Caught on Tape: Sick, Dirty Hens at a Texas Egg Farm

Cal-Maine Foods, America's largest egg producer, sells its ovas under brands like Sunny Meadow, Springfield Grocer, and Sun Valley. In reality, the farm's hens couldn't be farther from sunshine, lush meadows, or springtime fields.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) recently released the results of its investigation of Cal-Maine, a factory farm in Waelder, Texas. One HSUS employee went undercover for nearly a month, gained employment at Cal-Maine, and documented the conditions inside the factory farm's hen houses. The photographs and videos caught by the investigator are enough to make any diner ditch their eggs and never look back.

As Change.org's Animals cause reported, the gruesome footage from HSUS looks and feels like a house of horrors. The HSUS employee witnessed "...overcrowded cages where hens spend their lives unable to spread their wings, on wire flooring that makes their feet bleed," Feldstein wrote. "Birds get caught in the wiring, where they die from dehydration or starvation just inches from their water and food. Carcasses were left in the cages for days, sometimes so long that they became mummified." The undercover investigator also noted that the fly infestation was so bad in one hen house that walking on the floor was like stepping on Rice Krispies. Bet that will put consumers off their omelets — and Rice Krispies, for that matter — for many breakfasts to come.

While Cal-Maine exposed the birds themselves to horrible conditions, the eggs didn't fare much better. The HSUS investigation reports that eggs on the farm's conveyor belt passed rotting chicken carcasses and manure and were oftentimes covered in blood and feces. Eggs bumped along from one disease vector to another before they wound up in cartons stamped with sunbeams, rolling pastures, and idyllic farm houses.

While animal welfare is certainly an issue here, keeping birds crowded in dirty battery cages doesn't bode well for consumers' health, either. Hens exposed to feces, insects, rotting birds, and other unsavory items makes it much more likely that the birds and their eggs will get contaminated with bacteria like Salmonella. In fact, earlier this month, Cal-Maine recalled a quarter-million eggs for that very reason. The recall came on the heels of another egg contamination scandal this summer. More than 550 million eggs were recalled and 1,600 people took ill after consuming eggs exposed to rodents, manure, and maggots at two Iowa factory farms. Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

While the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) new Egg Safety Rules hold manufacturers to higher standards than ever before, the regulations fail to limit factory farms' use of battery cages. Using battery cages puts hens' and consumers' health in jeopardy. A 2002 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that people who ate eggs from caged hens were about twice as likely to come down with salmonella poisoning than folks who didn't eat eggs from caged birds. HSUS cites nine studies on its Web site, all of which found a greater prevalence of salmonella among caged hens than cage-free chickens.

In order to improve conditions for both laying hens and consumers, factory farms need to ditch battery cages. You can help end animal cruelty and unsanitary conditions by signing HSUS's petition asking the FDA to mandate that egg producers phase out battery cages.

Photo credit: HSUS