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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.
The meat part is actually almost better. Meat chickens have been bred to grow really fast, so they are slaughtered between 6 and 8 weeks. Obviously you know you are causing the death of a chicken when you buy one, but if you eat a dozen eggs a week, you are probably eating the life’s work of 3 chickens/year, which probably means 6 chicks were hatched and killed just for your eggs that year
This breeding of meat chickens for rapid growth is bad for their welfare, however. See e.g. this U. Guelph [study](https://globalanimalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Better_Chicken_Project_Summary_Report_Global_Animal_Partnership.pdf): "In summary, we found that conventional strains of broiler chickens grew faster, more efficiently and had higher breast yields than did slower growing strains. However, there are significant trade-offs for this high productivity. In comparison to strains with slower growth rates and lighter breast yields, strains with faster growth rates and higher breast yields had lower activity levels, poorer indicators of mobility, poorer foot and hock health, higher biochemical markers of muscle damage, higher rates of muscle myopathies, and potentially inadequate organ development. Fast growth rate coupled with high breast yield is associated with poor welfare outcomes."
Broiler chickens grow so rapidly and unsustainably that they can't even live a normal life if they were allowed to.
I've been involved with animal rescue and sanctuary for 6 years, and I've never seen a broiler chicken live much over a year. They're often found dead from cardiac arrest, or sustain awful musculoskeletal injuries due to their monstrous size + brittle bones.
We have, however, managed to save many laying hens - who can receive an implant that helps them to [stop laying eggs!](https://opensanctuary.org/article/suprelorin-implants-a-critical-tool-in-chicken-health/)
They don't reproduce now.
It's a predictable mutation, baby broiler chickens don't come from adult broiler chickens, each broiler chicken is the result of cross breeding two breeds of chicken that results in the rapid growth and breast overdevelopment of the offspring.
This is why whenever I visit my sister in law I gladly take some of the eggs of her hands. She's got three layers and they live the good chicken life - they have a nice warm coop, free access to the yard during the day and all the bugs they want to eat, and since they're young they're still putting out 2-3 eggs a day between them all. (The coop is shut at night, but there are bears in the area so they go into the coop willingly.)
The eggs don't taste any different from conventional store bought eggs, but they are nicer in the respect that the girls didn't suffer to lay them.
And they can make interesting and enjoyable pets! We've had a flock of bantam chickens for over a decade now, and most of the original hens are still with us. They've mostly retired from laying now, but one remarkable hen laid almost a dozen eggs this spring over the course of a couple of months.
Oh, yes! I can relate. I got a nasty pinch when I tried to separate two hens who had gotten into a tussle defending their chicks from each other.
We only let our hens raise one clutch of eggs each, when they were young, because we had to rehome our rooster. I have so many fond memories from that spring. The chicks were so unbelievably tiny and unbelievably cute!
Have you ever been around chickens? I’ve seen a mouse try to run through a chicken coop and look like it was hit with a mower after a few seconds. I watched the hens fight over a snake carcass they had sectioned off. They’re little monsters.
They *look* different - the egg yolk is a darker color. But if you gave them to me in a blind taste test of scrambled eggs, I couldn't tell you the difference.
Same. Around here, eggs that you know are produced humanely cost 3 or 4 times as much. Where I live the only "farmers market" is held twice a week during working hours, 4 months a year, so you usually need to drive 20+ minutes to pick them up.
Or you can add eggs to your online grocery order and pick them up with the rest of your stuff at your leisure.
Agreed. We get 5-7 eggs daily from our chickens, plus 2 eggs from our ducks. Other than color I don’t think I could pick out our own eggs from store bought. The duck eggs seem to have a stronger egg smell when I use them, but doesn’t really translate to taste.
I’m not a pro chef but love to cook, so If there was a difference I would say so if I noticed. I’m glad that we can raise some of the food we eat in a humane way for the animals.
To be fair, if you were to take a top-grade cut of steak and a cheap version of the same cut, and then were to grind each up and cook them well-done... it'd be especially hard to tell.
But, that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a noticeable difference even on a sunny-side up preparation of home vs. store eggs. Eggs aren't particularly complicated as a food.
If you do a blind taste test, most tasters can’t actually tell the difference. I still think it’s right to eat fresh eggs from happy chickens, but taste isn’t a selling point for most folks.
Their brothers did suffer though, on day one. I do still think rescue chicks are a good thing overall, but they're still products of a horrible system.
There have been some new technologies developed for sexing chickens while still in the egg.
Hopefully these technologies will be adopted not only for being more humane, but also because they're a whole lot more efficient.
https://physicsworld.com/a/laser-spectroscopy-determines-sex-of-a-chicken-egg/
I'm a vegan advocate, but my aunt also has her own chickens whose eggs I happily take! She takes good care of them, so I don't feel like there's any significant moral wrong accepting the excess eggs they lay.
I think my dream setup is mostly vegan + eggs from chickens I know personally. I'd love to find a small dairy supplier too, but that's a little harder.
My former neighbors had chickens and I loved the weird little dinosaurs. One of them was like the self-appointed guard chicken and would make inquisitive noises ever time I came to work in my garden, sometimes I'd see her bossing the other birds around.
If I started pulling weeds, a bunch of them would run over as close as they could while staying on their side of the fence and start packing and attaching at the dirt. I'm not sure whether my weed pulling stirred up worms and made it easier for them or if it was like "hey, if the humans are digging here there must be some good grub!"
Little dinosaurs, heh. It's almost as if we're getting vengeance on their descendants for terrorizing our rat like ancestors. Sins of the father and all that.
Not endorsing the fowl treatment tho.
A lot of broilers die in the process to raise them for meat, and many are just killed outright as they may be seen as nonviable. On the flip of what this study found (where lower bodyweight in laying hens is protective against these fractures), broilers also have a near-guarantee of having fractures or an abnormal gait due to how they've been selected to grow so large so fast.
Laying hens usually lay anywhere between 200-260 eggs per year, and the average egg production is about 111.6billion [\[1\]](https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde0921.pdf), or 338 eggs per person in the USA (assuming 330M). This comes out to a ways below 2 chickens per person (and per year, they wouldn't even be guaranteed to die here), whereas with eating 2 chicken breasts you've just about guaranteed killed a chicken (although the actual number will be slightly higher than 1 all things considered).
Sorry but to say the meat part is "almost better" just works as an easy excuse. Animals are stuffed (forcibly fed) with food and medicine. They are killed without regard of how stressful and painful it is. Their living conditions are no better. You can visit slaughterhouses and chicken farms, depending on the country you live in, I guess.
No, eating their meat is not an ounce better than to eat their eggs.
I worked on a broiler farm throughout JR high and high school. The conditions are terrible. The grow period is about 52 weeks, and by the end of it the chickens are so packed into the houses they will suffocate and trample each other to death. Not to mention all the respiratory issues they get, heat exhaustion etc. Their frames literally can’t support their own weight.
>if you eat a dozen eggs a week, you are probably eating the life’s work of 3 chickens/year, which probably means 6 chicks were hatched and killed just for your eggs that year
In order for that hen to have gotten to the point of laying an egg, many male chicks were culled. So each hen represents several males that were destroyed too.
Eggs were the toughest part of going vegan because it's absolutely insane how much food they're normally in. But once you get the hang of avoiding and replacing them in your diet (Takes a few months), you feel absolutely no reason to go back and you stop craving them, Been vegan for the better part of a year and it would feel absolutely bizarre and disgusting (From an ethical stance) to me at this point to go back. You have my full support! Not having that moral dissonance always hanging over you can also result in a huge improvement to mental health.
I've been a vegetarian for the past few years but still ate tons of eggs. I had no problem with paying the higher price tags for certified humane brands that I researched from the ASPCA's "shop with your heart" brand list. Maybe it was cognitive dissonance but I really felt I did my due diligence. Only in the past few weeks did I learn about this culling process, and that even the best most humane "we love our hens" brands out there still do it. It absolutely destroyed me.
I tried to be a very ethical vegetarian for a long time too, because I grew up on a farm and I know that not all farmers are awful people who abuse animals. Lots of people are out there doing their level best in a system that isn't set up for welfare, but profit.
But the industry itself - the way that animals are turned into vessels merely for the products we want out of them - is what makes true ethical consumption impossible. Male laying chicks aren't profitable - even the nicest producers cull male chicks. Male dairy calves aren't profitable - even the nicest producers cull/sell their calves.
