"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."
New Yorker writer Michael Specter
On his first visit to a chicken farm:
"I was almost knocked to the ground by the overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. My eyes burned and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor breathe….There must have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the floor in front of me. They didn’t move, didn’t cluck. They were almost like statues of chickens, living in nearly total darkness, and they would spend every minute of their six-week lives that way."
100 spent hens, rescued from a "free range" egg facility, began their lives at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary the day they were scheduled for slaughter. When educating yourself or informing others about the horrors of factory farming, please remember these faces, and please remember that "free range" farming is not a "humane" alternative. From the victim's perspective, they are exactly the same thing. ... At 18 months of age, a fraction of a chicken's life span, these hens were considered spent, unable to produce eggs at a fast enough rate, and they were scheduled for slaughter. All 100 of them bore the physical and psychological scars of an entire young life spent in the crowded confines of a sunless, windowless, ammonia-filled cement shed. Even after weeks of sanctuary life, many are still in a state of constant terror, still panicking at the drop of a leaf, still cowering at the smallest noise, as if hit by a physical blow to the body. ... Please remember their faces, and please remember that, ultimately, the value of a sentient life is not measured in its utility to others, but in its immense, irreplaceable value to the being whose life it is.
Animal advocacy organization Compassion Over Killing documents conditions on multiple egg farms to demonstrate that cruelty is the norm, not the exception, in the modern egg industry.
From November 30 to December 9, 2005, an investigator affiliated with Compassion Over Killing worked undercover at Esbenshade Farms, one of the nation’s top egg producers, located in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. While there, he documented appalling conditions for hundreds of thousands of hens including:
birds overcrowded in wire cages so small, they cannot spread their wings,
hens left to suffer from untreated illnesses or injuries,
birds with their wings, legs, or feet entangled in the wires of cages, unable to access food or water,
injured or dying birds removed from their cages and left in the aisles without access to food or water,
birds impaled on the wires of the cages with many found already dead as a result of the painful immobilization, and
hens living in cages amongst decomposing bodies of other birds.
Photo by: Mercy for Animals, Weaver Brothers Egg Farm in
Versailles, Ohio
Former Battery Cage Hens
Photo: Susan Rayfield
From rotting in cages to
roosting in branches, former battery hens enjoy life at United Poultry Concerns.
Despite thousands of years of domestication, chickens are essentially the wild
jungle fowl of their ancestry, with the same cravings for lush soil, trees, and
activities suited to the tropical forests they originated in. May is
International Respect for Chickens Month. Let people know how beautiful and
“green» chickens truly are.
Ever since half a billion eggs were recalled because of a salmonella outbreak, people have been talking about food safety regulations. Animal welfare issues have been mentioned, but they need to be considered more seriously. The following are some facts to help you tell the hens' side of the story:
There's cruelty in every carton of eggs:
Ninety-nine percent of hens used by the egg industry are confined to filthy, crowded battery cages. In June, the owner of one of the egg farms involved in the recall—and of the company that supplies chickens and chicken feed to both farms implicated in the outbreak—pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals and paid more than $130,000 in fines and restitution following an undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals.
Salmonella spreads like wildfire on factory farms:
Under squalid factory farm conditions, it's easy for salmonella bacteria—which live in the intestines and feces of animals—to spread from bird to bird and from birds to people. Vegan foods don't naturally harbor salmonella bacteria.
Avoiding eggs is the best way to prevent salmonella poisoning and reduce animal suffering:
A salmonella vaccine that has been used successfully in Britain is available, but American regulators don't believe there's enough evidence to show that vaccinating hens will prevent people from getting sick. It's obvious that our food safety regulations are not all they're cracked up to be and that the safest and kindest way to prevent salmonella poisoning is to stop eating eggs altogether. PETA is urging Iowa schools to stop serving eggs to children in order to help protect them from food poisoning. You can opt for egg replacer, scrambled tofu, and other tasty vegan foods.
The modern hen laying eggs for human consumption is far removed from the Burmese jungle fowl from whom she derives and the active farmyard fowl of recent memory. Rather, she is an anxious, frustrated, fear-ridden bird forced to spend 10 to 12 months squeezed inside a small wire cage with three to eight or nine other tormented hens amid tiers of identical cages in gloomy sheds holding 50,000 to 125,000 debeaked, terrified, bewildered birds. By nature an energetic forager, she should be ranging by day, perching at night, and enjoying cleansing dust baths with her flock mates--a need so strong that she pathetically executes "vacuum" dust bathing on the wire floor of her cage.
Caged for life without exercise while constantly drained of calcium to form egg shells, battery hens develop the severe osteoporosis of intensive confinement know as caged layer fatigue. Calcium depleted, millions of hens become paralyzed and die of hunger and thirst inches from their food and water.
This article is from PETA which advocates becoming vegan. All I am asking you to commit to is not buying eggs that come from tortured hens. Lets stop this inhumane practice in America. You can visit PETA's website here:
The 280 million chickens used each year for their eggs, called "laying hens" by the industry, endure a nightmare that lasts for two years.
At just a few days old, a large portion of each hen's beak is cut off with a burning-hot blade, and no painkillers are used. Many birds, unable to eat because of the pain, die from dehydration and weakened immune systems.
After enduring these mutilations, hens are shoved into tiny wire "battery" cages, which measure roughly 18 by 20 inches and hold five to 11 hens, each of whom has a wingspan of 32 inches. Even in the best-case scenario, each hen will spend the rest of her life crowded in a space about the size of a file drawer with four other hens, unable to lift even a single wing.
The birds are crammed so closely together that these normally clean animals are forced to urinate and defecate on one another. The stench of ammonia and feces hangs heavy in the air, and disease runs rampant in the filthy, cramped sheds. Many birds die, and survivors are often forced to live with their dead and dying cagemates, who are sometimes left to rot.
The light in the sheds is constantly manipulated in order to maximize egg production. Periodically, for two weeks at a time, the hens are only fed reduced-calorie feed. This process induces an extra laying cycle.
Male chicks are worthless to the egg industry, so every year millions of them are tossed into trash bags to suffocate or are thrown into high-speed grinders called "macerators" while they are still alive.
After two years in these conditions, the hens' bodies are exhausted, and their egg production drops. These "spent" hens are shipped to slaughterhouses, where their fragile legs are forced into shackles and their throats are cut. By the time they are sent to slaughter, roughly 29 percent of the hens are suffering from broken bones resulting from neglect and rough treatment. Their emaciated bodies are so damaged that their flesh can generally be used only for chicken noodle soup, companion animal food, or "canned, boned, and diced" meat, much of which goes to the National School Lunch Program.
The good news is that removing eggs from your diet is easier than ever. Today there is a multitude of delicious and humane egg-free options. Check out a list of our favorite egg-free alternatives and recipes.
In August 2009, a Compassion Over Killing investigator worked inside an egg factory farm in Minnesota owned by Michael Foods, one of the nation's largest egg producers. While employed there, the investigator used a hidden camera to document horrific abuses including:
Hens immobilized in the wires of their cages, unable to access food or water
Decomposing and "mummified" corpses left in cages with live birds
A Michael Foods employee decapitating a hen
Birds suffering from overcrowding, severe feather loss, and untreated injuries.
Minnesota-based Michael Foods supplies eggs to several national restaurant chains, including Dunkin' Donuts. Compassion Over Killing has reached out to Dunkin Donuts numerous times to inquire about the treatment of hens in its supply chain and to encourage the company to make meaningful changes for hens--and consumers--by making vegan donuts.
Dunkin Donuts has not yet taken this important issue seriously. Please ACT NOW by contacting Dunkin Donuts today!
