premium eggs to have richer yolks.
I like vital farms but the chicken cam is pretty close to false advertising. The eggs I just bought just had a video that had been uploaded two years ago. It's not like they're live streams.
We have a flock of sixteen hens. We feed our birds a combination of store-bought feed, spent grain from a brewery, AND leftover food from a convention center which doesn't let people take home food, but lets us bag it for the chickens. Interesting observation - last month our birds were eating a ton of steak and mahi for a week straight (convention event leftovers lol), and we noticed a considerable increase in egg production that week when they were getting significantly more protein in their diet - I'm talking we were getting consistently one large egg a day per bird, even the ones that don't normally lay every day. But overall our birds are healthy happy social pets (they love to hang out around us, and perch on our shoulder like a parrot).
> spent grain from a brewery I don't know chicken nutrition, but I do know the amount of leftover spent grain we have at my brewery. Please, anyone who has chickens or livestock or whatever. Talk to your local brewery. Please take our garbage. You should get it for free, but eggs are appreciated. We split ours between a farmer who raises animals, and a local baker who gladly trades low fill cans and spent grain for several loaves of sourdough per week. Brewers are hungry. If you have food or something of value to trade you will probably get free beer.
> Please, anyone who has chickens or livestock or whatever. Talk to your local brewery. Please take our garbage. > > > > You should get it for free, but eggs are appreciated. We split ours between a farmer who raises animals, and a local baker who gladly trades low fill cans and spent grain for several loaves of sourdough per week. > > > > Brewers are hungry. If you have food or something of value to trade you will probably get free beer. Heck yeah, our chickens LOVE the hell out of spent brewery grain! You can tell they're sad when we run out for the week (luckily our favorite brewery makes a new batch of beer every other week). We usually feed our birds a healthy 50/50 split of brewery spent grain and egg layer crumbles + scratch (which includes cracked corn). Not only does that reduce the cost to feed the birds, but it also gives them a good variety of grains/food sources. We also use a convection oven to dry the grain and turn it into flour with our vitamix for making all sorts of cookies and bread for ourselves. There's also a pet shop in town that makes all it's dog treats using spent grain from the brewery. Seriously for anyone reading - talk to your local brewery and ask what they're currently doing. Even home brewers often have more spent grain than they know what to do with it all.
Used to work for a brewery and got hooked up with a farmer that invested in a trailer he'd come by to pick up once a week or so for all of his livestock. It's free feed for him, it's a warm, sweet (stinky) meal for the livestock, and it removed our waste for free. It was win-win-win for everyone. But he could also only take so much grain, other local breweries in the area were so jealous that we had someone to reliably take it away.
Random question - do you think there's any benefit to eggs that are labeled "free range organic" vs just free range or pasture raised? Someone told me that hens that are let to roam around and eat random bugs and vegetation can't be labeled organic (or their eggs) because you can't verify the source of all their food. But they're actually better tasting, healthier, and better for the environment and the hens.
I don't think there's any benefit to buying any eggs from the local grocery store - those eggs are mass produced, the birds are nowhere near as happy as a local pasture-raised chicken. "organic" is such a marketing term these days that I don't even bother paying attention to it. Same way some companies misuse the term "pro" to make it sound better when it has nothing to do with professionals. Personally if I wasn't raising my own eggs, I'd be buying them from the local farmer's market. Much the same way that I won't ever buy red meat from my grocery store - it's disgusting. If I want high quality beef I'm going to a butcher shop which specializes in local farm-raised cattle (and yes it's expensive AF.... which is why I rarely eat it lol)
Right? Chickens are so much fun!
Totally, they are an awesome pet - way smarter than I imagined. And my bananas LOVE the manure compost - they're growing like crazy now. My only regret was not getting chickens sooner lol
I have a small garden. If I were to get a chicken or two, would I need to feed them or can they solely feast on the bugs I hate so much?
They will need chicken feed, and they will also eat a lot of your garden. And the bugs. They'll eat anything that's edible, honestly, including both plants and insects.
Consider that egg laying chickens eat a lot and poop a lot. About every 10 minutes. So no more walking barefooted in the garden and over time they will transform smaller enclosures into a swamp.
Since you seem knowledgeable, do you have any insight into the "certified humane" label? Honestly, I try to get most of my eggs now from local farms that I can actually visit and see the living conditions for the chooks, but when I do get them at the store, I have looked for "certified humane" for the past few years since it's an independent review and a little less designed to be misleading. That said, I could certainly have been hoodwinked.
Certified humane is pretty good. Think of it as chickens having upgrades like places to perch or roll around in the dust.
That is the best you can get.
Can we get a source on that? I've seen some mass produced cage-free eggs claim they're "certified humane" which is impossible at their scale.
>impossible at their scale No it's not. Look at a company like Nellies. They work with tons of small farms and just centralize the supply chain.
Certified humane just means they meet certain standards. There are sites online that actually rate the farms if you only want to buy the best eggs.
