97 percent of laying hens with broken bones

Egg laying non-stop: The work of laying chickens has surprising consequences for the animals, as new analyzes by the University of Bern show. Organic hens from Migros and Coop are also affected, as reported by “K-Tipp”.

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This result makes your egg stick in your throat: researchers from the University of Bern regularly X-rayed 150 laying hens in Switzerland over a period of ten months to analyze the physical consequences of their egg production. They came to the conclusion that 97 percent of the animals had a broken sternum. This reports the «K tip» in its current edition.

On average, each chicken had three broken bones – in some animals it was as many as eleven. According to the consumer magazine, the problem is not new, but the results indicated that it is bigger than previously known. In earlier studies, for example, many fractures went undetected because the researchers only felt the bones and did not X-ray them.

water with painkillers

That’s what Michael Toscano, head of the Center for Animal Welfare at the University of Bern, suspects. You often don’t see the pain in the chickens. Nevertheless, there is evidence that a condition is present: “Hens with broken bones move less. They take longer to get off their perches. And they choose to drink water that contains painkillers more often,” Toscano told K-Tipp.

According to the University of Bern, there are various reasons for the fractures. But it is clear that the bones of the overbred chickens are brittle. On average, a laying hen produces 323 eggs – almost one egg a day. Chickens get the calcium they need for eggshells from their own bones. The assumption of veterinarians is that the bones do not regenerate this calcium completely and therefore become porous.

Worldwide suffering

According to the report, it is also possible that some animals start laying eggs too early when their bones are not yet developed. With the result that just a violent flapping of the wings or a collision with the perch causes the breastbone to crack.

Hanno Würbel, Professor of Animal Welfare at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Bern, criticizes the magazine: “With today’s keeping and breeding of chickens, pain and suffering are unavoidable for many animals. And that’s just not sustainable.” The extent of suffering is enormous worldwide.

Silent Migros

According to Würbel, almost all laying hens used in Switzerland are affected in all forms of husbandry, including free-range and organic farms that are sold in Swiss supermarkets. Migros only tells the magazine that the issue affects the entire industry. She does not want to comment further on the broken bones.

According to the report, egg producers around the world keep the same high-performance breeds. Their breeding is therefore in the hands of a few corporations such as the German EW Group or the Dutch Hendrix Genetics. They are currently trying to breed hens that are less prone to fractures. The federal government and the egg producers are also counting on this.

However, Nadja Brodmann from Zurich Animal Welfare describes this strategy as a dead end compared to the “K-Tipp”: “We need chickens that are more robust and lay fewer eggs. Today’s high-performance breeding inevitably leads to animal suffering and therefore violates the law.»

Low alternative offer

Instead, the animal protection organization recommends switching to dual-purpose chickens, which give meat as well as eggs. These lay 70 to 100 fewer eggs per year and are therefore likely to be significantly less affected by fractures. However, of the 3.4 million laying hens in Switzerland today, just under 20,000 are dual-purpose chickens.

Coop only refers to this alternative. The organic eggs with the dual-purpose chicken label are available in 160 larger Coop branches.