How Chickens Pay for Our Cheap Eggs

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In 1951, the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States was 73.7 cents. Sounds great, right? Except, once you adjust for inflation, that same dozen eggs would now cost you $6.02. From 2007-2009, egg prices soared, and countless articles analyzed the reasons: higher fuel prices for transportation and fertilizer for feed, problems with the soybean crop, etc. And yet, at the very worst, egg prices still averaged less than $2.50 a dozen, a far cry from $6.02. So what happened to the other $3.52? I will leave it to the Michael Pollans and Thomas Friedmans of the world to explore how food costs are related to Petro-dictatorships, how our government has subsidized and promoted corn to the point that it is contained in almost all of our foods, and how small farms have been completely destroyed by gigantic agricultural corporations that exploit workers. All of these things are true, but I would like to draw some attention to the other beings who pay, and pay rather steeply, for that $3.52 you are not spending on a dozen eggs: the chickens.

Fair warning, the descriptions and links in this particular blog posting are graphic.

According to various estimates I could find, approximately 98% of the eggs the United States are produced using what is called the "modern farm" or "battery cage" system. According to the United Egg Producers, the recommended amount of space per bird is 67 to 86 in.² Link By comparison, a piece of paper that is 8.5 by 11 contains 93.5 in.² In other words, each bird has less space than a piece of paper. They cannot lie down, they cannot turn around, they do not roost or scratch, they cannot spread either one of their wings. As a result of this overcrowding, many battery hens lose their feathers and their bone density. Because overcrowded birds often turn to feather-picking and cannibalism, battery hens have their beaks cut off.

The European Union has begun the process of banning the use of battery cages, saying that the practice has “inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens.” The European Commission’s Scientific Veterinary Committee (SVC) report, including a discussion of the relationship between cage size and bone density, feather picking, and cannibalism, as well as references to studies of the amount of size birds need in order to perform basic functions (turning: 771-1377 cm², wing flapping: 860-1980 cm², etc.), can be found here: Link.

I have no doubt that adopting the changes recommended by the European Union, or those by the State of California (California's Proposition 2 in 2008 mandated that "calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely.") will cause some increase in the cost of eggs, but you have to ask yourself if the modest goal of raising hens that can stand up, lie down, and turn around, is worth paying somewhat more.

If you are interested in cruelty-free farming, I recommend USDA organic free range eggs, because at the very least there is some oversight. Of course, companies have already figured out ways to call themselves "cage free" and even "free range," while satisfying only the most basic requirements, so if you can, buy local, but if you can't, please try to avoid perpetuating cruelty-farming practices for laying hens.

Battery hen Description

Battery hens California

Battery hens New England

And finally, a positive video, of battery hens given their first taste of freedom.

The Curious Case of Dolly the Rooster...er, nevermind, the Hen

Dolly was never like the other chickens. As a chick, she was more aggressive, independent, and she physically looked different from her Rhode Island Red sister. When Dolly was only a couple of weeks old, ChickenMama and I remembered that hatcheries promise about a 90% success rate with sexing, so we began to look up secondary sex characteristics to see if perhaps Dolly was a rooster. Dolly was beginning to show some of the characteristics of a male. She was late in feathering, and was especially bald in her shoulder area.

When she began to develop tail feathers, they curved down instead of up, they were dark, much darker than her sister’s. Her posture was more upright, her legs were thicker, and she did not get involved in the pecking order at all.



At about 16 weeks, Dolly began to mount her sisters. “Well," we thought, "I guess that settles that." Having heard about how aggressive Rhode Island Red roosters can be, I began to pick up Dolly more. Whereas the other pullets didn't mind being picked up, Dolly hated it. She would scream and kick and have an absolute fit. As the pullets began to come in to lay, they would squat when I walked by. For those of you have never seen a chicken squat, it's basically "assuming the position." They hunched down and stick their wings way out. They will either curve their rear ends up or down, depending on whether or not they are receptive to the male. Dolly definitely did not squat. When friends would come by, they would all point to her and say, "well, there's your rooster."

About this time, Dolly began to grow really long black tail feathers, much longer than before. But then one day, the tail feathers fell out. All of them were gone. Within a few days, Dolly's behavior began to completely change. I went to pick her up for our daily wrestling match, and she calmly sat in my arms. She stopped mounting her sisters, and she began to squat. She was still much bigger and much heavier than her sisters, and ChickenMama and I assumed she was somehow intersexed. Here she is with a suddenly stubby tail and a much more hen-like position. You can still see some of the black feathers underneath, but the longer ones have fallen out.


