Define "cruel". I grew up in the chicken farming business and let me tell you something about chickens man. Chickens are some of the dumbest ****ing animals in the world. Well at least at night. In the day time they are fairly crafty. If you have a chicken farm with about 70,000+ chickens how do you think you gather them all up in less than 6 hours to take to the slaughter house? You turn off the lights. If you turn off the lights they are so dumb that they think they are asleep. They won't even move. If you are in a sea of chickens with the lights off you literally have to kick them out of your way to get out the door. I made that mistake once when I was a kid. Other than that farmers do everything they can to protect them and be humane. They have to constantly worry about chicken hawks, wild cats, dogs, the heat, the cold, disease, tornados, hurricanes, etc. My thing is, actually do it be a farmer, and see how hard it is to raise these things then preach.