Chickens in crates at a sloughterhouse

Live Animal Transport


In the EU alone, 1.35 billion poultry are live transported every year

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Pig farm

Farm Animals


FOUR PAWS has been working for decades to improve conditions of farm animals

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Chicken

10 Facts About Chickens


There's a lot more to chickens than you might think

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CHICKENS

Chickens are intelligent, friendly animals with distinct personalities, and highly developed social and communicative behaviour. For example, mother hens will communicate with their unhatched chicks while still inside the egg. Chickens enjoy spending their time scratching in the grass, pecking at grains on the ground, and taking thorough sand baths. 

When well-kept and cared for, a chicken can live up to 15 years. In contrast, battery hens on factory farms sadly live for only around 20 months, male chicks only one day. During this time, they lay some 300 eggs per year, a heavy strain that takes its toll. The life of a broiler chicken, kept for meat production, is even shorter with 40 days in conventional systems.

Worth knowing about chickens

Chicken

10 Facts About Chickens

There's a lot more to chickens than being simple egg and meat suppliers 

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Eggs

Hidden Cage Eggs in Processed Food

Hens still suffer in narrow cages

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Life Expectancy of Chickens

Life Expectancy of Chickens

The oldest chicken in the world was 22 years old when she died – but in the egg industry, millions of chickens die already as chicks

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the hidden suffering of chickens

Throughout history, people have raised domestic chickens for their eggs and eventually for slaughter. Today, chickens are selectively bred for specific traits, such as high egg production in laying hens and rapid fattening in broiler chickens. Industrial poultry farming aims for efficient production of meat and eggs. However, the lives of these high-performance chickens are often short and marked by suffering,
 

A female laying hen in a barn

Laying Hens

With over 300 eggs per year: the high-performance chickens in the egg industry

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Types of Husbandry for Laying Hens

Types of Husbandry for Laying Hens

How do chickens live in a cage, a barn, in free-range or in organic farming systems?

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Day-old Chicks

Day-Old Chicks: Death on the Assembly Line

How billions of male chicks die in egg production 

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Broiler Chickens

Broiler Chickens

What is the suffering behind chicken meat?

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Comparing the natural life expectancy of chicken with their lifespan in intensive animal husbandry
Happy chickens

FOUR PAWS


Has been working for decades to improve conditions of farm animals

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