Roughly a week ago we rescued 6 spent hens from a large Factory Farm. The farm sells caged eggs, barn laid and Free Range eggs. Apart from a few obvious escapees I didnt see any Free Ranging chickens at all, just multiple large sheds. There is no doubt that if I was a chicken I would prefer to be loose in an overcrowded barn than jammed in an overcrowded cage which prevented me from moving at all. But this does not in any way mean that FreeRange chickens have a nice life, a natural life, a life free from pain, deprivation and suffering, because they most certainly do not. Regardless of how the eggs are marketed, these things are the same; The male chicks are killed at one day old, they are either ground up alive or suffocated by the hundreds in a large bag. Egg laying hens live their lives in severely overcrowded conditions, be it a battery cage, barn or Free Range which is usually just a large barn with some available access to outside ( often a bare dirt yard that most of the hens will never venture out into) Egg laying hens commonly have the tip of their beak cut off as chicks to minimise the damage from the inevitable fighting that goes on in stressed and overcrowded conditions. Egg Laying hens are considered spent at 18 months old and are slaughtered, and the whole flock replaced. On the second morning they were here I found one of the hens dead in her house, I am unsure of the reason, so now we have 5 ladies enjoying their newfound freedom and making the most of every single moment.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:09:58 +0000
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