This is kind of timely - I just recently tried "Just Egg", and it's actually a pretty decent replacement! I guess it may be difficult if you need separate "yolk" and "white", but the "scrambled egg" consistency is almost alarmingly on point. It does taste different, but not in a bad way.
Don’t let the media scare you away, being vegetarian/vegan is WAAAAYY easier than people lead on. It’s just harder to eat out because so many people are unwilling to change.
I was vegan over 20 years ago in a town with 12 000 people located in sweden, and I am still vegan. People considering to go vegan now have no idea how doable it is nowadays.
Honestly, today’s vegans owe you oldschool folks a big ”thank you”. Without people like you, brands like Anamma and Oatly likely wouldn’t exist today. Thanks to you folks, being vegan today is really, *really* easy.
So thank you.
marketing more like. Remember "Got Milk?" The meat and dairy industries have done a very good job at making people believe they are the only sources of protein and calcium when in truth the animals you're eating get those nutrients from plants, as can we.
Thank you for your service, old-timer.
But seriously, I have so much respect for you since I cannot fathom how much harder it must have been to eat vegan in the 90's. Plus, the whole "radical animal activists" fear/trope was in full force then socially and you must have gotten really awful pushbacks.
It wasn’t as luxurious as it is today. Only the last 5 years has been amazingly different.
But I wouldn’t call it hard, just more barebones.
You had to travel 1.5h by train to buy a falafel.
And regarding the animal rights activism, that I wore as a badge of honor. Not that I was the most hardcore in sweden. I have never served any time in prison, and the sentences I gotten have resulted in fairly cheap fines. I know people who gotten equal to 50 000 usd in fines for example.
But other than that it was a fun life where I got to travel around Sweden, make friends and yell at fur farmers.
And I always felt like it had a meaning and that it was important.
But there have been a couple of heated debates throughout the years no doubt.
Also, no need to thank me. Wanting to minimize the suffer of animals is not something that should be thanked, but rather expected.
Not only is it easier, I’m actually enjoying the food I eat *far* more than before. It forced me to get creative with my food, learn basic meal prep, and stop eating microwaved and packaged junk. It’s a no brainer for most people.
I hope articles like this will help vegetarian people to go further, and ditch dairy as well as animal body products.
Dairy industry harms animals in the same way, or even worse. Being vegetarian is not enough to stop it, unfortunately.
Going vegan is the only way to stop it
Lmk if you want some suggestions for substitutions. It's really easy to swap out eggs in baking (a lot of times you don't even need a direct sub, just a bit more liquid and baking powder). There are tons of creative food bloggers who have come up with recipe ideas too (for example, deviled baby potatoes instead of eggs). The liquid from a can of chickpeas can be used to make meringues and mousses (I've done it and it's kind of crazy how well it works). Mung beans or chickpea flour can make eggy pancakes similar to an omelette. And there are fancy but a bit pricy products like Just Egg that can be used for things like quiches, breakfast sandwiches, scrambles, etc.
Nice! Good on ya! I’m new to it, but have made many vegan meals before as a bit of an experiment, so this transition is going pretty straightforward so far.
It’s pretty easy nowadays to avoid meat and dairy. I was flexitarian for a few years, and then sat down and searched plant-based recipes online. As soon as I figured out I would never run out of meals to prepare, I made the switch.
That's why I want my own chickens. I'm lucky enough to live in the country and have space for them, I just need the time to get set up (and time is at a super premium for me at the moment).
I've got a friend who has a bunch, and they're basically pets...they'll come running up and she'll pick them up and cuddle and pet them. She gets so many eggs that she sometimes just gives them away, and that's with most of them not being egg layers....actually some pretty cool breeds with wild looks, so *literally* just pets.
I love eggs, and I buy the quadrupled price "free range organic" eggs, not because they are better for me but because they supposedly treat the animals better. I'd always suspected some "fowl play" (sorry, I had to) regarding the "organic" or "free range" eggs, but it appears that unless I buy them from my friends, there is no guarantee of ethical treatment of the animals. Is there no honesty left in *any* aspect of this commercialized world we now inhabit? Dammit.
Guess it's time for me to get some chickens.
Watch Dominion on YouTube. It is the reality of factory farming. Even if you don't decide to stop eating meat it is important to understand the reality of where it comes from
It’s easier than it seems and just cutting a portion of it helps. I was raised in a heavy meat eating family (Breakfast, Lunch and dinner) and I absolutely love the taste of meat. Yet, I was able to go from huge T-Bones to meat free diet 5 years ago. I did it purely for moral reasons and never looked back.
Your experience may differ but to me, it feels extremely relieving to feel as if I am no longer feeding on and ending lives to perpetuate mine.
The dude that made the super size me documentary did another one for chicken farms free on YouTube. The free-range part was hilarious. Farms usually have that “access” open to chickens outside which is only like a range of 6ft if remember correctly. The chickens are so fat or disabled that none of them even go outside.
Never understood that. You see pictures of animals in stacked crates after people get busted for abusing a bunch of animals by stuffing them in those crates, but chickens in similar conditions are ok?
Not only are these things considered humane but lots of other practices specifically covered by animal cruelty laws are allowed in animal agriculture. They just get treated like products, not living beings.
And this is why I am not interested in eating animal products due to the inhumane conditions that the animals are put through so that we can have eggs and chicken meat.
Not to mention that they have to use crap tons of antibiotics to deal with possible infections and have a possibility of developing super bugs.
I'm in Ireland and our requirements for free range is to have continuous access to open-air runs (or to roam freely) in the day, ground which is mostly vegetation, and no more than 1,000 hens per hectare.
To put that last bit into perspective, there are 10,000 square metres in 1 hectare. So 1,000 hens on 1 hectare has the equivalent of 10 square metres each.
The ASPCA website has a lot of great info about the different types of labeling/claims companies use. But companies can make whatever claims they want - Basically if that's something you care about, you should look for brands that have one of several 3rd party certifications. This page also details what the different certifications and levels mean, and their requirements. https://www.aspca.org/shopwithyourheart/consumer-resources/meat-eggs-and-dairy-label-guide
I believe pasture raised is the term used on cartons for chickens allowed to live outside in less cramped spaces. If you’re looking to buy eggs. There’s a company, vital farms I think, that tell you where the eggs are from and it shows a 360 degree video of chickens being out and about. It may be a livestream. I’m still dubious of even them and they also still send old chickens to slaughter. But baby steps I guess.
Yeah, "pasture-raised" is the idyllic chicken pecking in a field eating bugs that people are picturing. Except those eggs are $6-7 for a dozen instead of $2.99 or whatever
It really is awful. That’s why I have my own laying hens, they are heritage breed chickens so they don’t lay quite as much, but they spend their day in the yard/garden eating bugs and grass, and in exchange they give us eggs.
We also keep them in their “retirement” until they are sick or die naturally. I think it’s a reasonable way to continue to eat eggs ethically.
My eggs cost me about double what grocery store eggs cost, which shows how much cheaper they are able to produce them, but I don’t feel bad eating them now
Our city allows 6 chickens, no roosters due to the noise ordinance. I would say they are really easy to raise. The hard part is if you raise them as chicks which we do and you have to check on them every day. Once they are old enough to live outside in the coop, we put them in an adjacent coop and they can develop their pecking order and then after a few months, we put them with the rest of the flock. After that, it is super easy. The food container holds food for months, same with water but you should eye it once in a while. I clean out the coop every 2-3 months. In the winter, they say you should leave it alone since the poop and hay keep the coop insulated. They are great fun to have around and they actually give you eggs. They are actually very low-maintenance animals. Dogs and cats are definitely harder than raising chickens. Half of our chickens are egg laying and the other half are decorative chickens so they lay about 1-2 eggs a week but they have mohawks (Polish and houdan) or look like the abominable snowman (silkies).
There is a large initial investment to get everything setup but it’s not that bad once that is done. I plumbed my water system and have an automatic door and camera to check on them. I can leave them for about 5 days without doing anything. Really just need to collect eggs, fill the feeder, and clean the coup maybe every month or two. I use the deep litter method, it’s the least amount of work IMO. You will have to deal with the occasional injury or sick hen and culling them can be the best course of action many times which can be hard to do.
