Harish Palaniappan's

If you are also one of those who hate the idea of the chicken business because they put the birds in very small, packed cages.

And the chickens almost live their entire adult life without movement, without seeing any green, without anything to do except mentally get stressed up being in the cage and actively using only their neck to ponder around and make that noise all the time.

Their only purpose, lay eggs during adulthood, and once their adult time is over, they are sold off as live stock for the butcher processing finally ending up at dinner tables. Is this any life? Horrible but has to be it... nothing anybody can do. Both eggs and chicken are way way ahead of the no-return mark in peoples diet charts. Yes, I have eaten chicken and eggs, but doesn't mean I approve of such treatment.

Anyways, the good part is ..

Trade in the west have started a brand 'Cage-Free Eggs' which is very successful though not anywhere close to replacing normal eggs.

What are cage-free eggs: Eggs hatched by chickens in poultry farms which dont put them in cages.. but put them on the floor permanently, like it is usually until adulthood even in normal poultry farms.

The brand has made sense with people, and caught up support from organizations like People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

New york times has the story here

And for the question that I used to have having very often during my childhood, "Do chickens just lay eggs on their own, or do they need a rooster?" I found this at: Dreamcrossed Twilight

Yes and no. Being that chickens are not asexual critters, they do need the rooster's assistance in the area of reproduction. But here's the deal. Chickens lay two different kinds of eggs: fertilized and unfertilized. The average chicken lays one egg every 25 hours. If there is rooster sperm inside her, it will fertilize the egg. If fertilized eggs are cared for, they will hatch into baby chicks. If the rooster hasn't been around for a while, then the eggs will remain unfertilzed. These are what we buy at the grocery store. (Actually, one site said, "Many [italics mine] of the eggs we purchase from the local supermarket are unfertilised eggs." I found this a tad disturbing.)