Is the egg you eat "nature"?

Horrid Conditions for Parent Birds in Hatcheries

Virtually all chickens today are factory raised, with as many as six egg-laying hens living in a wire-floored “battery” cage the size of an album cover. As many as 100,000 birds can live in each “henhouse.” It is dark and filthy. The stench from feces and ammonia is constant and overwhelming.

There are dead and dying birds on the ground. The birds have no sunshine, no grass in which to forage, no dirt for dustbathing. Instead of living in flocks, exploring, and roosting in trees, they live in crowded squalor. They have no semblance of a normal life and nothing to do. Conditions are so psychologically taxing on the birds that they must be debeaked to prevent pecking injuries.

The hens are repeatedly mounted by the young roosters. After about a year, the roosters are killed and a new batch is brought in to mate with the hens, who by this time are worn out and bedraggled. By 18 months old, many of the hens have lost half or more of their feathers. Their misery is compounded at slaughter time, from being starved for two or more days days beforehand. (Most animals raised for meat, milk, or eggs are starved for a period of time before being killed, as a cost-cutting measure.) The slaughter itself, is violent and filled with pain and agony.

Disposal of Male Chicks in Hen Hatcheries

Male chicks born on factory farms—as many as 280 million per year—are simply thrown into garbage bags to die or ground alive because they’re of no economic value as meat or eggs. Click on the picture below to see a video of the hatchery cruelty. Some parts of the video may be disturbing and difficult to watch.

Hens are Forced to Lay Eggs

Jungle fowl hens lay about 20 eggs in the spring—enough to perpetuate the species—and then give their bodies a rest. Through intensive breeding, the hens that produce today's eggs lay 300 eggs a year—almost an egg a day—until they start to get worn out and their laying rate decreases.

Laying an egg requires resources from the body, notably calcium, the main ingredient in the egg shell. The artificially high rate of laying takes a toll on the hen's body, robbing her of calcium and often causing her bones to grow weak.

Hens have also been bred to lay larger eggs. The combination of so many eggs and the larger size of the eggs increases the chance of complications such as prolapse, a potentially fatal condition in which the egg sticks to the hen's uterine wall.