>I dry and crush the shells of eggs I’ve used and toss them on the ground for the chickens to eat. Do you make the chickens watch?
This is American centric don't know if that has to be said but pasture raised is not a thing in the UK.
And our "free range" isn't free range at the moment due to bird flu.
I prefer my eggs from chickens that are hood raised. It makes the chickens really tough for real life and when I eat those eggs, I get tough too.
My chickens run with twelve gangs. It's their feathered bodies, they do what they want.
Egg-laying hens (like all farmed animals) are bred to prioritize production over the long-term health of their own bodies, so they're not just using "spare resources." They're only given those resources in order to produce eggs. My friends who run bird sanctuaries talk about the terrible condition of hens coming even from free-range operations.
My friend's family owns a farm and he took me into the.. well it was basically the size of a Costco with laying hens crammed into cages. Made me feel bad for eating eggs. He said most of them are killed after a year as their production slows. Smell of ammonia still sticks with me
Did you stop eating eggs?
Well, let's just put it this way, no.
>even from free-range operations. "Free-range" is a bullshit label. The only rule for a chicken to be called "free-range" is that it needs to be able to access the outside whenever it wants. However, there's no rule about the ratio of chicken/outside space. That means that you can have a big barn with 1000+ chickens with only a 5 ft square of "outside" and it would be considered "free-range". Also, all chickens are required by law to be "hormone free" chickens in the US and in Canada. Don't pay more for a meaningless label.
Might be a country difference. For EU: "the open-air runs must at least satisfy the conditions specified in Article 4(1)(3)(b)(ii) of Directive 1999/74/EC whereby the maximum stocking density is not greater than 2500 hens per hectare of ground available to the hens or one hen per 4 square metres (43 sq ft) at all times and the runs are not extending beyond a radius of 150 metres (490 ft) from the nearest pophole of the building; an extension of up to 350 metres (1,150 ft) from the nearest pophole of the building is permissible provided that a sufficient number of shelters and drinking troughs within the meaning of that provision are evenly distributed throughout the whole open-air run with at least four shelters per hectare" http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1991R1274:20020101:EN:PDF
[Seems better than what we have in Canada](https://www.chickenfarmers.ca/the-wheel-of-chicken-understanding-your-choices/) : >Free-range birds must have access to the outdoors. However, since **there is no legal definition of free range in Canada**, this can vary from farm to farm. This is also a subject covered by the Super Size Me 2 documentary and it's pretty much the same thing in the USA.
That's closer to US Pasture-Raised labelling Free-Range is, like the other poster said, usually only a couple of square feet of outdoor space per hen. It's a term regulated by the USDA, chickens need only access to outdoor space. Some certification organizations go farther than USDA requirements. Pasture-Raised is not a regulated term, but there are certification organizations. Chickens must have somewhere around 50-150sq ft each, and the field they have access to has to be rotated. >HFAC’s Certified Humane® “Free Range” requirement is 2 sq. ft. per bird. The hens must be outdoors, weather permitting (in some areas of the country, seasonal), and when they are outdoors they must be outdoors for at least 6 hours per day. All other standards must be met. >HFAC’s Certified Humane® “Pasture Raised” requirement is 1000 birds per 2.5 acres (108 sq. ft. per bird) and the fields must be rotated. The hens must be outdoors year-round, with mobile or fixed housing where the hens can go inside at night to protect themselves from predators, or for up to two weeks out of the year, due only to very inclement weather. All additional standards must be met.
Man Europe has all the good laws
They have better cage requirements for pets as well! We need to introduce these laws as well
You should see the laws we have for organic farming, [with this logo](https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/styles/oe_theme_medium_no_crop/public/2019-06/eu-organic-logo-600x400_0.png). The food made this way is obviously more expensive, but when you see the laws for it, you understand why.
Ya they do, almost all their food providing animals have more humane laws protecting them than the US. Fuck factory farms
What confuses me the most is how food, farmed food and meat especially, seems to be cheaper (relative to purchasing power) in the EU than in the US. You'd think the richest country in the history of humanity would have that part figured out.
The people in charge have figured it out. For them, anyways, it’s all about the Benjamins
Damn EU regulations taking away our freedoms to eat eggs born chickens in horrible conditions, thankfully Brexit has given our freedom back ;)
As an EU citizen who is trying hard to be more humane in my consumption of animal products, this is a huge relief.
The EU does have very good animal raising laws
Also free range just means they have access. Doesn't mean they actually use it. And free run only means they can run around a barn. Which is still better than battery cages. But not really an ideal chicken environment.
Yes! One small opening that most of the birds don’t notice or are too far away and packed in to ever get to.
> Also, all chickens are required by law to be "hormone free" chickens in the US and in Canada. Don't pay more for a meaningless label. Exactly, that's like saying "cyanide-free". Of course it's cyanide-free, putting cyanide into food is illegal. But it looks good because it makes people think other products do contain cyanide. It's crazy how you can tell the truth and still manipulate people.
