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Have you ever stopped to think about where your eggs come from? Perhaps the first image that comes to mind is a picture of hens squawking around a barnyard, building nests in dark corners of the loft.
For many, this is the picture-book image of a chicken farm. What has escaped the knowledge of many is the fact that family farms where chickens are free to roam have long been replaced, in most cases, by factory farms.
True, chickens still live in barns – at least, the long dark houses are very similar to barns. What is not the same is the way chickens live: in wire cages, stuffed in with up to six other birds, so tightly they can’t flap their wings. The cages slope downwards so the eggs will fall into a shallow trough once they have been laid.
98 per cent of Canada’s 26 million egg producing hens live under these conditions. Most of them are debeaked, which involves cutting off up to two thirds of their beak, usually with a hot blade, to prevent them from cannibalizing or pecking the feathers out of other hens. The debeaking process includes cutting through bone, cartilage and soft tissue, causing each hen great pain and distress. The industry calls it beak trimming.
Hens suffer many illnesses and diseases because of the conditions in these factory farms. They suffer severe feather loss from the pecking of other birds and rubbing against the wire cages. They are commonly prone to osteoporosis, paralysis, and foot problems.
After 1 – 2 years of laying eggs they are considered spent hens, no longer able to produce, and are transported to a plant where they are made into animal feed or compost, chicken pot pies, soup and other food requiring chicken by-products.
Factory farms in Canada contain thousands of these cages, row upon row, stacked up four tiers, sometimes containing over 100, 000 birds. The cages are usually 16” by 18”, with up to 7 birds per cage.
Producing eggs quickly at low cost sometimes involves forced moulting. This includes starving hens for up to 12 days, denying them water for 3 days, and keeping them in darkness for longer periods of time in order to shock them into laying eggs more quickly. Moulting is the process hens go through to shed feathers, cuticles and skin to allow new growth. Eggs are not laid during this process, which usually takes 18 – 20 days, but is shortened with forced moulting.
Forced moulting is not very common in Canada although it is a growing concern in the US.
Battery cages were devised in the 1940s as scientific developments spurred on the breeding of hens for the purpose of laying eggs. Male chicks born are usually killed in a macerator, which grinds them up for animal food because birds bred specifically for egg-laying are too thin to be used for meat.
Battery cages do not allow for natural chicken behaviours such as dust bathing, nesting and flapping of wings and have been outlawed in the European Union and will be completely phased out by 2012. In addition to this progressive move, all eggs in the EU are required to be labelled indicating whether they are from caged, barn or free-roam hens.
Battery cages have been banned completely in Switzerland, and there is growing concern in the United States as people become aware of the conditions of egg-laying hens.
No legislation exists in Canada, however, to outlaw these practices. Instead of legislating farm practices, Canada took the route of developing Codes of Practice for the care and handling of various types of farmed animals. The development of these Codes began in 1980, led by the CFHS and funded by the Canadian government. The process involved participation from producers, government, transporters, the Canadian Society of Animal Science, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, and the CFHS. These Codes are minimal standards, however, and are only incorporated into legislation in some provinces, although the Codes are considered by the courts to be the accepted standard of care for farmed animals.
