Went to a big hatchery open house last weekend and I left feeling off about their whole setup

I drove 2 hours out to that big open house near Lancaster just to see their new brooder barn and I gotta say, everyone was oohing and aahing over the temperature control and automatic feeders, but nobody talked about the 400 birds crammed into those pens with barely a foot of space each. I get that they breed for production, but my own 6 hens in a 10x12 run get more room than those poor things did. The guide kept saying how happy they were, but I saw feather pecking in three separate enclosures and that's not normal flock behavior, that's stress. I know we all want hardy layers, but I think we've gone too far selling out the quality of life for egg numbers. Has anyone else visited a commercial hatchery and felt the same hangup, or am I just being too soft with my backyard setup?

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aaron_gonzalez16d ago

Those 400 birds got better airflow than my garage does in summer, but nobody mentions the death rate when you breed for speed, lol.