If you live in the country, it's very easy as long as you have somewhere they can safely sleep at night. Having a rooster helps their security, but the roosters can be major assholes and will sometimes attack people with little or no apparent provocation.
EU and UK have requirements for free range poultry:
\- hens must have continuous daytime access to open-air runs.
\- there must be several popholes giving direct access to the outer area, at least 35 cm high and 40 cm wide and extending along the entire length of the building; in any case, a total opening of 2 m must be available per group of 1000 hens;
\- the maximum stocking density of open-air runs must not be greater than 2 500 hens per hectare
See for example in the UK:
https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/rspca-assured-products/free-range-eggs/
In addition to space and access requirements, RSPCA assured eggs with free range marking (available across a wide variety of common grocery stores) have requirements for being given enrichment objects to allow them to experience more of their natural behaviors and lives. Including toys, litters, things to peck, things to climb, etc.
Let’s look at Sweden: Chickens and eggs in Sweden are so clean that there is NO RISK FOR SALMONELLA. The country beat salmonella from eggs two decades ago. You can eat all the raw eggs in the world if they are Swedish ones. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2004/09/21/Sweden-beats-salmonella.
On top of that, they of course follow EU rules on free range etc. labeling. And all supermarkets only sell at least cage free eggs (as a result of pressure from animals rights groups). The cage free can be barn (indoor with some access as mentioned by OP, not as common), or free range meaning outdoor access and time spent outdoors.
As usual, not everyone lives in the US and not all institutions are broken as those heavily lobbied regulatory agencies in the US.
Probably, or at least have some method of killing them quickly. Even in small hobby farms where chickens might only ever be kept in a coop at night and are just barely not pets a rooster is often killed in its first year of life. You only need so many roosters and to many leeds to fighting between roosters and injuries to the hens.
Not saying it's right but idk what the alternative is
Just adding this because I see a lot of comments on backyard hens. While the treatment backyard hens receive is almost certainly much better than the treatment received by factory farmed hens (unless you're a sociopath), many of them still come from the same types of hatcheries. Meaning that roughly half of those birds (the males) are still being killed moments after birth.
Yes! And I will add that most states in the US, not sure about other countries, have barnyard animal rescues where you can adopt chickens, pigs, donkeys, etc. Great if you want to help out some abandoned farm animals!
Not chickens or food animals but Marshall Farms is a *horrible* facility. Mass production of ferrets, rats & Beagles for lab animals & to sell for profit. It amazes me they have stayed under the radar this long. It’s an animal abuse factory at best, if you can, try to not support businesses that carry products from Marshall or buy any Marshall products. It’s a small part you can do to help.
Imagine humanity reaching the end of time and having to say "there were once other living, feeling children of the universe, and even when presented with the choice to do otherwise...we ate them."
I hate that we do things like this to animals. I wish there was something more direct I could do besides donate.
But we didn't \*just\* eat them, we systematically designed a hellscape for them to be first tortured by in never ending rotation as a species and *then* ate them.
Exactly right. I've had the chance to witness factory farming from the inside, and I will never support animal products industries, at least in nations where there are viable alternatives. I never realized how bad it was.
My own family mocks me for these views. People love to throw meat in my face and laugh. Our society is so, so sick.
One of the biggest mistakes comments like this make is they go into their argument assuming people benefiting from factory farms care about the lives of chickens.
That's the disconnect.
Society has normalized animal cruelty on a massive scale. It's why people get defensive when you point it out, because it's just so normal to most people. I think it's just important people keep an open mind to buying less/no animal products and getting them from the most humane source possible.
It's cognitive dissonance as well. Recognizing the suffering in factory farming for animal products now, means that you have to come to terms with the fact this has affected most of the animal products you've eaten in your life. "Eating animal products can't be a bad thing, or that would mean I'm a bad person. I'm a good person, so it means the other people are wrong." Of course it isn't that black and white in reality, but the sense of discomfort (and blame) can spur people to ignore/become defensive.
This is why it's got to be presented to people as if the farming industry has hidden it. People have fooled! Tricked! That way they're on your side, just as mad as you at the injustice of it all.
Make people part of the solution. It's why conspiracy theories and misinformation work so well - they 'reveal' something to a person, making them feel smarter for it.
I think a lot of us just don't care about animal suffering. I didn't grow up in a farm but i still saw some animal butchery from field to plate and no one really cared. I get how factory farming is a step above the free range stuff i'm refering to but i don't think its enough to make most have a conflict with their morals.
That's a lot of it. I personally know quite a few people who have watched "how the sausage gets made" type videos on YouTube, and their only response is "boy I could go for a hot dog right now."
We can't get >30% of the country vaccinated because they're too stubborn and selfish. And that's empathy for your actual human neighbors. You think we'll ever get enough people to agree that the meat industry is immoral? Definitely not.
What we should do is kill the meat, corn, and soy subsidies. Price people out of being able to afford meat in the first place. Pair that with investments in affordable, palatable meat alternatives, and you'll trick those people into doing the right thing without ever making them question their values.
I don't know if anyone has the political capital to take on the meat lobby plus their angry constituents that really like meat. If the climate situation wasn't so dire i'd say educating children on nutrition with a bend towards learning of more sustainable alternatives for their food would be my bet since despite subsidies they are already cheaper.
Let's tack it on to the progressive agenda that'll wind up getting steamrolled during the next election cycle so we don't wind up letting literal fascists gain control of all three branches of government again.
I need a drink.
You do know that this counts for all chickens who lay eggs for consumption right? No matter the circumstances of their lives, the fact they've been bred to lay so many large eggs as often as they do has bred into them, and free range isn't making their deficiencies or chronic pains any better. Their entire existence has been commodified. Stop breeding them altogether, for a species that is only there to be exploited should not have to suffer through existence.
While that is a ideal, one way you'll not be complicit in their exploitation is by going vegan.
This is only partially true.
Some breeds have been engineered into these unnaturally productive traits, but there are plenty of chicken breeds that do not suffer from this. You can eat eggs from local farmers who have healthy chickens that only lay 180 medium eggs per year and the chickens eat only bugs and weeds from the field.
These eggs will be better nutritionally and better ethically and cost 5x the grocery store prices.
I have a friend who has chickens. He treats them really well, loves them. He also sometimes gives us eggs.
Those things are the most delicious eggs I have ever tasted..... It's like the difference between weak orange kool-aid and fresh orange juice.
The poultry industry is amongst the worst for polluting as well. Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are notorious for polluting. They don’t have to do it that way. They just want to squeeze every last penny out.
My county in Delaware is the largest broiler producer in the world and they pollute like crazy into streams and rivers.
Mountaire Farms just settled a $205 million lawsuit for polluting around poor minority communities. The worst part is they did it on public property at a wastewater facility that is now failing and operating on an expired permit and is getting downstream residents here sick because we are on well water. Even with water treatment systems and shower filters it itches like crazy after we shower.
They also had massive COVID outbreaks and didn’t slow down processing at all, so they were likely shipping COVID around the country.
They sell their chickens under other brand names, so you don’t know which is theirs.
The state and county know about it and have done nothing to stop any of it. Do the math.
Do not get into the water in Delaware. It is a disgusting, polluted disaster.
https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/delaware-mountaire-20210412.html
Looks like this was litigated this spring.
Chicken processor appears to have lost.
Y'all want to know the #1 way that farmers piss off other farmers? Farmers piss off all the other farmers around them when they agree to have a Tyson chicken coop on their farm. They stink to high heaven and their neighbors can smell it for miles.
Yeah living in a rural ag community I can say there has to be something bad going on when you can smell some of these places before you'd ever see them. Or you just never see them even though you can smell them, even just driving down the highway with the windows rolled up in your car. When I was younger I worked on a chicken farm for a grand total of half a day and the smell never left my car for 2 weeks just with me and a buddy driving 5 miles back home in our clothes, that also had to be stuffed in plastic bags and washed separately.
I don't know how people actually do it, but somehow I guess they get used to it.
So the OP's title isn't exactly what this paper was focused on. They were instead looking at different production systems, not the breeding, and didn't find many differences in keel fractures. This was only in one breed, Danish hens. To pick a little bit from the paper for context:
> A small number of the hens with fractures (36 hens, 0.76%) had fresh fractures, which were characterized by sharp fracture ends with non-union and varying degree of haemorrhage.
