Reply #14: Well [View All]

[LeftyMom]

The jungle fowl laying hens are descended from lay eggs only infrequently. Modern layers were bred for much more frequent laying (about one a day) at expense of their health, and they suffer from demineralization and other forms of malnutrition because they simply can't eat enough to keep up with what would be in it's closest human analog a daily menstrual cycle. After a year or two of this their laying slows and their bodies start to give out (many suffer "flip over syndrome" ie heart attacks due to malnourishment) and at this point they're slaughtered. Since they're not really bred for meat they're used for low grade applications like canned soup.

That's the basic story of the life of a laying hen. There are some variations based on the type of system (caged layers live their lives in a space the size of a standard sheet of office paper, six to a cage the size of a file cabinet drawer, while free range chickens live in big sheds, thousands at a time, and aren't really required to have any more space, only no cages) but both suffer overcrowding which is difficult for chickens because they can't create social order in large groups and become aggressive with eachother which is why most farms burn their beaks off after they hatch at the same time they sex the hatchlings and throw the males away or grind them up for feed or fertilizer.