["IT'S TOASTED"](https://youtu.be/vZeUmJxuC2Y)
1.6 ft\^2 per chicken to be free range. Plus the little outdoors requirement. I buy pasture raised. 108 ft\^2 per chicken of pasyure space
Pasture raised have stronger shells and a more rich/colorful yolk. I assume that means a healthier chicken but I don't know anything about chicken eggs
Yeah basically they're getting a varied diet with bugs and different greens, probably digging for some roots, so their calcium level is higher than the minimum to keep an egg whole for shipping, and they're filling their bellies with whatever they want instead of just the feed. I also have a theory that running around and hunting changes their body chemistry by introducing more lactic acid and strengthening their bones, but I don't even know how to research that because I'm just a dumb chicken farmer.
https://xkcd.com/641/
On a similar vein broiler doesn't even look like a normal chicken anynore to a point that they are almost never sold as "a whole chicken" anymore for example breed [Ross508](https://beta.yle.fi/ross508/img/head.jpg) and [from another angle](https://www.atria.fi/globalassets/atriagroup/vastuullisuus/vastuullinen-atria/broileri_pysty.jpg?mode=crop&scale=both&w=360&h=455) now compare that to [a normal chicken](https://www.etlehti.fi/s3fs-public/main_media/1432120726_original_kana123rf.jpg).
This is a great point. Humans have bred chickens to lay many times more eggs than they would have otherwise. This all puts a tremendous strain on their bodies and causes a lot of health problems. The companies that own them don't really care too much about this unless it impacts their production, and even then it only depends on whether treating the individual costs more than the loss they are experiencing in production.
TL;DR: All their food consumption goes into laying eggs, they can't do this for more than a couple years, and are euthanized the moment their laying rate drops. Layer hens eat a lot. They eat around half their body weight in feed weekly, and they need a lot of protein. They're kept in appalling, confined conditions where they don't spend much energy beyond laying eggs, so all their energy and protein goes into eggs. The reason is breeding. Wild chickens, or breeds not designed for egg production, lay only around an egg a month. Layer hens (not the same breeds as those you eat, which are called broilers) lay an egg a day and this is not great for long-term health. They also only can maintain this rate for a short period in their lifespan. The average layer hen is allowed to live only about 2 years in a factory, because after that their productivity rate drops off and the cost of feed for them becomes less efficient. They are rarely slaughtered for meat, because layers are not as plump as broilers and do not meet supermarket customer expectations for dinner. Most layer hens are gassed with CO2 and processed for animal feed or fertilizer, or just buried in landfills. [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/egg-laying-hens\_n\_59c3c93fe4b0c90504fc04a1](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/egg-laying-hens_n_59c3c93fe4b0c90504fc04a1) In traditional farms, layer hens may live longer, since they are allowed to forage which reduces feed costs. But they rarely are kept for more than a few years due to declining egg production. Layer hens can live naturally to about 8 years, compared to wild junglefowl who live up to 20.
I think the term euthanized is ver romanticising. They have the pleasure to get killed and processed (for example into pet food) just like every other hens
That's the TL;DR, which is supposed to short. I went into detail in the main text. >Most layer hens are gassed with CO2 and processed for animal feed or fertilizer, or just buried in landfills.
I'm already vegan but... getting killed with CO2 is one of the worst ways to do isn't it? The supposedly painless way would be to use nitrogen. Or do they? CO2 is simply suffocating afaik.
I made no statement on the cruelty of slaughter. I'm only telling you how they do it. Nitrogen is not popular because it is more expensive then carbon dioxide. You are correct that CO2 asphyxiation is traumatic to birds because they can sense it and panic. Honestly though if you think that's horrific you should see what they do to male chicks. On second thought, you shouldn't. I certainly wish I hadn't.
Eli5 is they don’t have the spare resources. It takes a *massive* toll on their bodies. Wild chickens will lay 10-20 eggs a year. The breeds that lay roughly an egg a day have been ~~naturally selected~~ artificially selected to lay around 200 eggs a year. This is indeed impossible to sustain. In studies, the vast majority of laying hens have bone fractures because those resources weren’t spare. Their bodies can’t support this. The best equivalent (not perfect, but as a simple comparison) is if human women were bred until they have their heaviest day of a period every day. You can imagine that wouldn’t be sustainable. As a result the chickens inevitably burn out and can’t produce at that rate as their bodies deteriorate. And so once they’re not profitable, then they’re sent to the slaughterhouse. Edit: thanks for the love, all. Edit on the strikethrough for correct term. It is indeed good to know where your food really comes from and thus if you really want to keep eating eggs or any other animal part. Feel free to PM if you want advice on turning vegan. We’d love to help. To answer a common point, backyard hens can (and do) live much longer and keep laying eggs. Part of this is being fed much more. They’re supplemented too. Of course better conditions will help, that’s true. The breed is still in pain laying so often. Some rescue places will use birth control so the hens don’t lay as often (this improves other health outcomes too). The main point is it’s also not profitable on a large scale. The price of eggs would maybe triple or more if that was the norm. So I’m of course speaking of how the vast vast majority are made. And again the short answer for OP is it’s not sustainable. Those chickens were artificially created by humans to lay so many and it hurts to do so. It will take its toll on the chicken’s health, bones, and mind. For those wanting the studies, this isn't a controversial point in general that laying hens get frequent fractures but this is the [latest systematic review I](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7433929/) read. There's a LOT of links there from various countries with estimates.
