Before you go out and buy eggs, you might want to think about where they came from. Even if you are comfortable about eating battery eggs, you may not feel quite so sure when you find out what they typically feed the chickens on.

Battery Farming: Chickens are kept in very small cages. They are typically fed by by-products of dead animals turned into a form of meal. The reason for this is firstly, the rich diet enables them to lay more eggs, its cheap and a way of using up offal that humans would not normally eat, and it makes the yolks of the egg appear rich. TYPICALLY only a free range egg would be of this quality (in appearance) and the battery chickens egg would be a pale yellow.

So if you are buying an egg that’s not marked up as free range and it’s particularly high in quality then you know why.

A typical cage is not even 10 inches long.

The birds have a terrible life.

They often die due to disease and spend their lives standing in their own poo and their feet can be in terrible shape as they stand directly on a cage bottom.

Their cages are stacked high upon each other. They often cut the birds’ beaks to stop any damage they may do to themselves or each other. After a year or two they are then slaughtered typically for pet food.

Battery farming represents the source of MOST of our eggs.
AND ITS UP TO US TO DEMAND KNOWN FREE RANGE EGGS TO FORCE FARMING TO STOP BEING SO GREEDY AND CRUEL!!!!!!!!!!

There has been some historical discussion as to feeding waste meat by products to chickens causing outbreaks of salmonella. The salmonella makes it into the white of the egg and is also on the shell. People don’t often think to wash an egg before they crack it!

Rules in the US: I found the following statement on the WIKI Page while researching the American terms and definitions of egg farming “For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has no standards and allows egg producers to freely label any egg as a free range egg.[citation needed]”

So if you live in the states, here is a VERY GOOD REASON TO BUY PRODUCE FROM YOUR LOCAL FARMERS.

ALTERNATIVES

Free Range: The chicken is allowed to roam freely and is only kept in a barn at night

Free Run: I discussions with a Canadian farmer, he explained that this meant the bird was not caged, but neither was it free range and that in his case it meant that the chickens were kept in a barn.

Barn Eggs: Tripped over these in England and by their definition, they appear to be the equivalent of Canadian Free Run.