Eggs
Egg-laying hens are highly social animals with complex cognitive abilities, who value their lives like we do. Chickens possess the ability to distinguish 100 faces of other chickens, and form complex social structures within their flock known as ‘pecking orders’. Hens love to spend time in the sun and keep themselves clean by dust bathing in patches of dirt. Studies have found that chickens experience rapid eye movement (REM) when they sleep, which means they dream just like humans do. Hens are maternal creatures and, like humans who speak to their babies in the womb, they begin to teach calls to their chicks before they even hatch.
Egg-laying hens are exploited in three main systems in Australia: caged, barn-laid, and free-range. Regardless of the system they are housed in, egg-laying hens live miserable lives in appalling conditions. Although hens can live to 12 years of age, they are most commonly slaughtered at 18 months old, when their declining egg production means they are no longer considered ‘useful’ or ‘economically viable’ to the industry.
In Australia, there are approximately 16 million layer hens exploited for their egg production, 9 million of which are housed in caged systems.
