I totally agree that the average cage-free hen lives a very painful life; I’m trying to figure out if there are any farms that I can buy from where this isn’t true. My best guess is that the chickens in some smaller family farms aren’t in a lot of pain—Fifth Crow Farm, which I mention above, raises heritage breed chickens in small flocks and keeps them outside except to lay and sleep. I also currently believe that the other brands I recommend have significantly lower-suffering chickens than the average cage-free organic farm chicken.
I do think that my analysis doesn’t take into account all of the things I’d like to, including whether the farm uses heritage breeds (with healthier genetics / less prone to chronic pain), whether the male chicks are killed (I’m pretty sure they always are) and if so how quickly and humanely are they killed, how well the farm cares for the health of its hens in general (I couldn’t find any data on this in the evaluation tools I used, and I don’t have the expertise to evaluate it myself), and what happens to the hens after they’re too old to lay (some of these farms let their hens live out their natural lifespan on the farm; in others the spent hens are “sold live” and I don’t know what happens to them next).
Based on this comment, I’ll add these limitations to the “is this enough” section of the post.
I totally agree that the average cage-free hen lives a very painful life; I’m trying to figure out if there are any farms that I can buy from where this isn’t true. My best guess is that the chickens in some smaller family farms aren’t in a lot of pain—Fifth Crow Farm, which I mention above, raises heritage breed chickens in small flocks and keeps them outside except to lay and sleep. I also currently believe that the other brands I recommend have significantly lower-suffering chickens than the average cage-free organic farm chicken.
I do think that my analysis doesn’t take into account all of the things I’d like to, including whether the farm uses heritage breeds (with healthier genetics / less prone to chronic pain), whether the male chicks are killed (I’m pretty sure they always are) and if so how quickly and humanely are they killed, how well the farm cares for the health of its hens in general (I couldn’t find any data on this in the evaluation tools I used, and I don’t have the expertise to evaluate it myself), and what happens to the hens after they’re too old to lay (some of these farms let their hens live out their natural lifespan on the farm; in others the spent hens are “sold live” and I don’t know what happens to them next).
Based on this comment, I’ll add these limitations to the “is this enough” section of the post.