Chickens are probably the most abused animals on the face of the planet. They suffer all number of cruelties, including being left by the hundreds of thousands to starve to death, having their sensitive beaks seared off with hot blades, being crammed eleven birds to a tiny cage along with the decomposing corpses of other chickens, and arriving dead in huge numbers from long journeys in extreme weather conditions. Basically, any and all abuse is allowable when it comes to chickens, who are, in fact, remarkable animals with distinct personalities and an intelligence, if allowed to develop, as advanced as that of cats and dogs. Most importantly, they feel pain, just like we do.

Chickens are inquisitive and interesting animals and are thought to be at least as intelligent as dogs or cats. When in natural surroundings, not on factory farms, they form friendships and social hierarchies, recognize one another, love their young, and enjoy a full life, dust bathing, making nests, roosting in trees, and more.

The more than 700 million chickens raised each year for KFC aren't able to do any of these things. They are crammed by the tens of thousands into sheds that stink of ammonia fumes from accumulated waste; they are given barely even room to move (each bird lives in the amount of space equivalent to a standard sheet of paper). They routinely suffer broken bones from being bred to be top heavy, from callous handling (workers roughly grab birds by their legs and stuff them into crates) and from being shackled upside down at slaughterhouses. Chickens are often still fully conscious as their throats are cut or when they are dumped into tanks of scalding hot water to remove their feathers. When they’re killed, chickens are still babies, not yet two months old, out of a natural life span of 10-15 years.

What about the 'other' chickens?

The majority of “broiler chickens” and “laying hens” live in vast warehouses where lighting and ventilation are controlled by machines and where a system failure means mass death. To increase profits, farmers genetically manipulate broiler chickens; as a result, many birds suffer from painful, crippling bone disorders and spinal defects. Laying hens are confined four to six to a cage; their wings atrophy from disuse, and their legs and feet grow twisted and deformed from standing on slanted wire cage bottoms.

Up to 100,000 birds live in a typical warehouse, 1,000 times more birds than can possibly establish a pecking order. In such large numbers, chickens vent their stress and frustration by pecking at each other. To reduce losses, farmers use hot blades to slice off chicks’ beaks just hours after the birds hatch. The procedure, which requires cutting through tender tissue similar to the flesh under human fingernails, is so painful that many chicks die of shock. Some die of starvation, when eating becomes too painful.

Every year in the laying industry, 280 million newly hatched male chicks—who can’t produce eggs themselves—are thrown into garbage bags or grinders, to suffocate or be crushed or hacked to death.

No government laws or standards regulate the use of terms like “free-range” and “free-roaming” on egg cartons, so some “free-range” eggs may actually be produced by hens who spend their lives in small, conventional battery cages. Often, “free-range” hens are uncaged but confined indoors in crowded sheds similar to “broiler” houses.

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Source: Peta.org
NOTE: The articles have been modified.