Now before I proceed, I should lay out a little bit about chickens and their sexual organs. First of all, males and females are not that different from one another. Male chickens do not have penises. Instead, both males and females have a cloaca. When they mate, it's called a "cloacal kiss," and the sperm from the male testis travels from one cloaca to the other and fertilizes the egg. When baby chicks are sexed, the examiner squeezes out any feces and looks in their vent for the inappropriately named "rudimentary sex organ" (as to why this is a misnomer, see "no penis," above). It looks like a small pimple. In expert hands, this method is 90 to 95% accurate, but because some female chicks have rudimentary sex organs, and some of these are as large as the male’s, chicken sexers sometimes get it wrong.

Females usually have only one working ovary (the left one). If this ovary is damaged, it may become what is called an ovotestis, that is, a gonad that shows both male and female characteristics. When this happens, if enough testosterone is produced, hens may transform physically and began to look and act like roosters. Humans, incredibly invested in maintaining clear distinctions between male and female, like to dismiss such cases as folklore. But they do happen, and more frequently than one might imagine. In chickens, it is almost always a sex reversal from female to male. Here are some examples:

The sex change chicken that crows

Chicken sex change confirmed by veterinarian

The sex-swap chicken called Georgina that turned into a cockerel named George

"Hermaferdite" the chicken

Transgendered chicken baffles animal experts

Back to Dolly. ChickenMama and I figured that there was some damage to a gonad, and whether Dolly had an ovary, a testis, or an ovotestis, we couldn't be sure. Now before anyone gets excited and thinks that I am claiming that Dolly had a sex reversal from male to female (I know how you humans are when it comes to sex), Dolly was never verifiably male. She never crowed (although hens sometimes do, including our girl Stripey who finally shut up after we got some roosters), she never developed spurs (although some hens do), and she certainly never fathered any offspring. In fact, some weeks after the other hens began to lay, Dolly started laying eggs. Perhaps there was something wrong with the development of her ovary, but along the way it started working. We simply don't know.


Today, Dolly is the alpha of our flock. She is the clear ruler of the roost, the head of all of the hens and roosters. She is very calm, but when things get out of hand, or a fight breaks out, Dolly intervenes and sends all of the chickens running. When the hawk flies over, Dolly stands at the edge of the henhouse watching it and making warning sounds while the others cower inside. I once came upon a skunk trying to get into the pen. Dolly swooped down from the roost and hit the fence; the skunk sprayed and took off. The barn smelled for weeks, but Dolly had defended her flock. When we reintroduce a chicken who has been sick or when we introduce a new chicken, all of the other chickens bully, peck, and chase the newcomer. Not Dolly, she calmly eats near them and protects them if the others get too rough. In this picture, you can see our youngest birds, a pullet and a cockerel, sitting peacefully on the roost next to and below Dolly (the cockerel next to Dolly is a Sebright bantam, nearly full grown. Interestingly, Sebright males are hen-feathered, meaning that the males have the same feathering as females, and lack the pointy feathers commonly found on the necks, backs, and tails of roosters. Since we're on the subject of intersexuality, hen-feathering in Sebrights is caused by a mutation in which the tissues of the skin convert male sex hormones into female sex hormones).

Those at the bottom of the pecking order have learned that if they roost near Dolly, no one messes with them. If they don't get close to her, they get chased all the way to the bottom. I should also point out that Dolly, despite looking more and more like a hen, especially after her first molt, is still significantly heavier and more solid than any of the other hens. However, her comb and waddles have not grown, in fact, they seem to have shrunk. As you can see in the previous picture, Dolly's comb is smaller than before, and significantly smaller than Loretta's; Loretta is the other Rhode Island Red, at the top right of the picture. Loretta looks bigger in this picture, but trust me, Dolly is both taller and considerably heavier.

Make of all of this which you will, but whatever is or was going on in Dolly’s sex organs, the other chickens couldn't care less. There's a lesson in that for all of us.

Chicken Integration

Hi, Massachusettschicken here. If you read my first post, you know that I have a flock with lots of different kinds and ages of chickens. Getting them all together into one big and hopefully happy family took a lot of work. One of the most frequently asked questions on chicken discussion boards is how to integrate new chickens into your flock. The answer depends on a number of factors: how many chickens are currently in the flock, how many chickens are you trying to bring in, how old are they, are they the pullets or cockerels, are they bantams or standards, etc. I will try to explain the principles and strategies that have worked for Massachusettschicken and Chicken Mama.

1: Remember these are chickens, not people. Those cute little fluff balls that come running up to you looking for treats will absolutely peck new members to death if you don't handle the situation correctly.

2: Numbers count. It is much easier to introduce new birds if they outnumber the old ones. Adding eight juveniles to a flock of four adults is far easier than adding one juvenile to a flock of 12.

