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The snaps show helpless animals so cramped and mistreated that they eat each other.

The shocking pictures will disturb shoppers who prefer to grab a pack of free range eggs from the supermarket shelf thinking they have a better quality of life than those raised on battery farms.

(Image: PETA)

A Daily Star Sunday investigation today reveals the cruelty and neglect many are exposed to during their short lives.

Footage shows thousands of hens packed on to multi-tier shelves in filthy sheds, instead of roaming around outside.

The shelves, branded by activists as a “high rise for hens”, are more efficient according to farmers.

But most of the birds kept in these kinds of cramped sheds will never see daylight.

Some house as many as 16,000 hens – nine birds per square metre.

(Image: PETA)

The video, filmed at a farm supplying leading British stores with its eggs, was taken by activists and handed to animal rights charity PETA.

The sickening images show many hens covered in ammonia burns, also known as hock burns, with patches of skin and feathers missing.

They are caused by being forced to sit for long periods in their own faeces.

Carcasses of birds litter the floor with distressed hens crammed in next to them.

And as our shock footage shot in Cambs shows, the squalid living conditions even result in the hens turning to cannibalism and eating each other.

The cruelty starts when they are just one day old, with most having their beaks removed with lasers and no anaesthetic.

(Image: PETA)

Farmers say it is to stop the birds from attacking each other in close confinement.

The hens on farms such as this are typically only allowed to live to 72 weeks, when they are past their egg-laying prime.

Male chicks are gassed at a day old.

Animal rights group PETA has slammed the horrendous conditions at the farm.

Director Elisa Allen said: “Shoppers will no doubt be horrified to learn that ‘freerange’ hens are frequently denied the opportunity to breathe fresh air or feel the warmth of the sun on their backs.

“The ‘free-range’ label is designed to make consumers – not animals – feel better.”

A string of celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have campaigned in the past urging Brits to buy free range chicken and eggs.

More than four billion free range hens were produced in the UK in 2015, up from 189million in 2005.

Around half of the £1billion worth of eggs sold are free range.

(Image: PETA)

Yet the conditions shown in this shocking video do not breach EU regulations.

A shed containing 16,000 free range hens must have outdoor space of around 10,000 square metres.

But there are no rules about how often the birds go outside, and many are unable to because they are so hemmed in.

Isobel Hutchinson, from campaign group Animal Aid, said: “This appalling footage has, yet again, exposed the disturbing reality of so-called ‘higher-welfare’ farming.

“Rather than being kept in the grassy, spacious conditions that people imagine, ‘free-range’ hens are often crammed into sheds, with only limited access to the outdoors.

“The conditions are often filthy, stressful and miserable.”