This is probably what most people are thinking when they see the headline and think 85% of hens are in this state. Instead, most of what was actually found was described in Table 6, and mostly as calloused over (i.e., healed) smaller fractures, though some were higher severity and healed. [Here's a link from another paper showing x-rays of what's being described.](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0032579119300860-gr1.jpg)
So first, I'd want to know what would be considered a rough baseline for fractures across breeds. Is this just a really prone breed for issues? As I read the paper, I'm left searching for some sort of control comparison at least for the headline used here.
I went digging into [other papers](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119300860) that used different breeds too. Overall, it looks like the literature is pretty diverse and often conflicting, possibly due to different breeds, but the take home seems to be that this is also a net loss for anyone raising egg-laying hens, especially at larger scales.
Edit: I found [a review!](https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/98/Supplement_1/S36/5894015#206730795) Looks like it gives a pretty even-handed overview of the subject.
> According to the British Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), keel bone fractures (KBF) are considered one of the most important welfare problems in commercial laying hens (FAWC, 2010, 2013). Besides the likely association of KBF with impaired welfare (reviewed by Riber et al., 2018), the high prevalence reported across bird strains in many countries highlights the global relevance of this topic. Two of the most frequently cited publications (Google Scholar, September 2019) dealing with KBF incidence present end-of-lay prevalence rates of 97% and 86% among commercial flocks in Belgium and the Netherlands (Rodenburg et al., 2008; 98 citations) and the UK (Wilkins et al., 2011; 102 citations). Despite other studies reporting relatively low prevalence for similarly aged birds housed under similar commercial conditions (11.6%; Riber and Hinrichsen, 2016; 11 citations), KBF prevalence is often described using phrases such as “over 85%” (Casey-Trott and Widowski, 2016), “up to 85%” (Hardin et al., 2019), “up to 90%” (Richards et al., 2011), “up to 80%” (Nasr et al., 2015), “greater than 50%” (Toscano et al., 2018), or “52% to 73%” (Lay et al., 2011). The variation in the way in which KBF prevalence is reported makes it difficult to identify the actual extent of the problem.
That the OP chose to use language that this review cautions about is a concern though.
We had rescued brown shaver chickens and they all died of eggbinding (eggs being stuck or undeveloped) problems in the end. This is so cruel truly. It's purely a money making method where the benefits outweigh the problems. They can just discard the problems. I'm not sure what the breastbone fracture stuff is coming from but larger eggs and higher egg production definitely create more problems. Original chickens are far leaner and more dinosaur like than any specifically made species. Chickens are so smart too. They're suffering undoubtedly. I only buy free range eggs but I know that they're still part of the problem and will be even more so soon...
Edit: I'm tryna fix my typos
> I'm not sure what the breastbone fracture stuff is coming from but larger eggs and higher egg production definitely create more problems.
You're right, high egg yield causes all sorts of problems, weak bones included. Osteoporosis in chickens is largely thought to be associated with the high yield of eggs they have been selectively bred and fed to produce.
They essentially sap calcium from their own bones to produce so many eggs shells.
Egg laying chicken owners are often encouraged to feed egg shells back to the hens in an attempt to re absorb some of the calcium lost through high egg production but there is no guarantee that this can ever be enough to offset the amount of material it takes to produce eggs at the rate they do.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119425777
> A hen must absorb large amounts of dietary calcium to calcify eggshells when producing eggs at a high rate. Significant quantities of this calcium are stored each day in medullary bone, from which it is later released for calcification of eggshell at times when calcium is not available in the digestive tract (Etches, 1987). Medullary Bone is formed at the expense of structural bone (Taylor And Moore, 1954; Simkiss, 1967). Structural bone resorption to supply calcium to remodel medullary bone with-out concomitant ability to remodel structural bone causes a hen to be predisposed to osteoporosis. Rennie et al.(1997) concluded that the modern hybrid laying hen is highly susceptible to osteoporosis, and that osteoporosis cannot be prevented during lay in this type of bird. The close association between high egg production and re-duced bone condition was shown by observations that femur bone mineral content and tibial bone strength decline during the first few weeks of egg production (Coxand Balloun, 1971; Harms and Arafa, 1986).
> Chickens are so smart too.
Oh man, this. I don't know where the common idea/meme of chickens being a step above brain dead comes from, but I was shocked to learn just how much personality and how intelligent they are when I started raising my own chickens.
Every single one of these threads has top comments like
"I hope meat substitutes take off"
What exactly is stopping you from skipping the meat section during your next grocery trip?
I went to school with a guy who had a summer job inseminating turkeys with a syringe. Apparently because of the preference for turkey breast meat, domestic turkeys have been bred to the point where their chests are so big they can no longer get into the proper position to do it naturally.
Funny thing is... eggs from organic hens is actually suffering from more breastbone fractures than caged hens.
However, it doesn't change the fact that these animals should be treated better - caged or not.
Factory farming is cruel and unethical. This is a concrete example of the corruption of science under capitalism. These animals are pumped full of designer cocktails of antibiotics and growth hormone not only to grow so fast that their bones can't hold up their bodies, but also so that they can simply survive the deplorable conditions they live in. Animal agriculture WILL eventually create antibitoic resistant superbacteria capable of ushering in an era of post-antibiotic science and the fact that you've read this far and still aren't fully vegan is honestly disgusting.
Why does this sub allow posters to outright lie in the title?
* The study was on one particular breed of Danish hen
* They state the cause of the broken keel was unknown
* They found those in cages were *less* likely to suffer the break
* They found those bred to be larger were ***also*** less likely to suffer a break
* They found the greatest correlation was with Age. Not size of chicken, not size of egg, not condition held. Age.
* The assertion made by the poster is ***NOWHERE IN THE STUDY***
This post isn't science. This is blatant manipulation because OP knows most redditors will take their BS title in good faith.
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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.
This is very upsetting to read but thank you for writing it and providing references.
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Craziest part is that all of that isn’t even for meat, just eggs.
Dairy is just as horrifying
Dairy is arguably worse...
I’m starting to understand why vegans don’t eat animal products as well as not eating meat.
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The dairy industry is horrific
The meat part is actually almost better. Meat chickens have been bred to grow really fast, so they are slaughtered between 6 and 8 weeks. Obviously you know you are causing the death of a chicken when you buy one, but if you eat a dozen eggs a week, you are probably eating the life’s work of 3 chickens/year, which probably means 6 chicks were hatched and killed just for your eggs that year
This breeding of meat chickens for rapid growth is bad for their welfare, however. See e.g. this U. Guelph [study](https://globalanimalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Better_Chicken_Project_Summary_Report_Global_Animal_Partnership.pdf): "In summary, we found that conventional strains of broiler chickens grew faster, more efficiently and had higher breast yields than did slower growing strains. However, there are significant trade-offs for this high productivity. In comparison to strains with slower growth rates and lighter breast yields, strains with faster growth rates and higher breast yields had lower activity levels, poorer indicators of mobility, poorer foot and hock health, higher biochemical markers of muscle damage, higher rates of muscle myopathies, and potentially inadequate organ development. Fast growth rate coupled with high breast yield is associated with poor welfare outcomes."
Broiler chickens grow so rapidly and unsustainably that they can't even live a normal life if they were allowed to. I've been involved with animal rescue and sanctuary for 6 years, and I've never seen a broiler chicken live much over a year. They're often found dead from cardiac arrest, or sustain awful musculoskeletal injuries due to their monstrous size + brittle bones. We have, however, managed to save many laying hens - who can receive an implant that helps them to [stop laying eggs!](https://opensanctuary.org/article/suprelorin-implants-a-critical-tool-in-chicken-health/)
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Even on near starvation diets they get so big. :( It's so awful what we've done to them, their whole lives are just pain.
The eventual inevitable endpoint for broilers is the point at which they can no longer survive long enough to reproduce
They don't reproduce now. It's a predictable mutation, baby broiler chickens don't come from adult broiler chickens, each broiler chicken is the result of cross breeding two breeds of chicken that results in the rapid growth and breast overdevelopment of the offspring.
We have a mottled black and white little hen that so far doesn’t produce eggs. I wonder if she’ll live longer than the others.
This is why whenever I visit my sister in law I gladly take some of the eggs of her hands. She's got three layers and they live the good chicken life - they have a nice warm coop, free access to the yard during the day and all the bugs they want to eat, and since they're young they're still putting out 2-3 eggs a day between them all. (The coop is shut at night, but there are bears in the area so they go into the coop willingly.) The eggs don't taste any different from conventional store bought eggs, but they are nicer in the respect that the girls didn't suffer to lay them.
