Laying hens have a rich behavioral repertoire including dust bathing, foraging, perching, and nest-seeking that is systematically thwarted in most commercial housing systems, causing significant welfare deficits.
The behavioral deprivation experienced by battery cage hens is comprehensive. Every major category of natural behavior - foraging, dust bathing, perching, nesting, and social interaction - is prevented by cage confinement. Research using preference tests and motivational assessment reveals that these are not trivial preferences but strong biological drives. Hens denied nesting opportunity before laying show clear distress - they search persistently, vocalize, and in battery cages lay eggs in the open wire floor in clear agitation. The denial of perching causes increased fearfulness and aggression. Dust bathing deprivation causes chronic skin and feather problems. The cumulative behavioral deprivation of battery cage hens represents a profound and systematic welfare failure affecting billions of individuals.