Chicken

the chicken

Chatty and highly intelligent, chickens suffer under intensive farming for eggs and cheap meat.

Learn more

facts about chickens

Sociable, chatty and astoundingly intelligent: chickens are fascinating animals with distinct personalities. Their social and communicative behaviour is highly developed. For example, mother hens communicate with their unhatched chicks whilst still inside the egg. Chickens enjoy spending their time by scratching in the grass, pecking at grains on the ground and taking thorough sand baths.

Chicken

10 Facts About Chickens

There's a lot more to chickens than being simple egg and meat suppliers 

More
Life Expectancy of Chickens

Life Expectancy of Chickens

The oldest chicken in the world was 22 years old when she died – but in the egg industry, millions of chickens die as day-old chicks

More
Chicken in sanctuary

Farmed Animals Gallery

See how they should live in nature

More

how chickens suffer?

While humans have been rearing chickens for thousands of years for their eggs and meat, today's chickens are genetically bred for a single characteristic: Layer hens for extremely high egg production, and broiler chickens for fast fattening. Industrial poultry farming focuses on the cost-effectiveness, which results in a miserably short and painful life for these 'high-performance' chickens.

A female laying hen in a barn

Laying Hens

With over 300 eggs per year: the high-performance chickens in the egg industry

More
Day-old Chicks

Day-Old Chicks: Death on the Assembly Line

How millions of male chicks die in egg production 

More
Broiler Chickens

Broiler Chickens

What is the suffering behind chicken meat?

More
Eggs

Hidden Cage Eggs in Processed Food

Hens still suffer in cruel battery cages

More
Types of Husbandry for Laying Hens

Types of Husbandry for Laying Hens

How do chickens live in a cage, a barn, in free-range or in organic farming systems?

More
Chickens being mishandled for transport

live road transport

Millions of chickens are cruelly mishandled and live transported on roads.

More
Life expectancy of chickens

Well kept and cared for, a chicken can live up to 15 years. In contrast, battery hens on factory farms live for only around 20 months. During this time, they lay some 300 eggs per year – this strain takes its toll.

what are we doing to help?

FOUR PAWS has been working for decades to improve conditions of farmed animals.

Chicken

FOUR PAWS AND THE AUSTRALIAN ALLIANCE FOR ANIMALS

Launch of two-million-strong animal welfare alliance to put animals on political agenda

More
Broiler chicken factory farming

advocacy to end factory farming

Support our call for a kinder, safer, and healthier world for animals and people

More
Chicken

campaign to end live animal transport

We are campaigning to move the systems, not animals around the world.

More
Chicken

3 easy steps to help farmed animals

You don't need to overhaul your life.

Read More

get to know about other animals

Search