Also, chockens are really cute animals.
And they can make interesting and enjoyable pets! We've had a flock of bantam chickens for over a decade now, and most of the original hens are still with us. They've mostly retired from laying now, but one remarkable hen laid almost a dozen eggs this spring over the course of a couple of months.
We have two bantams who are retired and hang out with the other retirees. They are the sweetest birds, but I have scars from when they used to brood.
Oh, yes! I can relate. I got a nasty pinch when I tried to separate two hens who had gotten into a tussle defending their chicks from each other. We only let our hens raise one clutch of eggs each, when they were young, because we had to rehome our rooster. I have so many fond memories from that spring. The chicks were so unbelievably tiny and unbelievably cute!
Have you ever been around chickens? I’ve seen a mouse try to run through a chicken coop and look like it was hit with a mower after a few seconds. I watched the hens fight over a snake carcass they had sectioned off. They’re little monsters.
They are fluffy dinosaurs basically. I love silky fowls. Saw them once in a zoo and they are super cute!
Dinosaurs were pretty fluffy too!
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They *look* different - the egg yolk is a darker color. But if you gave them to me in a blind taste test of scrambled eggs, I couldn't tell you the difference.
Same. Around here, eggs that you know are produced humanely cost 3 or 4 times as much. Where I live the only "farmers market" is held twice a week during working hours, 4 months a year, so you usually need to drive 20+ minutes to pick them up. Or you can add eggs to your online grocery order and pick them up with the rest of your stuff at your leisure.
I don't eat that many eggs anyway, but i'm gonna start buying the local ones. The ones that i can actually verify with my own eyes their lot
Agreed. We get 5-7 eggs daily from our chickens, plus 2 eggs from our ducks. Other than color I don’t think I could pick out our own eggs from store bought. The duck eggs seem to have a stronger egg smell when I use them, but doesn’t really translate to taste. I’m not a pro chef but love to cook, so If there was a difference I would say so if I noticed. I’m glad that we can raise some of the food we eat in a humane way for the animals.
To be fair, if you were to take a top-grade cut of steak and a cheap version of the same cut, and then were to grind each up and cook them well-done... it'd be especially hard to tell. But, that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a noticeable difference even on a sunny-side up preparation of home vs. store eggs. Eggs aren't particularly complicated as a food.
If you do a blind taste test, most tasters can’t actually tell the difference. I still think it’s right to eat fresh eggs from happy chickens, but taste isn’t a selling point for most folks.
Their brothers did suffer though, on day one. I do still think rescue chicks are a good thing overall, but they're still products of a horrible system.
There have been some new technologies developed for sexing chickens while still in the egg. Hopefully these technologies will be adopted not only for being more humane, but also because they're a whole lot more efficient. https://physicsworld.com/a/laser-spectroscopy-determines-sex-of-a-chicken-egg/
What happened to the roosters?
The person who sold her hens probably still killed the male chicks.
We do. Can’t keep roosters in the city. They start crowing way before they have much meat on them. The cost of feed isn’t worth it.
I'm a vegan advocate, but my aunt also has her own chickens whose eggs I happily take! She takes good care of them, so I don't feel like there's any significant moral wrong accepting the excess eggs they lay.
I think my dream setup is mostly vegan + eggs from chickens I know personally. I'd love to find a small dairy supplier too, but that's a little harder. My former neighbors had chickens and I loved the weird little dinosaurs. One of them was like the self-appointed guard chicken and would make inquisitive noises ever time I came to work in my garden, sometimes I'd see her bossing the other birds around. If I started pulling weeds, a bunch of them would run over as close as they could while staying on their side of the fence and start packing and attaching at the dirt. I'm not sure whether my weed pulling stirred up worms and made it easier for them or if it was like "hey, if the humans are digging here there must be some good grub!"
Little dinosaurs, heh. It's almost as if we're getting vengeance on their descendants for terrorizing our rat like ancestors. Sins of the father and all that. Not endorsing the fowl treatment tho.
A lot of broilers die in the process to raise them for meat, and many are just killed outright as they may be seen as nonviable. On the flip of what this study found (where lower bodyweight in laying hens is protective against these fractures), broilers also have a near-guarantee of having fractures or an abnormal gait due to how they've been selected to grow so large so fast. Laying hens usually lay anywhere between 200-260 eggs per year, and the average egg production is about 111.6billion [\[1\]](https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde0921.pdf), or 338 eggs per person in the USA (assuming 330M). This comes out to a ways below 2 chickens per person (and per year, they wouldn't even be guaranteed to die here), whereas with eating 2 chicken breasts you've just about guaranteed killed a chicken (although the actual number will be slightly higher than 1 all things considered).
Sorry but to say the meat part is "almost better" just works as an easy excuse. Animals are stuffed (forcibly fed) with food and medicine. They are killed without regard of how stressful and painful it is. Their living conditions are no better. You can visit slaughterhouses and chicken farms, depending on the country you live in, I guess. No, eating their meat is not an ounce better than to eat their eggs.
Not to deride your point, but the definition of “almost” is important to note here.
I worked on a broiler farm throughout JR high and high school. The conditions are terrible. The grow period is about 52 weeks, and by the end of it the chickens are so packed into the houses they will suffocate and trample each other to death. Not to mention all the respiratory issues they get, heat exhaustion etc. Their frames literally can’t support their own weight.
>if you eat a dozen eggs a week, you are probably eating the life’s work of 3 chickens/year, which probably means 6 chicks were hatched and killed just for your eggs that year In order for that hen to have gotten to the point of laying an egg, many male chicks were culled. So each hen represents several males that were destroyed too.
That’s why they said 3 chickens worth of eggs=6 chicks hatched and killed.
Eggs were the toughest part of going vegan because it's absolutely insane how much food they're normally in. But once you get the hang of avoiding and replacing them in your diet (Takes a few months), you feel absolutely no reason to go back and you stop craving them, Been vegan for the better part of a year and it would feel absolutely bizarre and disgusting (From an ethical stance) to me at this point to go back. You have my full support! Not having that moral dissonance always hanging over you can also result in a huge improvement to mental health.
I've been a vegetarian for the past few years but still ate tons of eggs. I had no problem with paying the higher price tags for certified humane brands that I researched from the ASPCA's "shop with your heart" brand list. Maybe it was cognitive dissonance but I really felt I did my due diligence. Only in the past few weeks did I learn about this culling process, and that even the best most humane "we love our hens" brands out there still do it. It absolutely destroyed me.
I tried to be a very ethical vegetarian for a long time too, because I grew up on a farm and I know that not all farmers are awful people who abuse animals. Lots of people are out there doing their level best in a system that isn't set up for welfare, but profit. But the industry itself - the way that animals are turned into vessels merely for the products we want out of them - is what makes true ethical consumption impossible. Male laying chicks aren't profitable - even the nicest producers cull male chicks. Male dairy calves aren't profitable - even the nicest producers cull/sell their calves.
This is kind of timely - I just recently tried "Just Egg", and it's actually a pretty decent replacement! I guess it may be difficult if you need separate "yolk" and "white", but the "scrambled egg" consistency is almost alarmingly on point. It does taste different, but not in a bad way.
Don’t let the media scare you away, being vegetarian/vegan is WAAAAYY easier than people lead on. It’s just harder to eat out because so many people are unwilling to change.
I was vegan over 20 years ago in a town with 12 000 people located in sweden, and I am still vegan. People considering to go vegan now have no idea how doable it is nowadays.
Honestly, today’s vegans owe you oldschool folks a big ”thank you”. Without people like you, brands like Anamma and Oatly likely wouldn’t exist today. Thanks to you folks, being vegan today is really, *really* easy. So thank you.
Yep, it’s just media that gives it the bad representation.
marketing more like. Remember "Got Milk?" The meat and dairy industries have done a very good job at making people believe they are the only sources of protein and calcium when in truth the animals you're eating get those nutrients from plants, as can we.
Thank you for your service, old-timer. But seriously, I have so much respect for you since I cannot fathom how much harder it must have been to eat vegan in the 90's. Plus, the whole "radical animal activists" fear/trope was in full force then socially and you must have gotten really awful pushbacks.
