I think I know the answer that a market-economist or an American conservative would give to this; so I'd answer that answer by observing that, as a serious Catholic, I find this article's author to be closer to the truth than those who think that chickens only exist to benefit humans.

Aristotle discovered or taught (I'm favoring "discovered") that all creatures have an end for which they exist; the end of a chicken is to live the life of a happy, fulfilled chicken. Human beings have a right to distort that under certain circumstances (domestication, for example, is acceptable), but we must not sacrifice all other considerations for profit. Eating meat is acceptable, at least grudgingly; raising stock animals in cruel conditions to wring more money out of them is not. The American way of life _is_ negotiable, in contrast to what a certain US President said, and was not handed down on Mount Sinai. (Actually, everything handed down on Mount Sinai _also_ wasn't handed down on Mount Sinai, in the sense of being eternal and immutable -- or else Jesus Christ would hardly have run roughshod over the Third Commandment.)

There's something else I want to mention about chickens, but I'll put that in another post for ease of up/downvoting; in the meantime, I just wanted to emphasize that touchy-feely liberals aren't the only ones who believe that a chicken's happiness is worth something.