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Egg laying hens require 4 grams per day of calcium of which 2 grams are used in the egg. Oyster shells are often used as a source of dietary calcium. [4] Certain diets also require the use of grit, tiny rocks such as pieces of granite, in the feed. Grit aids in digestion by grinding food as it passes through the gizzard.
The RSPCA "Welfare standards for laying hens and pullets" indicates that the stocking rate must not exceed 1,000 birds per hectare (10 m 2 per hen) of range available and a minimum area of overhead shade/shelter of 8 m 2 per 1,000 hens must be provided. Free-range farming of egg-laying hens is increasing its share of the market.
A furnished cage, sometimes called enriched cage, colony cage or modified cage, is a type of cage used in poultry farming for egg laying hens.Furnished cages have been designed to overcome some of the welfare concerns of battery cages (also called 'conventional' or 'traditional cages') whilst retaining their economic and husbandry advantages, and also provide some of the welfare advantages ...
More than 40% of the nation's roughly 300 million egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free facilities, but roughly 60% of "bird flu" cases recently detected involved cage-free farms.
The great majority of laying birds used for egg production are chickens. Methods for keeping layers range from free-range systems, where the birds can roam as they will but are housed at night for their own protection, through semi-intensive systems where they are housed in barns and have perches, litter and some freedom of movement, to ...
An egg incubator. Because hens stop laying when they become broody, commercial poultry breeders perceive broodiness as an impediment to egg and poultry meat production. [8] With domestication, it has become more profitable to incubate eggs artificially, while keeping hens in full egg production.
In February 2016, 90 percent of egg-laying hens in Canada lived in battery cages. That month, negotiations between egg farmers, animal welfarists, and the government resulted in a moratorium on construction of new battery cages from 1 April 2017 and a gradual 15-year phaseout of battery cages towards enriched cage or cage-free systems by 2036 ...
Mortalities, due mainly to cannibalism, can be up to 15% in egg-laying flocks housed in aviaries, [11] straw yards, [12] and free-range systems. [13] Because egg-laying strains of chickens can be kept in smaller group sizes in cage systems, cannibalism is reduced, [ 10 ] leading to a lowered trend in mortality as compared to non-cage systems.