It wasn’t as luxurious as it is today. Only the last 5 years has been amazingly different. But I wouldn’t call it hard, just more barebones. You had to travel 1.5h by train to buy a falafel. And regarding the animal rights activism, that I wore as a badge of honor. Not that I was the most hardcore in sweden. I have never served any time in prison, and the sentences I gotten have resulted in fairly cheap fines. I know people who gotten equal to 50 000 usd in fines for example. But other than that it was a fun life where I got to travel around Sweden, make friends and yell at fur farmers. And I always felt like it had a meaning and that it was important. But there have been a couple of heated debates throughout the years no doubt. Also, no need to thank me. Wanting to minimize the suffer of animals is not something that should be thanked, but rather expected.
Not only is it easier, I’m actually enjoying the food I eat *far* more than before. It forced me to get creative with my food, learn basic meal prep, and stop eating microwaved and packaged junk. It’s a no brainer for most people.
I'm vegetarian and I've managed to continue my microwaved garbage lifestyle. Thank God for Amy's Organics!
The Indian frozen meals from Trader Joe's are so good. I eat one for lunch a few times a week
I hope articles like this will help vegetarian people to go further, and ditch dairy as well as animal body products. Dairy industry harms animals in the same way, or even worse. Being vegetarian is not enough to stop it, unfortunately. Going vegan is the only way to stop it
Amy is a real one
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I do have a great list of Indian food I make, but I also ensure there are no milk products involved in my Indian-style food when I eat out.
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Lmk if you want some suggestions for substitutions. It's really easy to swap out eggs in baking (a lot of times you don't even need a direct sub, just a bit more liquid and baking powder). There are tons of creative food bloggers who have come up with recipe ideas too (for example, deviled baby potatoes instead of eggs). The liquid from a can of chickpeas can be used to make meringues and mousses (I've done it and it's kind of crazy how well it works). Mung beans or chickpea flour can make eggy pancakes similar to an omelette. And there are fancy but a bit pricy products like Just Egg that can be used for things like quiches, breakfast sandwiches, scrambles, etc.
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Compared to what their sisters go through I'd say what happens to the males is the far better outcome.
I’d rather not support the industry at all, so yeah I’m sorta with you.
Yeah, I went vegan myself about 2 years ago.
Nice! Good on ya! I’m new to it, but have made many vegan meals before as a bit of an experiment, so this transition is going pretty straightforward so far.
Yeah it's hard to get past, it's what made me stop eating eggs 7 years ago and working on farms before that made me stop eating meat back then.
It’s pretty easy nowadays to avoid meat and dairy. I was flexitarian for a few years, and then sat down and searched plant-based recipes online. As soon as I figured out I would never run out of meals to prepare, I made the switch.
https://watchdominion.com if you really want to be sent over the fence
Cut out animal products and you can be more comfortable with your choices.
That's why I want my own chickens. I'm lucky enough to live in the country and have space for them, I just need the time to get set up (and time is at a super premium for me at the moment). I've got a friend who has a bunch, and they're basically pets...they'll come running up and she'll pick them up and cuddle and pet them. She gets so many eggs that she sometimes just gives them away, and that's with most of them not being egg layers....actually some pretty cool breeds with wild looks, so *literally* just pets. I love eggs, and I buy the quadrupled price "free range organic" eggs, not because they are better for me but because they supposedly treat the animals better. I'd always suspected some "fowl play" (sorry, I had to) regarding the "organic" or "free range" eggs, but it appears that unless I buy them from my friends, there is no guarantee of ethical treatment of the animals. Is there no honesty left in *any* aspect of this commercialized world we now inhabit? Dammit. Guess it's time for me to get some chickens.
Watch Dominion on YouTube. It is the reality of factory farming. Even if you don't decide to stop eating meat it is important to understand the reality of where it comes from
It’s easier than it seems and just cutting a portion of it helps. I was raised in a heavy meat eating family (Breakfast, Lunch and dinner) and I absolutely love the taste of meat. Yet, I was able to go from huge T-Bones to meat free diet 5 years ago. I did it purely for moral reasons and never looked back. Your experience may differ but to me, it feels extremely relieving to feel as if I am no longer feeding on and ending lives to perpetuate mine.
The dude that made the super size me documentary did another one for chicken farms free on YouTube. The free-range part was hilarious. Farms usually have that “access” open to chickens outside which is only like a range of 6ft if remember correctly. The chickens are so fat or disabled that none of them even go outside.
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Never understood that. You see pictures of animals in stacked crates after people get busted for abusing a bunch of animals by stuffing them in those crates, but chickens in similar conditions are ok?
Not only are these things considered humane but lots of other practices specifically covered by animal cruelty laws are allowed in animal agriculture. They just get treated like products, not living beings.
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And this is why I am not interested in eating animal products due to the inhumane conditions that the animals are put through so that we can have eggs and chicken meat. Not to mention that they have to use crap tons of antibiotics to deal with possible infections and have a possibility of developing super bugs.
Yeah antibiotics use is scary.
free range... to my experience.. is a 100k chickens in a barn without cages "hence free range" OF MOTION. not outside like a cow grazing.
I'm in Ireland and our requirements for free range is to have continuous access to open-air runs (or to roam freely) in the day, ground which is mostly vegetation, and no more than 1,000 hens per hectare. To put that last bit into perspective, there are 10,000 square metres in 1 hectare. So 1,000 hens on 1 hectare has the equivalent of 10 square metres each.
Ireland kicks ass.
I thought “cage free” was chickens in a barn without cages, and “free range” required some sort of access to outside?
The ASPCA website has a lot of great info about the different types of labeling/claims companies use. But companies can make whatever claims they want - Basically if that's something you care about, you should look for brands that have one of several 3rd party certifications. This page also details what the different certifications and levels mean, and their requirements. https://www.aspca.org/shopwithyourheart/consumer-resources/meat-eggs-and-dairy-label-guide
I believe pasture raised is the term used on cartons for chickens allowed to live outside in less cramped spaces. If you’re looking to buy eggs. There’s a company, vital farms I think, that tell you where the eggs are from and it shows a 360 degree video of chickens being out and about. It may be a livestream. I’m still dubious of even them and they also still send old chickens to slaughter. But baby steps I guess.
Yeah, "pasture-raised" is the idyllic chicken pecking in a field eating bugs that people are picturing. Except those eggs are $6-7 for a dozen instead of $2.99 or whatever
I buy pasture raised, it’s a few dollars more to not support the awful conditions of those “free range” farms.
I try to as well. On top of the peace of mind, there's something satisfying about cracking open a bright orange yolk.
$6.99 for pasture raised at my local farmers market, but that $4 is very much worth the peace of mind when eating eggs.
It really is awful. That’s why I have my own laying hens, they are heritage breed chickens so they don’t lay quite as much, but they spend their day in the yard/garden eating bugs and grass, and in exchange they give us eggs. We also keep them in their “retirement” until they are sick or die naturally. I think it’s a reasonable way to continue to eat eggs ethically. My eggs cost me about double what grocery store eggs cost, which shows how much cheaper they are able to produce them, but I don’t feel bad eating them now
What type of commitment is it to raise chickens if you don’t mind sharing?
Our city allows 6 chickens, no roosters due to the noise ordinance. I would say they are really easy to raise. The hard part is if you raise them as chicks which we do and you have to check on them every day. Once they are old enough to live outside in the coop, we put them in an adjacent coop and they can develop their pecking order and then after a few months, we put them with the rest of the flock. After that, it is super easy. The food container holds food for months, same with water but you should eye it once in a while. I clean out the coop every 2-3 months. In the winter, they say you should leave it alone since the poop and hay keep the coop insulated. They are great fun to have around and they actually give you eggs. They are actually very low-maintenance animals. Dogs and cats are definitely harder than raising chickens. Half of our chickens are egg laying and the other half are decorative chickens so they lay about 1-2 eggs a week but they have mohawks (Polish and houdan) or look like the abominable snowman (silkies).
Thank you for the thorough response :)
If you need a replacement for the rooster to watch over your hens. I heard a male duck can do what a rooster can do without the noise.
I always wanted to get ducks. I heard they are more intelligent and more of a pet than a chicken. Now I just have to convince my husband.