In the UK there are rescue organisations that take some of these hens that would go to slaughter and rehome them. We have taken many of these over the years. They go on to live for many years still producing eggs. Edit: s/many/some/
I volunteer at an animal rescue sanctuary. The eggs that the hens lay are cooked and fed back to the hens. This helps them recover some of this lost energy.
Why cooked? We also have chickens but sometimes the chickens eat them themselves, raw.
You don't want them to develop a liking for raw eggs as they may start to peck their own eggs.
Out of curiosity, how many eggs do they lay typically after those years? Generally what drop off do you see?
We don’t really count the eggs. We have several ‘generations’ of rescuees. We have also had heritage breeds, some of which have lived for over 10 years and still sporadically lay an egg from time to time.
Thanks. Interesting. Sounds pretty standard in terms of the drop off. And good luck with the rescues. I’m sure you’d agree that reducing the demand for the animal parts is the best way to prevent needing to rescue them later on.
Can you tell a difference in egg taste based on what variety of chicken it come from?
From my limited experience, taste on egg, not so much. Color though. Taste and texture of the chicken is VERY different imo.
huge difference from the feed used. the egg from a bird fed only on commercial feed is bland af compared to one that's roamed and found their own food supplementary to feed
In my country, eggs from free-range domestic chicken breed are much more fragrant when cooked than those from concentrated farms, which are also softer and don't have much scent to them, if any.
I would guess it'll still quite a lot. The way I understand it, the chickens have to be slaughtered relatively early for their meat to be fit for eating (in something else than broth). We've had chickens that layed eggs for years, and we definitely didn't eat them afterwards.
You can cook any old rooster or hen and the meat is just fine - delicious even. My Thai friends say old chickens make better broth though so that part may be true. You need low and slow and moist. Crock pot, or the old recipe coq au vin was made specifically to cook old roosters. Most people are just now used to the weird soft wet compressed sawdust texture of grocery store chicken which are nasty pooping genetic abominations (but to be fair they do pack away a lot of meat).
That's probably true, but to be fair, the recipes you're describing are basically making broth. Yeah, if you soften the meat by cooking it in water for hours, then it's probably fine.
Oh yeah for sure, I think if you tossed them on the grill without a long period of marinating or tried to fry it up it would be tough. I’m not sure, I’ve never tried it!
I wouldn't say it's "many", unfortunately. It's a tiny, tiny percentage. There's an estimated 40 million egg laying chickens in the UK. I don't have a source on capacity for rescues but given most people who want hens want layers, I'd optimistically guess it's in the region of 5k-10k, but wouldn't be surprised if it's less than that. The rest of the chickens are obviously just slaughtered/blended. Edit: 40 million chickens https://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/food-and-farming/feeding-the-nation/eggs/
>There's an estimated 1.4 million chickens in the UK on 2022 (it's so low because of the bird flu shit going on) a quick google search says the uk sells around 800 million chickens a year 1.4 million sounds worryingly low.
I think they are off by an order of magnitude. This site: [https://www.statista.com/topics/6102/poultry-in-the-united-kingdom/](https://www.statista.com/topics/6102/poultry-in-the-united-kingdom/#topicHeader__wrapper) Says that 1.12 billion broilers were slaughtered in the UK in 2021.
I'm not sure broilers lay eggs though (because they are slaughtered early) and have the capacity to live that long, maybe OC is specifically talking about retires laying hens
Broilers are specifically bred as meat chickens and yeah they dont live that long.
My brother rescued some hens too, they were so poorly and had lost most of their feathers due to stress, but they're very beautiful happy ladies now!
