Since the start of 2025, over 27 million egg-laying hens — 9 percent of the entire national flock — have died from the bird flu or have been (horrifically) killed to slow the spread.

It’s led to egg shortages and price spikes, with a carton of a dozen eggs today costing double what it did in early 2022, when this latest bird flu outbreak began.

Because of its impact on grocery bills, the mass killing of egg-laying hens has received far more attention than the more routine cruelties in the egg industry. But each year, whether there’s a bird flu outbreak or not, far more chickens are brutally killed for an entirely different purpose.

The egg industry hatches around 650 million birds annually, but because half of them — the males — can’t lay eggs, egg companies kill them the day they’re born. They’re typically shredded alive or gassed with carbon dioxide. Undercover investigations into hatcheries by........

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