If you needed more convincing.

So we already know that free range eggs have many health benefits. And battery farmed hens are banned in the European Union. This clip from TV3's Campbell Live shows the proposed changes to the living conditions of factory farmed cage chickens. However, it is not much of an improvement.

This article written by the Animal Justice Fund highlights the appalling standards maintained by the battery farming industry.

Some of these are:

• A battery hen lives for about 18 months. The natural life span of a hen is typically five to seven years, but some can live as long as 15 years.


• In New Zealand there are 3.2 million egg-laying chickens. About 83 percent of these are in cages. The rest are kept in indoor barns or on free range farms.


• A battery hen lays nearly 300 eggs per year, while its wild ancestor would lay only 12-20.


• A battery cage is too small for a hen to carry out basic behaviour, such as stretch her wings and preen. For this a hen needs about three times the 550 square centimetres
typically provided for her in a battery cage.


• Battery hens may suffer from brittle and broken bones, foot deformities, feather loss and injuries due to pecking from cage mates.


• Male chicks are not required by the egg industry. About 3 million one-day-old male chicks are killed each year by gassing or masceration.

The picture below shows the poor condition of battery farmed chickens in the older style chicken cages.