Life in a battery cage… means life behind bars!
A typical metal battery cage
- is completely barren
- is about the size of a microwave oven
- allows each hen a useable area of 550cm2, less than the size of an A4 piece of paper
- houses up to five hens for a year
- does not allow the hens to fully stand up straight, stretch their wings, run, fly or make a nest. All they can do is eat, drink, pass waste and, of course, lay eggs.
Confinement, boredom and overcrowding in these tiny cages can cause frustration, aggression and feather-pecking among chickens. The birds may also experience chronic suffering, osteoporosis, severe bone weakness, physical deformity and premature death.
Please don’t buy into the cruelty of battery eggs, GO FREE RANGE!
Barn hens don't fare much better, contrary to popular belief
Barns do have nesting areas but are often of sharp uncomfortable metal that scratches the breasts of the hens and rubs the feathers away.
The hens often suffer respiratory problems due to the high volume of ammonia in the barns which are cleaned out sometimes every six months and sometimes not at all during the 60+ weeks that the birds are confined there.
The floors of the barns are slats which the droppings theoretically fall through into the slurry pit below. The hens live amongst carcasses of the weaker hens who couldn't take any more.
The hens spend their lives crammed in the barns and cannot escape from bullies. They lose their feathers through stress and have never seen natural daylight.
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The best way to ensure where and how your own eggs were produced is to have your own hens. It is becoming acceptable once more to keep a few hens in gardens for your own egg supply.
To rescue ex battery/barn hens is the kindest thing you can do. These hens still have lots of eggs left to lay, make lovely pets and grow into stunning birds as their new feathers grow and you will feel so emotional, witnessing them behaving like proper hens without being taught how to dig for worms and dust bathe.It makes you realise how unnatural it was for them cooped up in such terrible conditions and that the farmers view that they "know nothing else" is nonsense because they must yearn for a patch of soil to dig whilst stuck in their living hell.
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