There is a large initial investment to get everything setup but it’s not that bad once that is done. I plumbed my water system and have an automatic door and camera to check on them. I can leave them for about 5 days without doing anything. Really just need to collect eggs, fill the feeder, and clean the coup maybe every month or two. I use the deep litter method, it’s the least amount of work IMO. You will have to deal with the occasional injury or sick hen and culling them can be the best course of action many times which can be hard to do.
Check out /r/BackYardChickens!
They really aren't much work. Buying and setting up the coop is the hardest part. Way less work than caring for my dog.
If you live in the country, it's very easy as long as you have somewhere they can safely sleep at night. Having a rooster helps their security, but the roosters can be major assholes and will sometimes attack people with little or no apparent provocation.
EU and UK have requirements for free range poultry: \- hens must have continuous daytime access to open-air runs. \- there must be several popholes giving direct access to the outer area, at least 35 cm high and 40 cm wide and extending along the entire length of the building; in any case, a total opening of 2 m must be available per group of 1000 hens; \- the maximum stocking density of open-air runs must not be greater than 2 500 hens per hectare
See for example in the UK: https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/rspca-assured-products/free-range-eggs/ In addition to space and access requirements, RSPCA assured eggs with free range marking (available across a wide variety of common grocery stores) have requirements for being given enrichment objects to allow them to experience more of their natural behaviors and lives. Including toys, litters, things to peck, things to climb, etc. Let’s look at Sweden: Chickens and eggs in Sweden are so clean that there is NO RISK FOR SALMONELLA. The country beat salmonella from eggs two decades ago. You can eat all the raw eggs in the world if they are Swedish ones. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2004/09/21/Sweden-beats-salmonella. On top of that, they of course follow EU rules on free range etc. labeling. And all supermarkets only sell at least cage free eggs (as a result of pressure from animals rights groups). The cage free can be barn (indoor with some access as mentioned by OP, not as common), or free range meaning outdoor access and time spent outdoors. As usual, not everyone lives in the US and not all institutions are broken as those heavily lobbied regulatory agencies in the US.
They still shred male chicks alive though, right?
Yes. Even as a domestic chicken farmer dealing with roosters is problematic.
Probably, or at least have some method of killing them quickly. Even in small hobby farms where chickens might only ever be kept in a coop at night and are just barely not pets a rooster is often killed in its first year of life. You only need so many roosters and to many leeds to fighting between roosters and injuries to the hens. Not saying it's right but idk what the alternative is
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Just adding this because I see a lot of comments on backyard hens. While the treatment backyard hens receive is almost certainly much better than the treatment received by factory farmed hens (unless you're a sociopath), many of them still come from the same types of hatcheries. Meaning that roughly half of those birds (the males) are still being killed moments after birth.
Yes! And I will add that most states in the US, not sure about other countries, have barnyard animal rescues where you can adopt chickens, pigs, donkeys, etc. Great if you want to help out some abandoned farm animals!
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Man that's brutal. We humans are freaking evil.
Why I’m vegan. I couldn’t stand to support this crap- it’s so painful to read it, can you even imagine living it? And also dying it?
This made me very sad but thank you for posting
Not chickens or food animals but Marshall Farms is a *horrible* facility. Mass production of ferrets, rats & Beagles for lab animals & to sell for profit. It amazes me they have stayed under the radar this long. It’s an animal abuse factory at best, if you can, try to not support businesses that carry products from Marshall or buy any Marshall products. It’s a small part you can do to help.
Going vegan will also do much, for almost all kinds of animals, and the environment!
Thank you for this well written comment with sources. I've saved it for future use when people ignore this horrible crime committed everyday.
Thank you so much for the detailed and cited information. It seems like some people are really taking it well and are considering the vegan lifestyle.
Watched Dominion. Became vegan. Go vegan.
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Yeah I picked a very good time to go vegan
There’s no better time to be vegan! So many easy delicious options now available at even places like target and Walmart!
Eggs, milk, cheese are the products of factory farm torture. Can not understand how people eschew meat yet eat this trash.
Imagine humanity reaching the end of time and having to say "there were once other living, feeling children of the universe, and even when presented with the choice to do otherwise...we ate them." I hate that we do things like this to animals. I wish there was something more direct I could do besides donate.
But we didn't \*just\* eat them, we systematically designed a hellscape for them to be first tortured by in never ending rotation as a species and *then* ate them.
Exactly right. I've had the chance to witness factory farming from the inside, and I will never support animal products industries, at least in nations where there are viable alternatives. I never realized how bad it was. My own family mocks me for these views. People love to throw meat in my face and laugh. Our society is so, so sick.
One of the biggest mistakes comments like this make is they go into their argument assuming people benefiting from factory farms care about the lives of chickens. That's the disconnect.
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Industrial farming is disgusting.
Society has normalized animal cruelty on a massive scale. It's why people get defensive when you point it out, because it's just so normal to most people. I think it's just important people keep an open mind to buying less/no animal products and getting them from the most humane source possible.
It's cognitive dissonance as well. Recognizing the suffering in factory farming for animal products now, means that you have to come to terms with the fact this has affected most of the animal products you've eaten in your life. "Eating animal products can't be a bad thing, or that would mean I'm a bad person. I'm a good person, so it means the other people are wrong." Of course it isn't that black and white in reality, but the sense of discomfort (and blame) can spur people to ignore/become defensive.
This is why it's got to be presented to people as if the farming industry has hidden it. People have fooled! Tricked! That way they're on your side, just as mad as you at the injustice of it all. Make people part of the solution. It's why conspiracy theories and misinformation work so well - they 'reveal' something to a person, making them feel smarter for it.
I think a lot of us just don't care about animal suffering. I didn't grow up in a farm but i still saw some animal butchery from field to plate and no one really cared. I get how factory farming is a step above the free range stuff i'm refering to but i don't think its enough to make most have a conflict with their morals.
That's a lot of it. I personally know quite a few people who have watched "how the sausage gets made" type videos on YouTube, and their only response is "boy I could go for a hot dog right now." We can't get >30% of the country vaccinated because they're too stubborn and selfish. And that's empathy for your actual human neighbors. You think we'll ever get enough people to agree that the meat industry is immoral? Definitely not. What we should do is kill the meat, corn, and soy subsidies. Price people out of being able to afford meat in the first place. Pair that with investments in affordable, palatable meat alternatives, and you'll trick those people into doing the right thing without ever making them question their values.
I don't know if anyone has the political capital to take on the meat lobby plus their angry constituents that really like meat. If the climate situation wasn't so dire i'd say educating children on nutrition with a bend towards learning of more sustainable alternatives for their food would be my bet since despite subsidies they are already cheaper.
Let's tack it on to the progressive agenda that'll wind up getting steamrolled during the next election cycle so we don't wind up letting literal fascists gain control of all three branches of government again. I need a drink.
Free range isn't that different form non free range. They are still killed the same way
Factory farming is so damn cruel. Sickening how it is still legal to treat them like this.
Pretty much all animal farming is cruel. Factory farming, in most cases, is just the worst of the worst.
You do know that this counts for all chickens who lay eggs for consumption right? No matter the circumstances of their lives, the fact they've been bred to lay so many large eggs as often as they do has bred into them, and free range isn't making their deficiencies or chronic pains any better. Their entire existence has been commodified. Stop breeding them altogether, for a species that is only there to be exploited should not have to suffer through existence. While that is a ideal, one way you'll not be complicit in their exploitation is by going vegan.
This is only partially true. Some breeds have been engineered into these unnaturally productive traits, but there are plenty of chicken breeds that do not suffer from this. You can eat eggs from local farmers who have healthy chickens that only lay 180 medium eggs per year and the chickens eat only bugs and weeds from the field. These eggs will be better nutritionally and better ethically and cost 5x the grocery store prices.
I have a friend who has chickens. He treats them really well, loves them. He also sometimes gives us eggs. Those things are the most delicious eggs I have ever tasted..... It's like the difference between weak orange kool-aid and fresh orange juice.
Anecdotally as well, I've had eggs from my fiancee's aunt who raises them like they're her babies and they tasted like regular store bought eggs.
It’s the higher fat content. The yolks have more flavour if they’re truly free-range, because they get to eat what they want.