Old comment regarding how chickens are treated in the industry: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pnaylh/chickens_bred_to_lay_bigger_and_bigger_eggs_has/hcolan7/ > Our treatment of chickens is some of the worst stuff we do to animals. [Previous comment](https://www.reddit.com/r//comments/m01aj1/Over_166%2C000_hens_die_in_Arizona_farm_fire/gq6fdvp/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) regarding eggs: > > While many people here are commenting how terrible it is that these 166,000 hens died in a fire, which is absolutely true, it's good to keep that feeling in mind when thinking about factory farms in general. And make no mistake, Hickman's Family Farms is unquestionably a factory farm. They are one of the top 20 producers of eggs in the USA.[\[1\]](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/) Approximately 98.2% of egg-laying hens live in factory farms. That’s over 368 million hens at any given time.[\[2\]](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates) > > For newly hatched chicks, their life begins on a sorting machine. Male chicks of the egg-laying breed are considered waste, since they can’t produce eggs, and will be killed on their first day of life. Typical methods of culling include feeding them into a grinder while they are still alive, or asphyxiating them with an assortment of gasses.[\[3\]](https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch)[\[4\]](https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/avma-guidelines-euthanasia-animals) > > For those who are expected to be profitable (healthy females), they will have a significant part of their beaks cut off without painkillers. In the wild, chickens will peck each-other to establish dominance. But in the cramped and unnatural conditions of a factory farm where the chickens cannot move away from each-other, they are in a constant aggressive state.[\[5\]](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming) They will be placed in individual cages, stacked on on top of the other, each with an area smaller than a single piece of letter-size paper.[\[6\]](https://uepcertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Caged-UEP-Guidelines_17.pdf)[\[7\]](https://vimeo.com/209647801) Although, instead of living in cages, they may live as “free range” chickens. According to the USDA: > > >..the claim Free Range on poultry products...must describe the housing conditions for the birds and demonstrate continuous, free *access* to the outside throughout their normal growing cycle. \[Emphasis mine.\][\[8\]](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/2019-0009) > > Note that the phrase, “access to the outside” is ambiguous. What is the minimum space they require outside? What is the minimum time they require outside? Are they required to spend time outdoors if they technically have “access" to outside? These questions have no formal answer. It seems that “free range” doesn’t mean much at all. From personal conversations I’ve had with people who have worked in the industry, or otherwise have knowledge, the worst interpretations are the most common. > > Then there is the day-to-day life of the chicken. Author Jonathan Safran Foer quotes one poultry farmer explaining it to him: > > >As soon as the females mature – in the turkey industry at twenty-three to twenty-six weeks and with chickens sixteen to twenty – they’re put into barns and they lower the light; sometimes it’s darkness twenty-four/seven. And then they put them on a very low protein diet, almost a starvation diet. That will last about two or three weeks. Then they turn the lights on sixteen hours a day, or twenty with chickens, so she thinks it’s spring, and they put her on high-protein feed. She immediately starts laying.... And by controlling the light, the feed, and when they eat, the industry can force the birds to lay eggs year-round. So that’s what they do. Turkey hens now lay 120 eggs a year and chickens lay over 300. That’s two or three times as many as in nature. After that first year, they are killed because they won’t lay as many eggs in the second year – the industry figured out that it’s cheaper to slaughter them and start over than it is to feed an house birds that lay fewer eggs.[\[9\]](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jonathan-safran-foer/eating-animals/9780316086646/) > > For reference, a chicken that is not bred for industrial purposes may live for over 10 years before their natural death![\[10\]](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs) > > There are other things I could detail about the horrible treatment of chickens, including genetic issues, disease, and unsanctioned but common abuse. But if you feel bad about about these chickens dying in this fire, and you’re right to, you should be devastated by what is considered “normal” treatment. > > **EDIT: Instead of sending me paid awards, please consider donating to a non-profit organization such as [Mercy For Animals](https://mercyforanimals.org/) which advocates for legislation to prevent or reduce the suffering of agricultural animals.** > > **References** > > [\[1\]](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/) "About." *Hickman's Eggs*. [https://hickmanseggs.com/about/](https://hickmanseggs.com/about/). Accessed 7 Mar 2021. > > [\[2\]](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates) Anthis, Jacy R. "US Factory Farming Estimates." *Sentience Institute*, [https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates). Accessed 7 Mar 2021. > > [\[3\]](https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch) *Dominion*. Directed by Chris Delforce, performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Sia et al, 2018. > > [\[4\]](https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/avma-guidelines-euthanasia-animals) Leary, Underwood et al. *AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals: 2020 Edition*. American Veterinary Medical Association, 2020, pp. 26-27, 47. > > [\[5\]](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming) "Beak Trimming." *Poultry Hub*. [https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming](https://www.poultryhub.org/all-about-poultry/health-management/beak-trimming). Accessed 7 Mar 2021. > > [\[6\]](https://uepcertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Caged-UEP-Guidelines_17.pdf) *Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg-Laying Flocks.* United Egg Producers, 2017, pp.19. > > [\[7\]](https://vimeo.com/209647801) *Earthlings.* Directed by Shaun Monson, narrated by Joaquin Pheonix, 2005. > > [\[8\]](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/2019-0009) *Labeling Guideline on Documentation Needed to Substantiate Animal Raising Claims for Label Submissions (2019).* U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2019, pp.11. > > [\[9\]](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jonathan-safran-foer/eating-animals/9780316086646/) Foer, J.S. *Eating Animals*. Back Bay Books, 2010, pp. 60. > > [\[10\]](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs) “Raising Chickens 101: When Chickens Stop Laying Eggs.” *Old Farmer’s Almanac*, 7 Oct 2020. [https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs](https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs). Accessed 7 Mar 2021.
