Not only that but they are in battery cages, they live a shitty life and eat crap and chemicals put into the feed etc.. to help increase production.
All that = poor product for the end user.
A happy Chicken fed well = Great eggs. And chickens are quite entertaining :biggrin:
Good luck finding chick starter (food for baby chickens) that doesn't contain antibiotics, etc. it's too easy for certain diseases to spread through the flock when they're little, and they have to be kept fairly close for both warmth and because they prefer to be in a flock. (Hence, in NY, it's illegal to sell in quantities less than 6.) Even if organic feed was more easily available, I prefer that my investment have a near certainty of surviving.
In domestic egg production, contrary to what's posted above, there aren't special chemicals or hormones added to the feed. (other than what they need, such as mineral supplements e.g., calcium) It's illegal to add hormones afaik. Through the miracle of cross breeding, egg layers reach maturity at a younger age, and average nearly one egg per day for their life (which ends when their production decreases.)
With 20 egg layers, I used to average about 138 eggs per week - no extra chemicals. But, my feed was of higher quality. At the expense of the feed, plus the initial cost of the birds, and lack of production from them for a couple of months, it would be impossible to compete with grocery store crap quality cheap egg prices.