In recent years, animal rights organizations have increasingly criticized the methods used to raise chickens in large-scale industrial farms. At the forefront of these groups is Animal Equality, which has exposed repeated violations through documented reports and leaked videos. These investigations reveal that chickens are kept in extremely cramped metal cages that prevent them from moving naturally or even spreading their wings, causing severe physical and psychological stress.
Animal Equality sees these practices as a form of systematic torture. The hens spend their entire lives confined in spaces barely large enough to hold their bodies, with no opportunity to interact with their environment or engage in natural behaviors such as foraging or dust bathing. Secretly recorded footage shows chickens with open wounds and sores caused by constant contact with the metal bars, as well as severe emaciation due to poor nutrition and chronic stress.
The organization also emphasizes that the harm from such cages goes beyond ethics and animal welfare—it affects food quality and the safety of the entire food chain. Sick, stressed animals are more vulnerable to disease, which leads farms to rely heavily on antibiotics, posing a serious risk to public health.
Animal Equality is calling on governments and consumers to take a firm stand against these practices and to push for a complete ban on the use of metal cages in poultry farming. The organization advocates for more humane systems that prioritize animal welfare as a core component of ethical food production. They believe that real change begins with consumer awareness and the demand for products sourced from farms that respect the dignity of living beings.
