172,000 hens in a multi tiered barn in Kent lay a million eggs every week

172,000 hens in a multi-tiered barn in Kent lay a million eggs every week It is a highly sophisticated poultry farm where hens are housed in 'high-rise' sheds to keep up with the surging demand for free range eggs. More than 172,000 hens spend most of their time in three multi-tiered barns at the expanded farm and produce a million eggs each week that are sold on the free range market. This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 9 May 2016.

The farm has installed the new system to cope with the move away from caged hens to free-range eggs and, in its opinion, it is paying rich dividends since it offers higher welfare standards and efficiency. However, critics do not agree. They have termed the scheme as the equivalent of 'high-rise urban living for hens' and that the chickens are being forced to live in 'incredibly cramped' conditions. In the new sheds at the free range poultry farm near Cranbrook, Kent, the number of birds has risen from 95,000 to 172,180 - the sheds are up to 850ft long with access to an 80 acre paddock. In the past, free-range sheds normally housed between 3,000 to 5,000 birds and the largest one at Combwell contains 64,000. Their food arrives on a mechanical feeding line and the eggs and manure are collected on conveyor belts.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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