8 Ways Eating Eggs Hurts Chickens

WARNING: This post contains heartbreaking images. ?

1. It takes about 34 hours for a hen to produce just one egg. So to keep up with the demand for eggs, more than 300 million hens are suffering in the U.S. egg industry right now.

That’s a whole lot of hens.

2. Chickens have a natural life span of 10 to 15 years. But in the egg industry, their lives are two years full of misery, starting right when they’re born. ?

3. Chicks are hatched in large incubators (devices to help keep them warm) like these. That means they will never see their moms.

4. Shortly after being born, girl and boy chicks are separated. The girls are sent to a life in the egg industry, and because they’re worthless to the egg industry, millions of male chicks are either tossed into trash bags to suffocate or ground up alive.

More than 100 million male chicks are killed by the egg industry every single year.

5. At just a few days old, the female chicks have the ends of their sensitive beaks cut off with a hot blade—without painkillers. This is done so that they don’t peck at each other when they’re frustrated because they’ve been stuffed into small cages.

6. Five to 11 hens are crammed into tiny wire “battery cages.” On average, each hen has a living space that’s smaller than the size of a standard piece of printer paper—an area so small that many don’t have room to lie down or even stretch their wings.

7. The cages are often stacked one on top of the other, which causes poop and pee to fall down on birds in lower cages. Chickens normally like to stay clean, so this is especially stressful for them.

Because of these terrible living conditions, chickens often die in their cages. Their bodies are sometimes left in the same space as terrified living birds.

8. After about two years, those who have survived are sent to slaughter. At the slaughterhouse, hens used for their eggs are killed the same way as chickens used for their meat.

Chickens on “organic,” “free-range,” and “cage-free” farms still suffer greatly. On many of these egg farms, chickens rarely if ever go outside. They live most of their lives in cramped sheds filled with thousands of other birds. The animals often endure the same painful procedures—like having part of their sensitive beaks cut off with a hot blade without even being given any painkillers—that occur on factory farms.

Chickens are smart, social, and sensitive animals who deserve a much better life than this. Their eggs are also high in cholesterol and saturated fats, which aren’t good for our bodies anyway. It’s super-easy to get protein and other nutrients without eating eggs by turning to foods like vegan meats, beans, nuts, chickpeas, lentils, tofu, and dark leafy veggies instead.

Now that you know the truth about eggs, you can help chickens everywhere by NOT eating them! 🙂

Egg-Free Foods!