In 2017 the number of laying hens (hens genetically designed to lay eggs for consumption, in contrast with “broiler chickens,” which are genetically designed for slaughter) clocked in at 374,308,000 in the United States. Today, and since the 1980s, when factory farming emerged as a rule to remain competitive in the rapidly growing farming market, and which is now the source of 99% of animal products in North America, Europe and Asia, birds are kept in cages so close together that they are prone to pecking at and eventually killing and eating one another. Factory farmers have solved this particular problem by systematically cutting off two thirds to one half of each bird’s beak with an electronic trimmer, which can debeak between 12 and 15 hens a minute. If no trimmer is available then a sharp knife or soldering iron will do. If a bird is improperly debeaked it can exacerbate her pain and anxiety, actually leading to greater cannibalistic tendencies, which really reduces profits.

Michael Gentle illustrates in a 1990 essay published in the journal, Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 27:

"The avian beak is a complex sensory organ which not only serves to grasp and manipulate food particles prior to ingestion, but is also used to manipulate non-food articles in nesting behavior and exploration, drinking, preening, and as a weapon in defensive and aggressive encounters. To enable the animal to perform this wide range of activities, the beak of the chicken has an extensive nerve supply with numerous mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, and nociceptors [ nerve endings sensitive to mechanical pressures, heat and pain]....Beak amputation results in extensive neuromas [tumors] being formed in the healed stump of the beak which give rise to abnormal spontaneous neural activity in the trigeminal [threefold] nerve. The nociceptors present in the beak of the chicken have similar properties to those found in mammalian skin and the neural activity arising from the trigeminal neuromas is similar to that reported in the rat, mouse, cat and the baboon. Therefore, in terms of the peripheral neural activity, partial beak amputation is likely to be a painful procedure leading not only to phantom and stump pain, but also to other characteristics of the hyperpathic syndrome, such as allodynia and hyperalgesia [the stress resulting from, and extreme sensitiveness to, painful stimuli]."

If farmers continue this cruel and painful procedure because they simply don’t care about the welfare of other creatures, then at least those sadistic people could be found and outed. But the truth is overwhelmingly bleak. Factory farmers and the employees of the farms (largely undocumented immigrants and people without high school diplomas, who have barely any other recourse but to similarly labor-intensive jobs) probably do not enjoy performing cruel acts upon animals (and, in fact, workers do testify to this), but that the nature of the market has driven such acts to be necessities for their financial survival. This system propels itself forward, even though nobody is having a good time, even though the conditions for both the animals and the people within factory farms are becoming increasingly worse, and the food that consumers ingest becomes decreasingly nutritious. This is a multi-billion dollar industry but the money certainly isn’t going to the pockets of the people within it. Where is it going? Have you noticed that Colonel Sanders looks an awful lot like the Monopoly Man?