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Another study found that brown-egg laying hens are more likely to engage in feather pecking than white-egg laying hens. [1] The genetics of poultry will not guarantee a bird will engage in cannibalism, but the genes a bird possesses play a part in the degree of aggressiveness a bird could engage in feather pecking and increases their risk ...
Mortalities, mainly due to cannibalism, can be up to 15% in egg laying flocks housed in aviaries, [2] straw yards, [3] and free-range systems. [4] Because egg laying strains of chickens can be kept in smaller group sizes in caged systems, cannibalism is reduced [5] [6] leading to a lowered trend in mortality as compared to non-cage systems ...
Egg-laying hens live in crowded cages, six or seven hens to one battery cage the size of a file drawer. Cattle are castrated, their horns are removed and third-degree burns (livestock branding) are inflicted on them, all without anesthetic. Cows used for their milk have calves removed from them shortly after birth. These calves are sent to veal ...
The causes and development of vent pecking are multifarious. Risk factors that have been identified as increasing vent pecking include dim lights placed in nest boxes to encourage hens to use the boxes, the diet being changed more than three times during the egg laying period, the use of bell drinkers, and the hens beginning to lay earlier than 20 weeks of age. [2]
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.
Hens lay between 5 and 17 eggs per clutch and the eggs take between 23 and 24 days to hatch. There are between five and 10 young per brood. [ 15 ] The young are raised by the female and fledge in one to four weeks, are completely independent by the tenth to twelfth week, and reach sexual maturity by age one (Ammann, 1957).
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Red shaver hens can lay from 305 to 315 eggs a year, [3] and are reported to be prolific producers of large brown eggs. One four-year-old Red Shaver chicken in Ottawa was credited with laying an egg with a mass of 143 grams, which is almost three times the size of a standard medium egg (Typically a medium egg is 49 g, a jumbo egg is 70 g).