The life of a chicken in factory farming |
On 1 April 2026 there were about 89 million chickens in the Netherlands: 41.8 million broilers, 39 million laying hens and their parent birds. In 2025, 518 million chickens were slaughtered in Dutch slaughterhouses, on average more than 1.4 million a day. On this page we follow the life of a chicken, from the egg to the slaughterhouse.
Source: CBS (Statistics Netherlands; agricultural census 2026, provisional; slaughter figures 2025). Updated 1 October 2026.
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The male chicks
 After hatching, the chicks are sorted. Chicks of meat breeds go to a fattening farm, the female chicks of laying breeds to a rearing farm. The male chicks of laying breeds do not lay eggs and grow too slowly for meat production: to the industry they are worthless. For years, some 30 million of them were killed in the Netherlands every year on their first day of life, usually with carbon dioxide.
The Dutch sector has agreed to stop this from 2026 for eggs sold in the Netherlands and Germany. The sex of the chick is then determined in the egg, so that eggs with a male chick are no longer hatched. |
Laying hens
A laying hen lays about 300 eggs a year. The old battery cage has been banned throughout the European Union since 2012, and since 2021 the small "enriched cage" is no longer allowed in the Netherlands either. The larger colony cage is still permitted. In 2019, 10% of Dutch laying hens were kept in cages, 61% in barns, 21% had free range and 8% were organic. In a barn, too, thousands of hens live close together, often in an aviary with several levels, without ever going outside.
Source: Wageningen Economic Research (Agrimatie), 2019 figures.
Beaks
  In the crowded conditions, chickens peck each other, sometimes until they bleed. For years the tip of their beak was therefore cut off or treated with infrared, without anaesthesia. Since 2019 this has been banned in the Netherlands for laying hens. Feather pecking remains a problem, though: it is a sign that the animals cannot express their natural behaviour.
Soup chicken
 After about a year of laying, when she is around eighteen months old, a hen lays fewer eggs. To the poultry farmer she is then worth nothing. She is sent to slaughter and ends up as soup chicken or in chicken products. A chicken can naturally live for many years.
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Broilers
The shed
  Broilers arrive at the fattening farm as day-old chicks in crates and are tipped out into the shed. An average Dutch farm keeps more than 66,000 of them. At first there is still some space.
Six weeks later
 A regular broiler grows into a chicken of more than 2 kilos in 39 to 41 days. By the end there is hardly any space left in the shed. Because their bodies cannot keep up with the rapid growth, many birds develop leg and heart problems. Fresh chicken in Dutch supermarkets now comes from slower-growing breeds that live at least 46 to 49 days. But a large part of Dutch chicken meat is exported, and those agreements do not apply there.
Catching
   After about six weeks the chicken catchers come at night. They pick up the chickens by hand or with a catching machine and put them into crates. Chickens suffer broken wings, legs and bruises, and sometimes a chicken gets stuck.
Transport
  Packed together in crates, the chickens are taken by truck to the slaughterhouse. In summer they gasp for air, in winter they are cold.
Slaughterhouse
  In the slaughterhouse everything goes very fast. With the old method, the chickens are hung alive by their legs on a slaughter line and pulled through an electrified water bath to stun them, after which a knife cuts their throats. Some chickens still try to escape. Increasingly, chickens are first stunned with gas while still in their crates. For chicken sold in Dutch supermarkets this is mandatory; for other chicken the water bath is still allowed.
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How it could be better
 Organic chickens can go outside and have more space, although they too live indoors in large groups. Even better is a small flock of hens with a rooster, as kept by biodynamic farmers. A natural pecking order develops, in which the hens and the rooster feel at ease.
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The short lives of Anja, Manja and Tanja
Thirty-eight days after Anja, Manja and Tanja hatched from their eggs as golden chicks, an automatic knife cuts their throats. By then they have been fattened up to two kilos and have never seen daylight. They end up as fillets on supermarket shelves. Journalist Gerard van Westerloo followed Anja, Manja and Tanja through the entire Dutch chicken industry, from hatchery via fattening farm and slaughterhouse to meat processing and packing (article in Dutch).
See also: abuses of other animals in factory farming and the numbers of farm animals in the Netherlands. Films by CIWF show the short life cycle of the broiler.
Sources: CBS; Wageningen Economic Research; Dutch government and Dierenbescherming on male chicks and beak trimming; Beter Leven / Wageningen on broiler concepts. In October 2026 this page replaced a slide show.
See also: Well-mannered chickens keep their beaks to themselves. |
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