A COK Report:
Animal Suffering in the Egg Industry

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Catching and Transport

After laying hens have reached the end of their first or second laying cycle (depending on whether or not they had been force molted), the "spent" birds are transported to the slaughter plant. Teams of catchers take the birds from their cages and put them in crates that are stacked and loaded onto a truck. Human handling is a known stressor for chickens, as seen by the fast rise in corticosterone levels immediately following catching.(63) The catching teams work at a rate of 1,000 to 1,500 birds per hour, sometimes holding seven birds at a time.(64) The battery cage is poorly designed for hen removal, and limbs and appendages are often torn when the birds are being removed.(65) After a life of laying eggs, the hens' bodies are ravaged, with bones weakened by calcium loss and inactivity. Dr. Duncan states that "the combination of these three factors—fragile skeleton, poorly designed cage, and low value—results in an unacceptably high injury level" during transport.(66)

Mortality and injury due to capture and transport were found to be the highest among spent laying hens. Drs. N.G. Gregory and L.J. Wilkins found that "24% of hens had broken bones after commercial depopulation; bone breakage increased by 44% when the birds were removed and hung on shackles."(67) The main causes of trauma during capture and transport are: dislocated or broken hips (76%), liver hemorrhage (11%), head trauma (8%), and other causes (5%).(68)

Because only a few processing plants in the United States accept spent hens, the birds often must endure long journeys, during which they may be in pain for significant periods.(69) On the transport trucks, the hens suffer from thermal stress, as birds in the center of trucks tend to overheat, while birds on the outsides are unprotected from the elements.(70) The federal Twenty-Eight Hour Law "provides that animals cannot be transported across state lines for more than 28 hours…without being unloaded for at least five hours of rest, watering, and feeding."(71) However, the law only applies to travel by rail, while virtually all poultry transport in the United States is by truck, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture explicitly states is not covered by the law.(72) During transport, some hens die, usually from congestive heart failure due to the stresses of handling and transport.(73)

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