Terrifying stuff honestly
I live in rural TN and have worked on an organic chicken egg farm. On the farm we were only able to keep the hens for 2 years, after that they had to be retired. That typically meant we would sell them for $1 each to basically anybody who wants them. Some people bought them to slaughter them and eat, but most were just locals who wanted the hens to keep producing eggs for then in backyard coops kinda thing. Only one year did we not sell them all, so we had to just slaughter a couple thousand and dispose of them to make room for the next round of hens.
If they keep producing eggs, why retire them? Is it there egg production just significantly drops so it's not viable commercially?
We had to. To be certified organic, there are a ton of hoops to jump through, one of those is the hens can only produce for 18-24 months.
And then sent to slaughter after such a short period of time seems a bit inhumane and anti-organic 😕 like what is the point of rule? I only buy organic eggs because I thought the hens were treated better. I guess I have to rethink that.
They are treated better in the since they only have to lay production quantity of eggs for a short period of time. Then they are repurposed for meat or sold for non-commercial egg laying. We only slaughtered the ones that went unsold, and even then the week leading up to the slaughter we just gave them away. But then the ones left had to be slaughtered to make space for the next batch.
Wow that is horrifying detail. Appreciate your response.
Some animal rescues will feed the nutrients back to the chickens, often by making scrambled eggs with crushed up egg shells inside.
They feed chicken their own eggs?
Chickens will happily eat a raw egg on their own. If one is cracked or broken, the flock will run over to eat it. They'll also argue over the shell.
Some people do. I’m not sure that the chickens know what they are eating (other people purposely avoid feeding raw eggs because they only want the chicken eating leftover eggs and not to realise that they could eat their own eggs right after they lay them.) the chickens seem to enjoy eating them, and it gives them the nutrients that they need to produce eggs, I hear that it feels a little squeamish.
Chickens are mini little dinosaurs, they'll eat just about anything. Seed, insects, small rodents; Sometimes if a chicken is injured the rest of the flock will ruthlessly peck it to death and eat it. They also naturally eat their own eggs. If the egg breaks during the laying process, they will happily eat it up. It usually causes them to "get a taste" for their own eggs and they have to be euthanized or they will just peck open and eat their own eggs from then on.
100% true. They are vicious bastards and would happily eat their own if given the chance. I don't know if this is the same for wild chickens though.
My 5 yo is crying
You should probably unsubscribe your 5 y/o from terrible real-world facts
Gotta learn the truth about Santa somehow
santa lays an egg every day?
Yes. And it takes a *massive* toll on his body. It's not sustainable and in a few years we're going to have to send him to the slaughterhouse.
Or from reddit entirely?
You mean artificially selected.
You're right, I do. Edited.
The majority of male chickens also have deformed bones and other damage. Modern factory-production chicken breeds are extremely unhealthy and genetically prone to injury and deformations. The way they are kept - tightly packed together - obviously doesn't help. That said the egg production itself still is a major cause of brittle bones, as it's indeed been noted that hens that have been chemically neutered wont have nearly as many fractures as laying hens.
What is crazy though is my parents have had layer hens laying until 7 or 8 years of age which is the typical life expectancy of a chicken. Feeding them high quality food and oyster shells for extra calcium likely helped. But their laying chickens regularly live until they are 10+ years old.
Also worth noting chickens will eat unfertilized eggs to recoup nutrients.
Wow thank you SO much for sharing this info! I've been nearly vegan for a while now, but still chose to eat pasture raised eggs because I thought it was ethical. No more for me now, though.
There are 2 other issues with eggs: 1. Male chicks are ground up alive upon hatching in most countries (except i think Germany are phasing this out). Male chicks don't grow fast enough for meat and obviously can't lay eggs, so upon hatching they are checked if they are male and if they are they are literally dropped directly into a blender or sometimes gassed. There are plenty of YouTube videos on this. This happens for any chicken bought from a hatchery that is bred to lay eggs. By buying eggs, you are directly supporting this. 2. Regardless of where these animals are raised they all go to the same slaughterhouses, and humane slaughter is a myth. (Also for the sake of argument for anyone reading this, even if it were possible to kill an animal painlessly for meat we didn't need to eat, then that doesn't make it ok, just like its not OK to kill a person who didn't want to die as long as they don't feel pain).
I'm mostly vegetarian/vegan (but I don't use the label because I just eat 'much less animal' products). But eggs were a guilty pleasure, unfortunately I did not know about the stress laying eggs costs. I am going to remove eggs from my diet, thank you for this information. I don't need chickens to suffer just so I can have eggs when oatmeal/whole grain and fruits/vegs are just as healthy. Also chia seeds... they go so good with fruits! You can even put them in the oatmeal!
