Staff and volunteers waited patiently as the hens slowly began to explore their new world. Spreading their wings, ruffling in a dust bath, basking in the warm morning sun all new experiences for them. A large farm will feed, water, heat, and often medicate animals through completely automated systems. So when a disaster like the Ohio tornado strikes, hundreds of thousands of animals are often left stranded, without a source of food, water or protection from the elements. It's a short, sad story if you're unlucky enough to be born into this horrific industry.
Hatcheries produce hundreds of millions of fertilized eggs each year.
In a single hatchery building, over 100,000 eggs are stacked floor to ceiling in temperature-controlled trays. More than 600 million chicks will enter the world this way in 2001. At one to two days of age, the male chicks are simply trashed stuffed into large plastic bags to suffocate by the thousands, or thrown alive into huge grinding machines. In laying barns, often housing up to 140,000 hens, cages are stacked as many as five tiers high, with excrement from hens above falling upon those living below. And so goes the life of an egg laying chicken.