Before human intervention, in their natural environment, hens used to lay around 12 eggs per year, like many other wild birds.
However, the egg industry has now selectively bred hens to produce up to 350+ eggs per year. This intensive egg-laying cycle severely strains their small bodies, leading to numerous health issues such as osteoporosis and prolapses. In fact, for every egg laid, a hen uses at between 10% - 20% of her body’s calcium.

To maintain the population of productive hens, hatcheries incubate eggs to produce new chicks. Both male and female chicks hatch from these eggs, but the males, unable to lay eggs, are considered useless by the industry. Consequently, they are killed shortly after hatching, often by methods such as grinding them alive or suffocation. In some cases, they are discarded in garbage bins to die slowly.

Throughout their lives, most hens in the egg industry are confined to small, crowded cages where they never experience sunlight or fresh air. They are unable to perform natural behaviors like spreading their wings, perching, or foraging for food. This extreme confinement leads to significant behavioral issues, including aggression and frustration among the hens. To mitigate these issues, the industry often resorts to de-beaking, a process where over a quarter of a hen’s sensitive beak is cut off, all without the use of painkillers. This procedure causes long-term pain.

The use of the words “Free-range” and “organic” were created to make us, the consumer, feel better about your purchase. But, the sad reality is, whether factory farmed, free range, or organic, the egg industry still depletes hens of their calcium through the demand for their eggs, it still sees male chicks as waste products to be disposed of and, whilst cages cannot legally be used, in the eyes of the law, all free-range means is that they must have about an iPad’s worth of space, and they are invariably still confined to overcrowded sheds, with only 10% of free range hens ever having access to fresh air.

When hens are no longer productive, they are sent to slaughter, after enduring a short life of suffering. Many hens die from the harsh conditions before they even reach the slaughterhouse, and many die on the slaughter trucks themselves, as they are crammed into tiny crates.

”Humane Slaughter”

Most hens start to experience a decline in their egg production around 12 months old. At this point, they are deemed no longer profitable and are sent to slaughter for cheap meat, despite their natural lifespan being up to 8 years.

The legal and supposedly "humane" methods of slaughter in the UK include gassing and electrical baths. However, these methods often fail to render the chickens unconscious effectively. The use of electrical baths, meant to stun the birds, frequently falls short, leaving many chickens still conscious and fully aware when they are stabbed in the throat. In some cases, these birds are even boiled alive in the electrical baths.