New Undercover Investigations: Chickens for Eggs and Flesh

In case you missed it--it was reported on other AR blogs and newsletters in the last week--Mercy for Animals recently conducted yet another undercover investigation at an egg "farm," and as always, what investigators found was horrifying. And not long before this investigation broke, Igualdad Animal/Animal Equality released information on its investigation into a chicken slaughterhouse and rescue of three discarded, terribly injured and ill chickens there.

The overwhelming majority of animals killed for food each year are chickens. And they--not only chickens raised primarily for their flesh, but also and especially hens exploited and ultimately killed for egg production--suffer some of the worst cruelties that animal ag has to offer. (I'll admit that this is why I find it so sadly ironic when people tell me that they don't eat "red meat" for ethical reasons but still eat chickens, turkeys, and eggs.)

First, the Mercy for Animals investigation.

I've written several times on the problems with egg production across the board--including "cage-free," "free-range," and "happy" facilities. No egg production is humane or cruelty-free. But while working to explain that, I've not often focused on the specific horrors of the more common, standard battery-cage egg facilities, which produce 90-some percent of the eggs consumed. This investigation, like so many investigations before, reveals some of that, including the torture and live disposal of sick and injured hens. Please see the video produced by Mercy for Animals at the end of this post. Following is part of what the group reports:

A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation reveals shocking abuse at New England's largest egg factory farm - Quality Egg of New England (QENE) in Turner, Maine. The hidden camera video shot in early 2009 gives a startling glimpse behind the closed doors of one of the nation's leading egg producers, exposing the rotten truth behind battery cage egg production – heinous cruelty to animals.

MFA's investigation reveals:

• Rotting carcasses in cages with live hens still laying eggs for human consumption.
• Workers and managers killing birds by grabbing their necks and swinging them around in circles - an attempt to break their necks which often resulted in prolonged, torturous deaths for the hens.
• Supervisors and workers throwing live birds into trash cans, leaving them to be slowly crushed under the weight of other birds' corpses and unable to access food or water.
• Birds suffering from broken bones, bloody open wounds, and untreated infections.
• Hens confined four to six in tiny wire cages so small they were unable to stretch their wings, move freely or engage in other basic behaviors.
• Birds trapped in the wire of their cages or under the feeding trays without access to food or water, some with body parts, including their faces, pressed against moving conveyor belts.
• Management and workers callously kicking live hens into manure pits where they either drowned in liquid feces or likely died slow and painful deaths from illness, injury or starvation.

Visit the site set up for the investigation for more, including the investigator's diary. If you are eating eggs directly or eating foods with eggs in them, you are contributing to these cruelties. Please go egg-free.

See below for the MFA investigation video. And see the next post for the Igualdad Animal investigation in which investigators rescued three chickens from the slaughterhouse. [Update: that next post on the Igualdad Animal investigation is now up.]

Image at top from Mercy for Animals investigation.