I don't mean to belittle your important message, but I'm quite sure the vast majority of this does not apply to my neighbors who have 4 hens as approved of by our city's law allowing backyard urban hens. In this context, the hens live in a modest backyard free-but-small-range area. It is becoming quite a lot more popular to do this and we've thought of doing it ourselves.

I think the problem is with brutal mass-production agriculture rather than with eggs per se.