***“Cage-free” hens are typically confined in dark, crowded buildings filled with toxic gases and disease microbes the same as their battery-caged sisters.***
Chickens will die in a hot house with toxic gases, so most houses have ways to provide lots of fresh air. Many of the newer houses have what we call “Modu-cell” air systems.
Exhaust fans are started at one end of the house, usually holding 20-30 thousand chickens, It pulls fresh air in from outside from the far end of the house, the air goes through a water cooling system much like a very huge swamp cooler. This constantly provides cool and fresh air to the chickens. Then chickens get in no more waste than in a common hen house for about 20 chickens. Chickens are rather nasty birds, You don’t know HOW nasty until you work with them. Any bird that eats the undigested grain of cows and pigs is not finicky about what it eats.
You want to kill lots of birds? Let a power failure happen in hot weather! I’ve seen 20,000 birds die at one time because of this. The farmers walk through the birds to keep them moving and from bunching up and dieing. Most chicken farms now have backup generators for such emergencies.
*** they are painfully debeaked at the hatchery.****
IS this a joke? debeaking is necessary because chickens will peck at other chickens. If they EVER bring blood that chicken is doomed because all chickens will peck at them. It is a natural thing they do, pecking at a dark or bloody spot.
I’ve debeaked many chicks and here is how it is done.
You grab the baby chick. push slightly on the back of the head with the thumb, while pulling in with the index finger under the beak. This causes the mouth to open.
You then push the upper beak against a red hot plate and burn off 1/8 of the upper beak. Put the chick in the box and watch what happens. The chick will use it’s feet to scratch at the burned part for about two seconds, then it will stop and go on about it’s business as if nothing had happened. The entire beak is NOT burned off. I’ve never seen a chick die from being debeaked but I have seen them die from the sexers separating cockerels from pullets.
***they can be driven to peck at each other,****
You don’t drive a chicken to do anything. They are natural scavengers. If you put food on a cardboard floor they will peck at it, then scratch at the floor even though they don’t need to do it. It is in their nature. Take a sharpened pencil and hold it with the sharpened end in the box of chicks. The lead is dark and they will naturally peck at it because it is their nature to do so. If a dark piece of trash or manure gets on their skin the other chickens will peck at it till they draw blood. Then all the other chicks will peck at it till they kill the chick. It is their nature. That is why they are debeaked as a debeaked chicken does not break the skin of other birds.
***Chickens love sunlight ***
No, only a certain amount of sunlight. My chickens often rested during the heat of the day under the chicken house which sets off the ground, or under the weeds. Some sunlight is great, but not too much.
If you had raised as many as I’ve done (remember I also worked for a hatchery) you would see the falsehood in many of these tall tales brought to you by the animal rights groups.
Well, it is good to hear what you say, from the trenches. I can learn a lot from you. Still, I do believe the natural pastured hens lay healthier eggs and I eat eggs every day, so I am sticking with them.