The term "spent hen" is used in the meat production industry to describe a former egg-laying hen that is nearing the end of its life and now has, "… only one value to the farmers: the sale of their meat to meat processors."[1]
The meat production industry describes spent hens as, "… missing feathers, perhaps with even few feathers. Due to their egg-laying careers, many have calcium and muscle loss and are fragile."[2]
The industries that are entrusted with the lives of millions of animals involved in the meat and egg trades openly admit that they deplete the health of these animals so much that their normal body composition and naturally occurring physical attributes are lost due to its own practices.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency requires that poultry and egg production establishments use only humane and safe practices that cause no unnecessary suffering, "Welfare codes are intended to encourage livestock producers, stockkeepers, handlers, transporters, and processors to adopt the highest standards of animal husbandry and handling."[3]
What about the advertisements of the happy chickens that graciously give up their freedom, and eventually their lives, to feed the insatiable human appetite for their flesh and the mature ovum that grow inside them, repeatedly, for years.
The meat and egg production industries do not want their consumers to know the reality of life for chickens while they work their way through an entire existence of suffering. Some chicks only live for moments, while others spend a fraction of their natural life span locked in a cage, or on a crowded production floor, with no natural light or clean air to breathe.
Would consumers make the decision to lessen the demand for meat and other animal products if they knew the reality of the industry? If so, how can the message be communicated in a way that they believe? The first obstacle is to keep the audience engaged long enough to hear it.
How can we properly communicate to the average consumer that the choices they are willingly making, when there are so many alternatives, are causing so much suffering?
[1] Maple Lodge Farms Ltd v Canadian Food Inspection Agency 2017 CAF 45 at para 4.
[2] Ibid at para 6.
[3] https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/aac-aafc/A63-1757-1989-x-eng.pdf