What You Can Do

We can all do something to help chickens and the their plight. It doesn't matter if you can't do a lot, but if we all do a little, we'll make a big difference.

As far as eggs are concerned, only buy free range eggs. If it doesn't say where the eggs come from on the box, they are most likely battery hen eggs. But most boxes will say whether they are factory farmed eggs or free range. The difference between the two, factory farmed eggs come from hens stuck in tiny cages, that never see daylight. Free range is where the hens have been allowed to roam free in an open space.

Is there a difference, yes there is. A free range egg is usually bigger, with a bigger orangey yolk, with lots more flavour. A free range egg is less likely to have problems that can affect eggs like blood spotting etc.

If you wish to eat chickens, the same really applies as the eggs. A factory farmed chicken has been stuck in a warehouse, probably with 100,000 other chickens. They are not looked after properly, they have no space at all, diseases are rife, they are fed chemicals to boost their growth speed and they are kept in a permanent dim light as they will grow quicker if their body constantly thinks it should be sleeping. A factory farmed chicken takes roughly 40 - 50 days to get to supermarket shelf size when it is killed. When you sit down to a chicken burger, KFC or so on, that chicken has had a miserable life.

Again free range chickens are given the space to roam and will not be fed on growth hormones and chemicals.

If we all stopped buying factory produced eggs and chickens, the supermarkets would not stock them as there would be no call for them. Write to your local supermarket or their head office, saying you wish them to stop stocking factory produced eggs and chickens.

When you go out for a meal, ask how the food is produced, do they only use free range foods. Supermarkets and restaurants always cater for the majority, the more we buy free range items the less factory farmed stuffs they will stock.