Chances are, your breakfast egg came from a battery hen. She will spend her short life in a barren wire cage with a living space smaller than an A4 page. She will never stretch her wings, perch, dustbathe, or feel sunlight, grass or fresh air.
Inside a battery farm
Cages are stacked in tiers, and faeces from the upper levels fall onto those below. The stench of ammonia is overpowering, and causes respiratory disease and eye damage.
Up to 90% of battery hens suffer broken bones from lack of exercise, rough handling, and calcium depletion. Many experience severe feather loss from rubbing against the cage, and their claws grow so long and twisted that they tangle in the wire floor.
Many birds do not survive life inside a wire cage. Our rescue team members have seen bloated corpses that have obviously been left in the cage for weeks
The Uproar rescue team, saving lives
To reduce aggression in stressed hens, their beaks are often sliced off with a hot blade. The beak is a complex sensory organ with a rich nerve supply, and this mutilation is agonising.
Think free range is ok? 50% of chicks – the males – are useless to the industry. They live just a few hours before being tossed, alive, into industrial blenders or suffocated in plastic bags. Most free range hens are still debeaked and live in overcrowded, filthy conditions. All die before their second birthday, hanging upside down while their throats are cut and the feathers scalded from their bodies.
