Does anything happen to the chickens that lay eggs?!
It is NOT true that free range chickens live happy lives. There is no minimum standard for "free range" for chickens in the United States. Having a window or a 3 ft square bit of yard for hundreds of chickens to maybe stick their head out into can count as "free range." They aren't frolicking in a field. Even if they were, male chicks are still unneeded and killed, and the hens are killed when they're not useful any more.
Answers: Aside from the beak cutting and being stuffed into warehouses, essentially, male chicks that are born are killed because they aren't needed - just the females to lay more eggs. When the chickens stop laying eggs, they are killed too.
It is NOT true that free range chickens live happy lives. There is no minimum standard for "free range" for chickens in the United States. Having a window or a 3 ft square bit of yard for hundreds of chickens to maybe stick their head out into can count as "free range." They aren't frolicking in a field. Even if they were, male chicks are still unneeded and killed, and the hens are killed when they're not useful any more.
YES. They get their beaks cut off (so they dont kill each other for food, feels like pulling out fingernails) get stuffed in boxes and layered on top of each other, the male chicks are generally gassed (like the Holocaust type), abused.
Yes, absolutely!
Chickens who are raised for their eggs are packed into wire cages that are so small that they don't even have enough room to spread a single wing. The tip of each hen's sensitive beak is cut off with a burning-hot blade.
Free-range chickens lay eggs and have a decent life. Egg-factory eggs you may want to avoid if cruelty issues to chickens are important to you.
Legally, free-range hens are not to be caged, and usually have to have some access to the outdoors. But that's it. The farmer can still cram thousands of birds into a small barn so that they hardly have room to move, let alone get to the door outside, and they can still be debeaked (have their beaks cut off with a hot blade without painkillers) and/or force-molted (starved for up to 14 days to shock their bodies back into another egg-laying cycle). If you must eat eggs, see if you can get Nest Fresh ones. They treat their hens better.
Also, birds are exempt form the Humane Slaughter laws in the USA, meaning that male chicks can legally be ground up alive (and often are).
There are many cruel practices used in factory farms. Battery cages and de-beaking account for part of it.
But even "free range" chickens have a shorter life due to the constant demand for production. And when they can no longer produce they are killed.
For instance Petaluma Farms prides itself on their free range organic eggs. But they are regularly getting themselves in the paper for what their neighbors call "zombie chickens." Improperly gassed - still living - chickens are buried alive. They dig themselves out, stagger around, are caught, gassed again and reburied.
If they are commercially farmed (battery) chickens, then live a horrid life-being force molted (starved) and given growth hormones and other things to promote rapid egg laying. If they are free range, well cared for hens, then NO, it doesn't hurt the hen in the least to lay an egg. A hens egg is unfertilized, much like a womans period. The hen has no use for it, and I consider eggs to be a gift from the chickens. Don't buy eggs in a grocery store if you don't want to promote battery farming (check out http://www.factoryfarming.org) click on the eggs link. Even the big companies that promote "cage free" or "vegetarian fed" hens still treat their flocks horribly. Its easy to find local sources for free range eggs from happy hens-just ask at your local health food market, food co op, or cooperative extension office. If you have never had a farm fresh, free range egg, you are in for a lovely surprise-they are NOTHING like the eggs you can buy in a grocery store. Healthy eggs are hard to crack, but reveal a lovely, bright orange yolk, and have a flavor and texture much better than eggs from battery farmed hens. Quite a treat!
Yep. The hens lead miserable lives as described above. For more information, go to www.cok.net.