Chickens

Why eggs aren’t cruelty free: The shocking truth behind the egg industry

The egg industry has a dark secret: it exploits, abuses, and kills millions of hens every single year.

Amanda Waxman

Jun 06, 2021

The egg industry has a dark secret: it exploits, abuses, and kills millions of hens every single year.

A chicken laying face down in a wire battery cage — A chicken lays dying in a wire battery cage. Undercover Investigation into a British egg farm, Animal Equality, 2020

There’s a common misconception that eggs are “cruelty-free”—you don’t have to kill a chicken to get an egg, right? Sadly, this is not the case. Every year, the egg industry exploits millions of chickens: subjecting them to horrific conditions, debilitating injuries, and mental anguish, from the day they’re born to the day they’re violently slaughtered.

What’s life like for chickens raised by the egg industry?

Chickens are intelligent, sentient beings, who demonstrate thinking skills on par with humans and primates. Every chicken has their own unique personality, complete with emotions. They even form deep social connections with other chickens and humans. These individual chickens thrive when they can bask in the sunshine, dust-bathe, play with their chicken friends, and enjoy a sweet snuggle session, as shown in this adorable video from Here With Us Farm Sanctuary.

Wesley the rescued rooster snuggles with his caregiver.

However, millions of chickens who are born into the massive egg industry each year will never be given the opportunity to engage in any of these simple behaviors that come naturally to them. Instead of the intelligent, curious beings that they are, they’re seen as a product. Egg-laying machines. Deprived of all love and care. Disposed of once they’re no longer useful.

A group of egg-laying hens in a battery cage — An industrial egg farm, in which there can be up to 100 hens packed into a single cage.Animal Equality, 2020

On today’s industrialized egg farms, hens are packed into wire cages known as battery cages. Up to ten birds at a time are stuffed together into one cage the size of a filing cabinet drawer. The space is so tight that a hen can’t even spread her wings without hitting the chicken next to her—sometimes, she can’t move at all.

For humans, this same feeling might resemble being stuck in an overcrowded elevator: claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and traumatic. However unpleasant this may be for you to imagine, thankfully, the feeling would only be temporary. You’ll eventually get out on your floor and move on with your day. But, can you imagine being forced to stay in that crowded elevator for your entire life? Until you die? This is what millions of egg-laying chickens experience every day in factory farms.

chickens' feet in a wire battery cage. — Chickens struggle to find their footing in a wire battery cage.Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

Overcrowding isn’t the only issue with battery cages. These cages are made out of cheap wire mesh, a material that doesn’t even provide a solid, sturdy surface for chickens to stand on. This causes her debilitating foot pain as a hen struggles to find any comfortable position. No room to sit or lay down. No solid floor to keep your balance while standing. This brutal, daily dilemma results in extreme measures for a hen to find pain relief. Often, chickens will resort to standing on the dead bodies of another hen, just to rest their feet.

Egg-laying hens in a battery cage — Egg-laying hens standing on a dead, decomposing cage mate.Jo-Anne McArthur / Animal Equality / We Animals Media

Tragically, many hens will die in this manner. Their dead body just left to decompose at the bottom of her cage. This is because factory farms deprive hens of their basic survival needs, only to maximize egg production and thus, maximize their profits.

When the seasons change, hens go through a process known as “molting,” shedding their feathers and slowing their egg production. However, this natural, slowed-down production process is entirely unacceptable to egg producers. Instead of morally allowing the natural process of molting to take place, they subject hens to forced molting. This deprives them of all food, water, or light (artificial or natural) for up to two weeks, allowing the industry to control the molting process and maximize egg production.

Dehydrated, starved, and exhausted. Many chickens will not survive the forced molting. Those who do will be severely traumatized by the process. The dictionary defines torture as “inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone (...) in order to force them to do something.” Forced molting is quite literally an act of torture—inflicted on innocent, sentient beings.

Egg-laying hen in a battery cage. — Hens are starved and kept in darkness during the forced molting process, which causes them to lose their feathers and produce fewer eggs.Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

All animals experience fear, pain, and stress. Chickens are no exception. The torture they each experience every day of their lives causes them mental anguish. They even exhibit signs of depression and anxiety, like us. To get through their day-to-day traumas, chickens will develop harmful coping mechanisms. They can peck and fight with other chickens Since their cage restricts from doing so, they’ll resort to miming natural behaviors like nesting to cope.

Even if a chicken is able to survive through all of these abuses day after day, they’ll eventually be “spent” in the eyes of the industry. Their egg production will naturally slow down with age, to the point where the industry no longer finds viable to keep around. When this happens, factory farms will identify which chickens are no longer profitable and select them to be culled—the term the industry uses to refer to mass animal slaughter. After a lifetime of exploitation, “spent” egg-laying hens will be disposed of like trash, and more flocks will be bred to experience the same, endless cycle of abuse.

What can we do to end this cycle of abuse?

After learning about the torture egg-laying hens experience, many are rightfully horrified, and moved to stop the abuse. All around the world, people have taken action to make meaningful progress to help improve the treatment of egg-laying hens.

A group of animal rights protestors holding a photo of a caged egg-laying hen. — Open Wing Alliance activists protest the abuse of egg-laying hens.

In the US, nine states have passed legislation mandating that egg producers switch to cage-free production. By going cage-free, the use of the cruel battery cages that cause birds immense physical and psychological stress will be eliminated from their supply chains. Additional progress has been made in the private sector, where consumer demand has pressured grocery stores, restaurants, and hotels to commit to also sourcing eggs from cage-free facilities.

Although we’ve made meaningful progress together, chickens are still suffering worldwide. A 2017 report found that 85% of commercial egg production in the United States relies solely on battery cages. Globally, 90% of commercial eggs come from chickens in battery cages. This adds up to more than 300 million chickens suffering through the worst abuses imaginable every single year—each one of them a unique, intelligent, and sentient individual.

Chickens deserve so much better than a life of daily abuse and neglect in the egg industry. If you’re moved to take action and create a more compassionate world for chickens, here are two ways you can help today:

Demand that companies end the use of cruel battery cages in their supply chains. Food companies have the power to end the worst forms of cruelty once they refuse to profit off of eggs that come from hens that spend their lives in cages. Show companies that animal abuse is not acceptable. Take action today with the Open Wing Alliance by demanding that the world’s largest fast food companies like Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC adopt meaningful, global cage-free policies.

Leave eggs off your plate. Countless undercover investigations on factory farms have exposed the truth of how eggs are far from being “cruelty-free.” By making the switch to compassionate, plant-based egg alternatives, you help create a future where no hen has to be exploited for her eggs. Try innovative, pre-made egg substitutes like Just Egg, or even make your own vegan egg substitutes from ingredients you have around the house!

Taking on the injustice of our broken food system is no small task, but our compassionate strength is more powerful than the egg industry's cruelty. Together, we can create a world that animals deserve.

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