Modern egg production is far from the old farmyard hen.
Today, thousands of specialized laying chickens may live under one roof in carefully controlled environments designed around feed, water, lighting, ventilation, disease control, and egg collection. The result is an extraordinarily efficient system that can produce tens of thousands of eggs a day.
But that efficiency also brings questions about animal welfare, disease, and the sheer scale of industrial agriculture.
A crowded poultry house is more than a photograph of chickens. It shows how dramatically American food production has changed.
Read more: The Industrial Chicken: How Egg Production Became a Factory System