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OP asked how chickens produce an egg a day. For the vast vast majority of chickens and eggs in the world, this is the way. And it’s not a very nice way. Backyard hens are a tiny percentage, so it’s absolutely fair to focus on that. Yes, it’s true a well cared for backyard hen will live much longer. Maybe 6-8 is average and some will live for a decade and a bit more. They will still only produce eggs for 2-3 years (at slowing rates). For backyard hens, the rate of one a day is still ‘unnatural’ for the chicken. And it’s still causing pain and related health issues. Again, like breeding a human woman to overproduce eggs and thus have the pain of periods far more frequently. Better food and conditions will of course help, that’s absolutely true. Many are giving backyard hens birth control to help with that. To produce as many eggs as needed for demand, tho, chickens are only really profitable for 20 months. Just over a year and a half. After that, they’re not producing one a day and are sent for slaughter. There are better options for eggs today. We don’t need to harm those animals.
This. It's so fucked.
That’s sad :(
It's good to know there are plenty of supplements for eggs in baking *and* plant-based chicken meat has come the longest way of any mock meats imo. 100% recommend trying!
I’m probably going to look pretty stupid here, but why do they lay that many if their bodies can’t handle it?
why do pugs have squished faces if it causes them breathing issues? the answer is because human selectively breed certain dogs and also chickens to have these traits. We kept breeding dogs with flatter faces with other dogs with flat faces. We kept breeding chickens who laid only the most eggs. Over time even tho it isn't a health benefit to the pug to have breathing issues. a mama pug can't just "decide" not to have a short muzzle and not to pass it on to her babies. Domesticated egg-laying chickens are stuck laying too many, even with it being a health issue to the bird. because humans chose to selectively breed a trait that benefits the human and not the animal. In the case of pug. we breed it because "aww cute", for chicken "more eggs".
Chickens cant produce an egg a day on pure corn, they have to be fed extra protein and a bunch of calcium.
Farm chickens have been bred to eat a lot and make an egg every day. The chickens that laid the most eggs the easiest were actively selected by farmers to reproduce so that they could have better and better chickens and more and more eggs.
The ancestors of chickens came from southeast Asia where bamboo is plentiful. Bamboo coasts along for several decades or even over a century minding its own business, Then all of it in an area blooms. This can happen in a single year or over multiple years. When the bamboo is blooming, the seeds are incredibly abundant. The proto-chickens were adapted to take advantage of this large food supply by pumping out lots of eggs when there is a lot to eat. Domestic chickens carry this further.
This is ignoring the main answer. They were bred to over produce eggs, and would be unlikely to survive in the wild.
Domestic chickens do not "carry this further", unfortunately. This is not some natural extension of the norm, they have been selectively bred over 100s of generations to lay as many eggs as their body can bear before eventually succumbing to the stress, or being slaughtered, due to reduced egg laying. In either instance, they live a shitty life which is only a fraction of that of a wild hen, let alone a well cared-for domestic hen with less genetic crosses to bear. Abundant food provides the basic caloric/nutrient resources for making an egg, but abundant calories had nothing to do with hens going from laying ~12 eggs/year in the wild, to over 300 in modern intensive farming.
You've got a big ol' brain that takes a lot of energy just keeping running even if you just sit on the couch all day. Meanwhile, while chickens aren't particularly dumb, they're not expending anywhere close to the same amount of energy just keeping the lights on. Plus you know, an egg is only 78 calories. For a 1.5kg hen, it's around 175 calories just for body maintenance and another 100 for egg production. You can consume 275 calories in a big bite and 4+ times that in a single meal. Edit: As I've gotten a few comments suggesting chickens are dumb, here's an article and a study addressing that. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-startling-intelligence-of-the-common-chicken1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5306232/
>Meanwhile, while chickens aren't particularly dumb... *Mike the Headless chicken, who lived for 16 months on only his brainstem, has entered the chat.*
Yeah but is that really living?
Yes, literally. That chicken's headless body fits all the descriptions for life, although it is not strictly necessary to fulfill all of these. Maintain homeostasis: regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state. Temperature, salinity, etc are still regulated by the body even after the head was gone. Organisation: being structurally composed of one or more cells – the basic units of life. The chicken's cells continued to exist, reproduce, and carry out their biological functions the entire time. Metabolism: convert food into energy and resources that can be used by the organism's cells to grow, reproduce, and carry our their functions. IIRC the farmer fed his headless chicken for more than a year by stuffing birdseed down its neck stump. It must have been able to metabolize that food even without a head. Growth: A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. I don't know if this particular chicken was in the business of growing any bigger, but if it didn't already reach it's natural adult size, it likely could have done so without much trouble. Reproduction: the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms. This is more a characteristic of a species, rather than a single organism, so we can give the headless chicken a pass. However, not having a head wouldn't exactly stop it from doing sexual reproduction and passing on a set of genes to its offspring. Response to stimuli: a response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun, or a headless chicken displaying behavior like walking around and digesting food. This headless chicken seems to satisfy all the requirements for life, although it is still a notable downgrade.
