Chickens are intelligent, sensitive animals who deserve humane treatment
About 756 million chickens are raised for meat and eggs in Canada each year. Produced in factories like mere things, they live short, nightmarish lives. Do you know where your food comes from?
730,000,000 chickens in Canada are raised for meat each year a.k.a. "broiler chickens".
Raised in crowded, dark barns, meat chickens first see sunlight on the way to slaughter. Many die en route. Birds used for breeding live for about 1 year and endure stress, confinement, and deprivation. Their offspring is killed for meat at just over 1 month of age.
26,000,000 chickens in Canada lay eggs for human consumption.
90% of egg laying hens in Canada live packed into rows of filthy "battery" cages. Forced to lay 20 times more eggs than their wild relatives, hens suffer severe injuries. After just 1 year of laying eggs, when aggressive egg production declines, the "spent" hens are killed.
Here is how chickens should live. This Canadian farm uses "loose housing". Birds have sandboxes, a variety of perches, and toys to play with.
What is pecking order and why is it important?
Chickens maintain a complex social hierarchy by pecking each other. A well-defined pecking order is necessary for harmony in a flock and has wide implications. Example: hens learn more from higher status individuals, the same way we tend to value expert opinion. Learn more about important chicken behaviors.
What about colony or furnished cages? Birds don't belong in cages. Research shows that cage-free hens spend more time foraging and walk more than hens in furnished cages (Rodenberg et al., 2008). Download The Case Against Cages (PDF) from WAP for more info.
The Five Freedoms
The Five Freedoms is a core concept in animal welfare that originated in a UK government report in 1965 and was then refined by the Farm Animal Welfare Council. It states that an animal’s primary welfare needs can be met by safeguarding the following five freedoms:
Freedom from Hunger and Thirst by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
Freedom from Discomfort by providing an appropriate environment, including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind.
Freedom from Fear and Distress by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.
In both magnitude and severity, [chicken production is] the single most severe example of man’s inhumanity to another sentient animal.
See why birds may freeze during transport or get their wings broken during loading.
See stages of the slaughter process and learn how many chickens are killed each minute.
Download a printable PDF brochure about meat and laying chickens.
In the news
Loblaw, Metro, Sobey's and Walmart Canada, Canada's four largest food retailers under the Retail Council of Canada umbrella, made a key announcement which will greatly improve conditions for Canada's laying hens: The grocers committed to not purchasing any eggs from hens kept in cages after the end of 2025.
March 18, 2016
McDonald's has announced a ten-year timeline to switch to cage-free eggs at its Canadian and U.S. supply chains. Currently the two supply chains use more than two billion eggs from caged hens. The switch will improve life for nearly eight million animals per year. McDonald's has already implemented a similar policy in other parts of the world, including Europe.
March 18, 2016
