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Here’s a good article about how commercial factories raise chickens in order to sell their eggs. Commercial chicken practices can include simply terrible living conditions for hens.
It’s all about the eggs to those businesses. I’ve included the link to the New York Times so please head over there to read the entire article.
Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?
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Supermarket eggs gleam with apparent cleanliness, and nothing might seem more wholesome than breaking one of them into a frying pan.
Think again. The Humane Society of the United States plans to release on Thursday the results of an undercover investigation into Kreider Farms, a major factory farm that produces 4.5 million eggs each day for supermarkets like ShopRite.
I’ve reviewed footage and photos taken by the investigator, who says he worked for Kreider between January and March of this year. In an interview, he portrayed an operation that has little concern for cleanliness or the welfare of hens.
“It’s physically hard to breathe because of the ammonia” rising from manure pits below older barns, said the investigator, who would not allow his name to be used because that would prevent him from taking another undercover job in agriculture.
He said that when workers needed to enter an older barn, they would first open doors and rev up exhaust fans, and then rush in to do their chores before the fumes became overwhelming.
Mice sometimes ran down egg conveyer belts, barns were thick with flies and manure in three barns tested positive for salmonella, he said. (Actually, salmonella isn’t as rare as you might think, turning up in 3 percent of egg factory farms tested by the Food and Drug Administration last year.)
In some cases, 11 hens were jammed into a cage about 2 feet by 2 feet. The Humane Society says that that is even more cramped than the egg industry’s own voluntary standards — which have been widely criticized as inadequate.
An automatic feeding cart that runs between the cages sometimes decapitates hens as they’re eating, the investigator said. Corpses are pulled out if they’re easy to see, but sometimes remain for weeks in the cages, piling up until they have rotted into the wiring, he added.
Other hens have their heads stuck in the wire and are usually left to die, the investigator said.
Read the rest of this article here.
We prefer raising chickens free range, eating bugs and grass. They even work over our compost, fluffing it up before it gets added to the gardens. We think we have a better attitude towards our girls, than commercial chicken practices! I bet you do too, if you have a couple of hens at home.
Think about the eggs you buy. The reason a lot of eggs are cheap is because the chickens are being raised as it is described. They live in horrible conditions.
Instead, think about buying eggs locally at the Farmer’s Market. Or from someone local who has chickens.
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Robin says
We’ve kept laying hens since 1997 and I’ve purchased eggs once since then. I cracked one egg, a gross mess of pale yolk and runny white. I had forgotten how disgusting they are after nearly a decade of not seeing them. I threw the eggs in the trash and didn’t bake cookies that day.
The humane vs animal cruelty issue is the other reason we don’t buy or eat factory eggs. We don’t have them here, not in restaurants, not in store-bought baking. I never want to look at pictures or videos of tortured birds and know that it’s my fault.
Keeping hens is simple and doesn’t require a lot of room. My four silkie hens produce enough eggs for two people and treats for the dogs. The seven full-sized birds provide eggs for extra things like potato and egg salad, boiled eggs in summer salad, baking and friends.
Egg factories should be closed. There’s no excuse for such monstrosities. I do understand the ramifications of not having factory eggs for restaurants, industrial baking, etc. Our diets would improve greatly. Nobody dies because they can’t eat an egg from a tortured bird.
Annie says
Well said, Robin!
I’ve got some pictures of truckloads of meat birds heading off to slaughter. I’ll be putting those up on this site. The more people learn, the more often they will refuse to eat foods from commercial factories.
Kari says
I can’t even imagine how many barns or how much land is used to house 4.5 million chickens.
Joel Salatin says, get a hen or two, and keep her in the house. It is no different than keeping a parakeet and you get to collect the eggs!
I watched a video the other day about commercial egg processing and it showed how they are cleaned and scrubbed with “a mild detergent”, then they are “disinfected with chlorine or ammonia” and finally they are polished with mineral oil to reseal the pores of the egg.
It is frightening to think how much chlorine or ammonia sneaks into the eggs. Not to mention the deplorable conditions that the hens are kept in for their short miserable lives.
Thanks for sharing the information. The more you know, the closer to home you want to get your food.
People could shut down the factories in a very short period of time by refusing to buy the good.
Annie says
Whoops, I thought I had already approved your comment Kari!
Carol Lawrence says
I’m so glad I have the ability to purchase local eggs. The whole egg industry needs to be revamped. Humanely raised food needs to become a priority. It effects the life of the animals and the health of our food, not to mention the disconnection that takes place consciously when food is not raised with appreciation and respect. Thanks for shining a light on an issue that should not go away until it is solved. I pinned your article on one of my Pinterest boards.
Annie says
Hi Carol, thanks for your comment. Please feel free to share anything, as long as a link to this site is included. I’m glad your family is eating local eggs. There really is no comparison, is there, with grocery store eggs.
Brilliant yellow yolks compared to flat pale yolks with runny whites – eggs from free run chickens are always going to win!