I’m surrounded by farms where I live, ohioman. I was raised surrounded by farms. My paternal grandparents were farmers, as were an uncle or two. None of them caged their chickens in a foot square, they had a decent sized coop and/or a fenced yard. With the exception of one neighbor of my parents, they were all good to their animals, and those still actively farming, still are. The one that was not good owned a large chicken operation, now defunct, for good reason, and is no longer farming. Piles of dead chickens with every heat wave, couldn’t be bothered to see to it that there was at least some air circulation in that long, low, tin-roofed chicken house. He’s active in the Democrat party now, and supported Obama. He also beat his dogs for no discernable reason at all. Not a happy man, but, he’s known prosperity of a sort.
Who cares. My grandfather owned a large chicken operation. Profit and meeting the large bills to run the operation was the reason he packed them in. And he loved chickens and always had quite a few “non-egg layers” roaming the farm.