All About Battery Hens - Disclaimer: Graphic Pictures

This is so horrendous! My heart was breaking reading this and seeing the pictures. I don't understand how anyone can do something so cruel to these girls. It is indeed a miserable life for them.

It is possible to stop this. In my country (Netherlands) you can only buy eggs from non-caged chickens. Not good ether, but a little better.

This is why I love backyard chicken keeping you save up with saving hens until the factory’s amount either decreases or goes out of buisness

This is a good article. However, I think you should mention that all hatcheries that sell sexed pullet chicks, even the ones that sell to feed stores, kill the cockerel chicks at a day or two old.

This is horrible! it makes me appreciate that my eggs from happy, healthy hens even more.

When I read the article below, in a Dutch newspaper, I thought about how things can be changed through exposure and action groups (without fighting). Supermarkets like to shine and sell more (marketing). They don’t want their names associated with animals who are kept and slaughtered cruelly.

The article is about fast growing broiler chickens (soUrce NRC-translated by Google):
Fast growing broiler chickens (floppy chickens) not sold in many supermarkets anymore
According to the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM), Dutch supermarkets have more sustainable chicken meat in their range than ever before. So-called "floppy chicken", defined by ACM as "fresh chicken of a fast-growing breed", is hardly available anywhere anymore. That writes the regulator in a study published Tuesday.

Between 2014 and 2018, the share of chicken meat that has an independent label doubled. "This study shows that supermarkets and companies have been able to independently switch to more animal-friendly alternatives to the 'floppy chicken'," write the researchers. ACM states that the use of quality marks played a major role in the switch.

Five years ago, ACM blocked the "Chicken of Tomorrow" initiative, a series of agreements between producers, suppliers and retailers to improve the welfare of chickens. According to the regulator, both animals and consumers did not sufficiently benefit from the series of agreements. After this criticism, producers and shops stopped their cooperation.

Wakker Dier Foundation (action group): “enter one quality mark”
In the meantime, the situation has improved, according to ACM, but Wakker Dier Foundation has doubts about the improvements. "It is true that supermarkets have moved away from floppy chicken and should have largely adopted the characteristics of the 'Chicken of Tomorrow' themselves," said a spokesman by telephone. "That chicken should have been an intermediate step, but it now seems that shops see it as the end point."

And Wakker Dier is not happy with that. "There is still a lot wrong with this chicken in terms of animal welfare," said the spokesman. Adding to the confusion for consumers is that many supermarkets have their own requirements. “Albert Heijn's chicken, for example, is worse than that of the Jumbo supermarket. One person sees daylight, the other doesn't, but that is completely unclear to the consumer ”.

One solution, according to Wakker Dier, is to introduce one independent quality mark that applies to everyone - and which is also monitored. The foundation also questions the doubling of the share of chicken meat with an independent quality mark. "That share was 16 percent in 2019, so it has not increased that much," said the spokesman. "We just had to come a long way."

one of the many reasons i choose to adopt and not shop. most people sadly don’t realize that applies to birds too, not just cats and dogs. i hope to adopt some rescue hens in the future.

great article. People need to see what's hide behind supermarkets eggs boxes, often showing a happy hen printed on.

RoostersAreAwesome said:

This is a good article. However, I think you should mention that all hatcheries that sell sexed pullet chicks, even the ones that sell to feed stores, kill the cockerel chicks at a day or two old.

Click to expand...

This can change. It already has for some hatcheries in the Netherlands. A few entrepreneurs developed a machine that drils a tiny hole in an egg after 13 days in the brooder. They take a little liquid out and drip it in a tiny cup. They measure male / female by difference in colouring of the liquid. Its like aborting male chick-feutuses instead of killing hatched chicks. They sell eggs in the shop with a label; no male chicks are killed for these eggs.