Fat hens lay few eggs.

A real cow, as well as chickens and geese populated that ersatz farmyard.

Slaughtered at only 45 days old, their immature bones can hardly bear the weight of their bodies. Some collapse and, unable to reach food or water, soon die, their fate irrelevant to the economics of the enterprise as a whole.

Under such crowded conditions, the more dominant, aggressive birds are likely to peck to death the weaker hens in the cage.

Animal welfare advocates protest that crowding the chickens keeps them from forming a natural flock, causes them stress, and, in the case of laying hens, prevents them from even stretching their wings.

In the egg industry, hens can barely move at all, because they are crammed into wire cages, which makes it possible to stack them in tiers, one above the other.

Last year, the standard battery cage for egg laying hens was banned, ensuring somewhat better conditions for hundreds of millions of hens (though they can still be kept in cages that severely restrict their movement).