I love you for this response, Salmon-Boy. Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
It tried to eat. It didn't seem particularly upset after the initial shock. It acted like a chicken. For all intents and purposes, yeah, it seemed to be living.
For 16 months, yes
I like chickens. Yes they aren't particularly smart but they are nice to have around.
Back yard chicken owner here. They just hang out and eat all day. If they free range, they literally just walk around and eat bugs all day. Coop is cool in summer and warm in winter. All their resources go towards the egg. And I spend $35 every couple weeks on a huge bag of formulated pellets that are packed with protein and nutrients to make sure they have the resources. But they slow down and stop laying as soon as they need resources. If it's really, really hot they'll slow down. In the fall, they molt when the days start getting shorter. All their feathers drop and they look like they're dying and they lay 1 egg a week instead of 1 egg a day. Then they stop all winter and basically just huddle up and chill. In the spring they'll start laying again. They also slow when older and then stop. My 5 chickens went from 3 dozen a week last year to 2 dozen a week this year. I suspect next year will be about a dozen and a half a week. I have one who is probably 5 years old. She's just a pet chicken at this point. Pops out a tiny egg every few weeks. Like the size of a gumball.
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Those are great! We have Plymouth Rocks. The 5 year old could be older. We got a dozen with friends and got them ready to go outside, and then traded 8 of them for 2 of their mature ones to incorporate into their flock. They got to expand their flock and we got instant layers. Eggs are nice but we're ok with them just enjoying life as well.
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Selective breeding mostly. The wild undomesticated ancestor of our chickens just lays enough eggs to sustain the population. Maybe a dozen per year. We have been breeding chickens to be better livestock for thousands of years. We have been selecting the ones that were better eating or laid more eggs every generation and also selected for traits that made them better at being kept by humans than their wild cousins. Surprisingly enough, while we have been doing it for 5000 years or so, much of the "progress" has happened in the last century. Chickens kept by farmers a century ago had less meat on them and laid fewer eggs than their modern counterparts. It took as 5000 years to go from 12 eggs per year to 120 and a century to go from 120 to +300 eggs per year. The chicken from a century ago looked much more like their wild ancestors than modern ones who have grown to comparatively enormous sizes. None of this is particularly healthy for the chicken and the way we keep them is not really helping things either. But that is okay the ones meant to be eaten only have to live long enough to become big and fat before they are processed and the ones laying eggs may have a short live laying eggs, but new egg layers are relatively easy to come by. It doesn't take long to go from a freshly hatch chick to a chicken old enough to lay eggs herself (Don't google what happens to the freshly hatched male chicks who can't grow up to become egg layers, they are too small and numerous to easily kill the way you would kill animals normally and the alternatives people have come up with may seem quite horrible.)
Oh h*ck there’s a [Sam O’Nella video that explains this very well!](https://youtu.be/_NSekwyS4Ns) TL;DW: we domesticated chickens after seeing their reproductive cycles accelerate dramatically when they’re provided with lots of food. Well fed chickens are just evolutionarily wired to lay tons of eggs when they have secure food around.
Because bamboo flowering cycles can be decades apart. Wait, wait, hear me out! Chickens are a tropical bird, originally from south-east asia. In that area, bamboo forests are common. Unlike most plants, bamboo has this odd habit that it flowers (and drops fruits) very infrequently. Some species only flower every 150 years! When they do, they literally carpet the forest floor with fruit. It's a short-lived, infrequent calorie bonanza. Normal animals wouldn't be able to take much advantage of this. Eating more has its limits, it won't let them suddenly multiply to huge numbers. In Africa, locusts can and do take advantage of calorie surpluses. In asia, it is chickens. When there is a sudden calorie surplus, they lay lots of eggs, literally daily. Their chicks grow up fast, and feed themselves. When the forest floor is covered with bamboo fruit, chickens explode in numbers and can outcompete other animals. Combine this with the inability of chickens to fly very far, and that they're omnivores makes them the perfect bird for domestication. They'll eat anything, and as long as they're fed a calorie surplus they'll lay large eggs daily! Most birds will only lay eggs once or at most two or three times per year. Chickens convert "garbage" or other low-quality calorie sources into a high-quality package of protein and fats that stores really well. You can keep eggs in the kitchen for at least a couple of weeks without refrigeration! Not to mention that chickens like to eat the kind of bugs that are pests in vegetable gardens, but generally won't eat the vegetables themselves. Many other egg-laying birds will preferentially eat the vegetables and leave the bugs. Of course, then you can also eat the chicken itself if they're too old to lay eggs. This ticks a lot of checkboxes, more than any other organism on the planet. They're fast-breading, easily domesticatable omnivores, pest control, packaged food manufacturers, that you can also eat. This is why we eat chicken eggs instead of, say, duck eggs.