Facts
- In Canada, over 25 million hens are intensively confined in small wire “battery” cages stacked in tiers and lines inside huge warehouses. “Battery” refers to the large number of cages in one barn.
- According to the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, 98% of the 6 billion eggs produced each year in Canada come from caged hens.
- Canadian egg farms range from a few hundred hens to more than 400,000. According to 2006 statistics, the average flock size is 18,368 hens.
- Five to seven hens are typically packed together in a battery cage measuring 16 by 18 inches, with each hen forced to live her entire life in a space smaller than as sheet of notebook paper.
- The extreme confinement denies a hen most of her natural behaviours. She cannot nest, walk, stretch her wings, perch, peck and scratch or dust bathe.
- Nesting is a strong need for hens when laying eggs and being denied the ability to nest causes hens immense frustration.
- Battery-caged hens suffer feather loss, bruises and abrasions due to constant rubbing against the cage and cage mates.
- Lack of exercise and high egg production cause bone weakness. Hens sometimes have difficulty standing and may lose control of their legs, which can cause a slow death and starvation.
- Once their production wanes (after approximately one year), the birds are classified as 'spent hens' and are sent off to slaughter. Their brittle, calcium-depleted bones often break as a result of rough handling.
- The meat from spent hens usually ends up in soups, pot pies, or similar low-grade chicken meat products because their bodies are too bruised and battered to be sold as whole chicken meat. When there is no market for the meat, the birds are killed on the farm by cervical dislocation, maceration, CO2 gas or electrocution.
