Battery hens suffer intensely and continuously throughout their lives.
A battery hen cannot perch, preen, roost, scratch, dust bathe or spread her wings.
A battery hen spends her entire life laying cramped inside a shared cage. She will never see the sky.
Hens are so desperate to nest that they will even lay their eggs in the rotting corpses of other chickens.
Stressed and over crowded hens peck each other. Cannibalism is common.
To stop this, a heated blade is used to cut half the upper beak and one third of the lower beak - but chickens are often found with more savage mutilations than that required by industry. This is called de-beaking.
De-beaking severs the sensitive nerves in the hen's beak. These nerves rarely heal so the hen suffers constantly.
Many hens die from resulting ulcers, infections and simple starvation.
Half of all chicks born are male. Considered useless, they are killed by crushing, mincing or suffocation at 1 day old.
By the time the hens are finally slaughtered many are unable to stand and 56% of them have untreated bone breakages and fractures.
Hens past peak laying are dragged from their cages, stuffed into crates and trucked to the slaughterhouse. There, they are hung upside down on a conveyor belt to wait for slaughter.
