If you're still looking for a reason to cut eggs from your diet, here are five startling facts about egg production the egg industry doesn't want you to know about.
Egg farming is a multi-billion dollar industry that makes a profit off of
exploiting the lives of female chickens. Last year, the U.S. egg industry
produced nearly 9.1 billion dozen eggs, and since the average American
consumes about 300 eggs each year, it's no wonder the industry is booming.
May is National Egg Month — and instead of contributing to the immense pain
and suffering egg-laying hens experience on a daily basis, consumers can
choose to vote with their dollar and not support the highly exploitative egg
industry.
If you're still looking for a reason to cut eggs from your diet, here are
five startling facts about egg production the egg industry doesn't want you
to know about:
1. More than 300 million chickens are exploited by the egg industry
each year.
In order to keep up with the high demand for eggs, the U.S. egg industry
brutally exploits the lives of millions of female chickens each year.
2. Egg-laying hens live in deplorable conditions.
Egg-laying chickens live in horrific conditions where they are confined to
small cages made of uncomfortable wire — which chafes their skin, rips out
their feathers, and deforms their feet. The overcrowded enclosures often
result in aggressive behaviors among chickens, which the egg industry
remedies by cutting off their beaks and toes (usually done without
anasthetic) so they are unable to fight.
3. "Spent" chickens are usually sent to slaughter when they are
18-months-old.
Once a hen's egg production declines at about one to two years of age, the
hens are considered "spent" and are sent to the slaughterhouse. To put this
into perspective, the average lifespan of a chicken is eight to ten years.
4. Shortly after birth, chicks are taken away from their mothers.
Shortly after hatching, newborn chicks are taken away from their mothers and
placed on a conveyor belt while worker shift through them to determine if
they are male or female, a process known as "sexing". Female chicks are sent
to egg farms where they produce more than 300 eggs each year. Naturally,
hens produce only 10 to 15 eggs per year.
5. Male chicks are killed the day they hatch.
The male chicks are promptly slaughtered by being suffocated in trash bags,
decapitated, gassed, crushed, or by being ground up alive — all because the
egg industry has no use for them. Globally, around 4 to 6 billion male
chicks meet this fate.