3: Know your breeds/genders. Some breeds tend to be aggressive, others overly passive. To take an extreme example, if you try to introduce a Salmon Faverolle to a flock of Aseels, you are just asking for trouble. Also, some roosters will completely reject any new cockerels. While it's important to be aware of the temperament of the breeds of chickens you have and are trying to introduce, it's equally important to understand that there will always be exceptions. We have a Buff Orpington hen who became so aggressive when we introduced a bunch of juveniles that we called that. "Fluffy's reign of terror." Here's a picture of the vicious thing:

4: Looking for troublemakers? Turn the pecking order upside down. When you introduce new chickens, the birds at the top of the old pecking order tend to not be threatened and are therefore less troublesome. I don't know whether the birds at the bottom of the pecking order see the new members as threats to their already precarious positions or whether they think, "Finally, someone I can pick on!" Either way, watch the bottom rung birds very carefully.

5: Slow but steady wins the race. However you choose to introduce new members, take your time. We usually begin at about six weeks of age. Depending on the weather, you might have to wait until eight weeks.

We put a medium-sized cage inside the chicken pen, and we add a feeder, a waterer, and a roost or two. Make sure that the big chickens cannot get at the little ones through the bars of the cage. To be on the safe side, we covered the cage with deer netting.

From six weeks to 10 weeks, the little ones spent the day in the chicken tractor and the night in the cage. From 10 to 12 weeks, they spent all of their time in the cage, so they were near the older birds 24/7. At 12 weeks, we added a door that was big enough for the little ones to get through but too small for the big ones.


When I first opened the door, I trapped all of the lower ranked chickens outside, so that the juveniles would be introduced to the highest ranked birds first. In our case, Dolly rules the roost. She was completely calm with them, and later on, she even began to look after them. I plan to do an entire blog entry on Dolly, because she's not the average bird (in fact, she started out as a rooster), so stay tuned for that.

When you finally have everyone together, monitor the situation closely, and carry a stick so that you can quickly chase off anyone who gets too aggressive. A little pecking is to be expected, but intervene at the first sign of mobbing or bullying. I suggest locking the little ones back in the cage after the first few experiments.

When you are finally prepared to leave them to their own devices, and you are sure that the juveniles know how to get in and out of the small door in the cage, you might try the "roost at night" method. For whatever reason, if you sneak in when it's dark put the new birds on the roost, the entire flock tends to be relatively calm when they all wake up together. Normal pecking order activities still take place, but I can tell you from experience that it really does make a difference.

At this point, you can just leave the cage door open in the pen. By the time the juveniles outgrow it, you have yourself an integrated flock.

Our flock, a history

A year and a half ago, my wife (or DW, in backyardchickens.com-speak) and I ordered six one day old baby chicks through the mail. At first, my wife, or Chicken-Mama as she will be referred to hereafter, was skeptical. But when the mailman handed her that little box full of tiny little cheeps, she was completely smitten, and she has been obsessed with our chickens ever since.





















I, on the other hand, am very mature and dispassionate about our flock, which is why I have spent a fortune on a pen inside our barn as well as an outdoor run, secured on all sides with both chicken wire and hardware cloth, covered inside and out, and all surrounded by an electric fence (which I have upgraded for more power, twice). Also, I have a baby monitor set up so that I can check on any strange noises from the house, and I go out to the barn at least once a night to make sure everyone is safe.

As anyone who is kept chickens will tell you, they are highly addictive. If you go to one of the many chickens-discussion boards on the Internet, you will find thousands of people obsessively discussing every obscure aspect of raising chickens as pets. People keep house chickens, some keep tiny little Seramas in birdcages, some built coops that are nicer than my house, and nearly all end up with far more birds in their flock than they ever intended to have.

In this blog, I will periodically give updates on the goings-on of our flock. We have a mixed flock of 15 birds, including 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 2 Easter Eggers, a Jersey Giant, an Australorp, a Dorking, a Silver Laced Wyandotte, 2 Cochin roosters, a Cochin pullet, a Sebright cockerel, and an Old English Game Bantam hen (I hope that's 15!)

Along the way, I hope to share some of the things we've learned about keeping chickens. It's not as easy as it seems, and there are a lot of things to learn if you want to keep your flock safe and healthy. When we first got that tiny little box of chicks in the mail, I never would've guessed that in the first year we would have rushed one of our chickens to a veterinary hospital after she got hit in the head by a rat trap, nursed one of our hens through two weeks of paralysis at the hands of Marek's disease, operated on the feet of two of our hens when they developed bumblefoot (to be fair, Chicken Mama was in charge of the surgery; I was in charge of the freaking out about it!), "escorted" a possum away from the coop with the help of a shovel, and witnessed more ridiculous antics than I can count.