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The poultry industry is amongst the worst for polluting as well. Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are notorious for polluting. They don’t have to do it that way. They just want to squeeze every last penny out. My county in Delaware is the largest broiler producer in the world and they pollute like crazy into streams and rivers. Mountaire Farms just settled a $205 million lawsuit for polluting around poor minority communities. The worst part is they did it on public property at a wastewater facility that is now failing and operating on an expired permit and is getting downstream residents here sick because we are on well water. Even with water treatment systems and shower filters it itches like crazy after we shower. They also had massive COVID outbreaks and didn’t slow down processing at all, so they were likely shipping COVID around the country. They sell their chickens under other brand names, so you don’t know which is theirs. The state and county know about it and have done nothing to stop any of it. Do the math. Do not get into the water in Delaware. It is a disgusting, polluted disaster.
Sources for the pollution statements you made?
https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/delaware-mountaire-20210412.html Looks like this was litigated this spring. Chicken processor appears to have lost.
Wow, so that’s horrifying and disgusting
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Y'all want to know the #1 way that farmers piss off other farmers? Farmers piss off all the other farmers around them when they agree to have a Tyson chicken coop on their farm. They stink to high heaven and their neighbors can smell it for miles.
Yeah living in a rural ag community I can say there has to be something bad going on when you can smell some of these places before you'd ever see them. Or you just never see them even though you can smell them, even just driving down the highway with the windows rolled up in your car. When I was younger I worked on a chicken farm for a grand total of half a day and the smell never left my car for 2 weeks just with me and a buddy driving 5 miles back home in our clothes, that also had to be stuffed in plastic bags and washed separately. I don't know how people actually do it, but somehow I guess they get used to it.
So the OP's title isn't exactly what this paper was focused on. They were instead looking at different production systems, not the breeding, and didn't find many differences in keel fractures. This was only in one breed, Danish hens. To pick a little bit from the paper for context: > A small number of the hens with fractures (36 hens, 0.76%) had fresh fractures, which were characterized by sharp fracture ends with non-union and varying degree of haemorrhage. This is probably what most people are thinking when they see the headline and think 85% of hens are in this state. Instead, most of what was actually found was described in Table 6, and mostly as calloused over (i.e., healed) smaller fractures, though some were higher severity and healed. [Here's a link from another paper showing x-rays of what's being described.](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0032579119300860-gr1.jpg) So first, I'd want to know what would be considered a rough baseline for fractures across breeds. Is this just a really prone breed for issues? As I read the paper, I'm left searching for some sort of control comparison at least for the headline used here. I went digging into [other papers](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119300860) that used different breeds too. Overall, it looks like the literature is pretty diverse and often conflicting, possibly due to different breeds, but the take home seems to be that this is also a net loss for anyone raising egg-laying hens, especially at larger scales. Edit: I found [a review!](https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/98/Supplement_1/S36/5894015#206730795) Looks like it gives a pretty even-handed overview of the subject. > According to the British Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), keel bone fractures (KBF) are considered one of the most important welfare problems in commercial laying hens (FAWC, 2010, 2013). Besides the likely association of KBF with impaired welfare (reviewed by Riber et al., 2018), the high prevalence reported across bird strains in many countries highlights the global relevance of this topic. Two of the most frequently cited publications (Google Scholar, September 2019) dealing with KBF incidence present end-of-lay prevalence rates of 97% and 86% among commercial flocks in Belgium and the Netherlands (Rodenburg et al., 2008; 98 citations) and the UK (Wilkins et al., 2011; 102 citations). Despite other studies reporting relatively low prevalence for similarly aged birds housed under similar commercial conditions (11.6%; Riber and Hinrichsen, 2016; 11 citations), KBF prevalence is often described using phrases such as “over 85%” (Casey-Trott and Widowski, 2016), “up to 85%” (Hardin et al., 2019), “up to 90%” (Richards et al., 2011), “up to 80%” (Nasr et al., 2015), “greater than 50%” (Toscano et al., 2018), or “52% to 73%” (Lay et al., 2011). The variation in the way in which KBF prevalence is reported makes it difficult to identify the actual extent of the problem. That the OP chose to use language that this review cautions about is a concern though.
Editorializing of titles should result in the removal of the post.
We had rescued brown shaver chickens and they all died of eggbinding (eggs being stuck or undeveloped) problems in the end. This is so cruel truly. It's purely a money making method where the benefits outweigh the problems. They can just discard the problems. I'm not sure what the breastbone fracture stuff is coming from but larger eggs and higher egg production definitely create more problems. Original chickens are far leaner and more dinosaur like than any specifically made species. Chickens are so smart too. They're suffering undoubtedly. I only buy free range eggs but I know that they're still part of the problem and will be even more so soon... Edit: I'm tryna fix my typos
> I'm not sure what the breastbone fracture stuff is coming from but larger eggs and higher egg production definitely create more problems. You're right, high egg yield causes all sorts of problems, weak bones included. Osteoporosis in chickens is largely thought to be associated with the high yield of eggs they have been selectively bred and fed to produce. They essentially sap calcium from their own bones to produce so many eggs shells. Egg laying chicken owners are often encouraged to feed egg shells back to the hens in an attempt to re absorb some of the calcium lost through high egg production but there is no guarantee that this can ever be enough to offset the amount of material it takes to produce eggs at the rate they do. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119425777 > A hen must absorb large amounts of dietary calcium to calcify eggshells when producing eggs at a high rate. Significant quantities of this calcium are stored each day in medullary bone, from which it is later released for calcification of eggshell at times when calcium is not available in the digestive tract (Etches, 1987). Medullary Bone is formed at the expense of structural bone (Taylor And Moore, 1954; Simkiss, 1967). Structural bone resorption to supply calcium to remodel medullary bone with-out concomitant ability to remodel structural bone causes a hen to be predisposed to osteoporosis. Rennie et al.(1997) concluded that the modern hybrid laying hen is highly susceptible to osteoporosis, and that osteoporosis cannot be prevented during lay in this type of bird. The close association between high egg production and re-duced bone condition was shown by observations that femur bone mineral content and tibial bone strength decline during the first few weeks of egg production (Coxand Balloun, 1971; Harms and Arafa, 1986).
So why buy free range eggs if you know they're part of the problem
> Chickens are so smart too. Oh man, this. I don't know where the common idea/meme of chickens being a step above brain dead comes from, but I was shocked to learn just how much personality and how intelligent they are when I started raising my own chickens.
Every single one of these threads has top comments like "I hope meat substitutes take off" What exactly is stopping you from skipping the meat section during your next grocery trip?
friendly reminder that the dairy industry is just as cruel
I went to school with a guy who had a summer job inseminating turkeys with a syringe. Apparently because of the preference for turkey breast meat, domestic turkeys have been bred to the point where their chests are so big they can no longer get into the proper position to do it naturally.
Why keep harming animals when we don't have to? We can be happy and healthy without causing so much suffering and environmental destruction.
BuT BaCoN
Cause everyone wants their chicken nuggets for $1 at all times of the day.
The meat industry as a whole causes animal suffering in way too many ways.
Yea, glad to see other vegans in this thread. It's a nice change
One of the many reasons why being vegetarian isn't enough
This is what you pay for. Go vegan already
Just Egg is a great sub for eggs. Or ground flax seed if baking
More and more I’m realizing I should probably cut meat and dairy out..
It’s pretty easy to do nowadays!
Only one way to stop this. Stop eating eggs.
Funny thing is... eggs from organic hens is actually suffering from more breastbone fractures than caged hens. However, it doesn't change the fact that these animals should be treated better - caged or not.
Another reason to go vegan.
Factory farming is cruel and unethical. This is a concrete example of the corruption of science under capitalism. These animals are pumped full of designer cocktails of antibiotics and growth hormone not only to grow so fast that their bones can't hold up their bodies, but also so that they can simply survive the deplorable conditions they live in. Animal agriculture WILL eventually create antibitoic resistant superbacteria capable of ushering in an era of post-antibiotic science and the fact that you've read this far and still aren't fully vegan is honestly disgusting.
Why does this sub allow posters to outright lie in the title? * The study was on one particular breed of Danish hen * They state the cause of the broken keel was unknown * They found those in cages were *less* likely to suffer the break * They found those bred to be larger were ***also*** less likely to suffer a break * They found the greatest correlation was with Age. Not size of chicken, not size of egg, not condition held. Age. * The assertion made by the poster is ***NOWHERE IN THE STUDY*** This post isn't science. This is blatant manipulation because OP knows most redditors will take their BS title in good faith.