4:30 “Most of the world’s 8 billion egg-laying hens, roughly one for every person alive on Earth today, are confined right now in cages like these.”
4:56 “The egg industry has no need for the 7 billion male chicks born annually, so it kills them on their first day alive in this world.”
Just to check my understanding of the numbers here:
Google tells me “Egg-laying hens on factory farms typically live for 12 to 18 months, or about a year and a half, before they are slaughtered when their egg production begins to decline.”
So I guess once each year on average the population of 8 billion egg-laying hens is replaced by a new population of 8 billion egg-laying hens. So the breeding hens are having about 15 billion chicks annually (7 billion male, 8 billion female). (Broiler chickens for meat are separate.)
Yep that’s about right. I think it’s roughly 7B new male chicks and 7B new female chicks each year. The population of egg-laying hens (~8B) is a big higher than the number of chicks because they each live for a bit longer than a year on average (though that’s partly offset by 5-10% annual mortality on egg farms).
Thanks! Are many of the ~14B new chicks each year coming from a relatively small number of breeding hens who have many offspring? Or is it mostly 2 chicks per hen?
4:30 “Most of the world’s 8 billion egg-laying hens, roughly one for every person alive on Earth today, are confined right now in cages like these.”
4:56 “The egg industry has no need for the 7 billion male chicks born annually, so it kills them on their first day alive in this world.”
Just to check my understanding of the numbers here:
Google tells me “Egg-laying hens on factory farms typically live for 12 to 18 months, or about a year and a half, before they are slaughtered when their egg production begins to decline.”
So I guess once each year on average the population of 8 billion egg-laying hens is replaced by a new population of 8 billion egg-laying hens. So the breeding hens are having about 15 billion chicks annually (7 billion male, 8 billion female). (Broiler chickens for meat are separate.)
Yep that’s about right. I think it’s roughly 7B new male chicks and 7B new female chicks each year. The population of egg-laying hens (~8B) is a big higher than the number of chicks because they each live for a bit longer than a year on average (though that’s partly offset by 5-10% annual mortality on egg farms).
Thanks! Are many of the ~14B new chicks each year coming from a relatively small number of breeding hens who have many offspring? Or is it mostly 2 chicks per hen?
Only a relatively smaller number of breeding hens laying ~275 eggs each per year