4 dirty truths that make you loathe egg industry
4 dirty truths that make you loathe the egg industry. We talked about the truth of “Free range”, so you know how phony the illusions that the animal industry creates. So let’s cover the dirty truths that make you loathe the egg industry.
4 dirty truths that make you loathe egg industry
Those chickens are among the most abused of all farm animals. In order to meet the consumer demand for eggs, 280 million hens laid 77.3 billion eggs in 2007.
From hatching to slaughter, hens are subjected to mutilation, confinement, and deprivation of the ability to live their lives. These are the terrifying truths that make you loathe the egg industry.
1. Truth of sexing
The truth of the egg industry – the sex of chicks is fatal. The egg industry kills 260 million male chicks annually right after their birth. Because they don’t lay eggs – little value to the egg industry.
Methods to kill include: being sucked through a series of pipes onto an electrified “kill plate,” being ground up alive and fully conscious in a “macerator,” or being gassed.
2. Truth of environment for hens
95% of egg-laying hens spend their lives in battery cages. Typically, each shed holds around 20,000-30,000 birds. Battery cages commonly hold 5–10 birds. Each chicken has a floor space of less than a sheet of letter size.
Due to the little space to move, chickens constantly rubbing against and standing on wire cages. As a result, hens suffer severe feather loss, and their bodies become covered with bruises and abrasions.
The lights are on artificially and continuously in the shed to manipulate hens for more egg productions. Computers control heating and ventilating systems and the dispensing of feed and water.
Farmers only clean the units at the end of each cycle (2 to 3 weeks). Therefore, the floor of the shed would be completely covered with feces afterward.
The air tends to be acrid with ammonia. 14% of hens die along the way. The farmers use drugs in their water and feed to control parasites.
Beak clipping: A chicken’s beak is filled with nerves. So farmers practice beak clipping to prevent the abnormal feather-pecking due to the stress of confinement in the cage. It happens to female chicks at a day old, whether caged or free range.
“Free-range” egg: To be qualified as “Free range” eggs, chickens must have access to the outside – whether the chickens choose to go outside or not. In fact, those animals would die if they go outside due to the heat.
It’s the fact that less than 1% of chickens nationwide are raised as “free range”. So why do you pay more for not-so-free-range eggs?
3. Laying eggs – more and faster
Regular hens lay 10 to 15 eggs naturally per year. Mainly for the reproductions of species. Today’s industrial hen are selectively bred and artificially induced to lay more than 300 eggs annually.
Force molting: Hens don’t get food sometimes, for up to 2 weeks, to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle. The farmers do so to increase the production level higher.
This high intensity of egg production affects their bones. Eggshells suck their calcium, bones can become brittle and easily broken. The birds become stressed – which is why beak clipping is necessary. It’s just endless torture for chickens.
4. Lifespan
The lifespan of an industry chicken would be 5–8 years. However, most hens would start losing the ability to lay eggs after 1-2 years. The rapid and mass production shorten their lives.
The farmers typically kill or send the hens to slaughterhouses after 1–2 years. Birds are exempt from the Humane Slaughter Act. The federal law allows the egg industry the insensible mass production methods.
Due to a declining market for “spent” hens, producers often elect to kill them by gassing them with high concentrations of carbon dioxide. In some cases, the gas does not kill the birds, and there have been reports of live hens found at landfills crawling out from piles of decomposing chickens.
More resources
High time to know the truth about chicken used for food
Egg industry 10 worst companies for animals
What’s Wrong With Eggs? The Truth About The Egg Industry
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken
Conclusion: It’s just cruel how the egg industry put chickens into such horrendous conditions for the mass production. It's wrong that consumers are so blind about it. What can you do? Cut the consumption of eggs from The big industry egg companies and support small honest farmers that actually raise chickens in cages. Unless you change, nothing will change.
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