tagged w/ Egg-Laying Hens
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Humane Society: Undercover video shows alleged abuse at egg farm
From Eric Fiegel, CNN Senior Producer
November 17, 2010 7:48 p.m. EST
The Humane Society says its undercover video shows a dead bird as eggs roll by inches away on a conveyer belt.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* The Humane Society releases a video it says shows animal abuse at an egg farm
* The undercover video was shot at a Texas farm
* The company, Cal-Maine, says it has been a leader in animal welfare
* Cal-Maine is the largest egg producer in the United States
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Washington (CNN) -- A group that protects the welfare of animals has released an undercover video it claims shows animal abuse at a Texas farm operated by the largest egg producer in the United States.
The Humane Society of the United States says one of its investigators worked at the Cal-Maine farm in Waelder, Texas, for almost a month this fall and documented multiple abuses and food-safety violations.
The video shows dead birds, birds stuck in their cages, overcrowding and what appears to be hens covered in feces. At one point the video shows a dead bird as eggs roll by just inches away on a conveyer belt.
The short, edited video was shown at a news conference on Wednesday by the Humane Society's president and CEO, Wayne Pacelle. "Our latest farm animal investigation documents inhumane treatment of laying hens and conditions that threaten food safety," Pacelle said from the group's headquarters in Washington.
Pacell told reporters that Cal-Maine, based in Jackson, Mississippi, was unaware of the investigation and that the video was being made public for the first time. Pacell said he didn't know if the giant egg company had seen the video.
'Farm had eggs on top of corpses'
Cal-Maine responded to the allegations with a statement on its website.
"Cal-Maine Foods has been a leader in accepting and implementing animal welfare measures. All of the Company's facilities are operated in full compliance with existing environmental, health and safety laws and regulations and permits. Each employee involved in the care and handling of our hens is required to review, sign and comply with our Company code of conduct regarding the ethical treatment of hens which requires employees to report any possible violations," the statement said.
The egg industry has taken a beating of late. Just this summer over half a billion eggs were recalled after a salmonella outbreak was traced to an Iowa farm.
Cal-Maine is no stranger to recalls. It recalled 288,000 eggs earlier this month when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration informed the company that eggs from one of its Ohio plants tested positive for Salmonella enteritidis. Salmonella, which is generally contracted from contaminated poultry, meat, eggs, or water, affects the intestinal tract.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, chickens can pass the bacteria to eggs because the eggs leave hens through the same passageway as feces. Alternatively, bacteria in the hen's ovary or oviduct can get to the egg before the shell forms around it, FSIS said.
Cal-Maine says it sold over 778 million eggs in 2009, which represents 18 percent of the United States market. According to the companies website, "Cal-Maine has an industry-leading record in food safety with all of its 35 processing plants independently verified as reaching the highest level of safety by the Safe Quality Food Institute."
Over 70 billion eggs are produced a year in the United States, and the Humane Society would like to see the large egg farms change their ways
"Time and again, we've found that these massive facilities caging hundreds of thousands of animals do not properly care for the birds ... It's time for the egg industry to embrace cage-free housing systems and move away from battery cage confinement methods," Pacelle said. Battery cage systems allow many birds to be housed in one facility but critics claim it's dangerous and cruel to the animals.
The Humane Society would like to see cage-free housing but so far only 5 percent of eggs produced in the U.S. use this method, according to Pacelle.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration implemented new rules in July for large egg producers. These mandates include cleaning poultry houses that test positive for salmonella, rodent control, refrigeration of eggs during storage and transportation and buying chicks and young hens only from suppliers who monitor for Salmonella bacteria.
The USDA says that as many as 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths due to consumption of eggs contaminated with the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis may be avoided each year with these new measures in place.Humane Society: Undercover video shows alleged abuse at egg farm
From Eric Fiegel,... more
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Celebrate Compassion
The 5th annual World Go Vegan Week is taking place this year from October 24th through 31st. This week is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment and everyone's well-being. A plant-based diet not only improves your health, it significantly reduces your carbon footprint and preserves resources for future generations. So please join me in creating a healthy future and go vegan for World Go Vegan Week.
- Emily Deschanel
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IDA would like to encourage people to use World Go Vegan Week to educate their community about the vegan lifestyle as a compassionate, sustainable, and healthy way of eating and living. Promoting veganism through outreach events and the media, we know that our annual World Go Vegan Week is helping make the word "vegan" a household word, universally recognized as meaning love and compassion for all living beings.
Take the Vegan Pledge [http://ida.convio.net/site/PageNavigator/Vegan_Pledge] and pledge to go vegan for the week of World Go Vegan Week, October 24 - 31. Join other compassionate and inspired people that are changing their diet, changing their life and changing the world! Then, hold an event to celebrate you commitment to World Go Vegan Week.
Here are some ways you can celebrate World Go Vegan Week:
Be sure to register your event with us so we can send you flyers, posters and other materials to make you event a success. Contact Hope Bohanec: hope@idausa.org (415)448-0058.
* Plan an event or activity to get people interested in veganism, such as a public lecture, cooking demonstration, feed-in with vegan food samples, leafleting, tabling, library exhibit, or street theater performance. If you serve vegan food at your event, you can get refunded for the cost through the VegFund
* Host a vegan potluck dinner or restaurant outing to show your family and friends that they don't have to sacrifice taste to save animals' lives. Sharing delicious vegan food with others is a fun and easy way to make a difference in the lives of animals and the people you care about.
* Ask your local natural foods store to offer vegan samples for the week. Ask your favorite local food store to offer vegan samples or specials for the last week of October. Let them know that we can send information, posters and materials to help them celebrate World Go Vegan Week.
* Ask veg-friendly restaurants to offer discounts or specials on their vegan food. Encourage restaurants to have vegan specials for the week or to offer a discount for bringing in a veg-curious customer.
* Show a powerful, short vegan video at your next potluck or social gathering. Here's one of our favorites: Vegan video by NonViolenceUnited.org.
* Host a vegan pie-baking contest. You can do this in your own home in a public place. Offer prizes like gift certificates to veggie restaurants or IDA T-shirts. Don't you want to be a judge? Yum!
* Host a Vegan Halloween Party. Have a costume party and have prizes for the best animal costume, most compassionate, and the most vegan creative! Have vegan Halloween candy and treats on hand and go trick-or-treating, offering folks at the door vegan candy and brochures.
* Students: join or start a vegan club in your school and plan an event with your friends that will educate people about the benefits of a vegan diet to human health, animals, and the environment. Write a paper on veganism, hand out vegan literature at a college campus or help get vegan meals into your school's cafeteria. Visit Choice to learn how.
* Have a well-known vegan author or athlete come speak in your community. Host an event where a famous vegan offers an inspiring presentation. Have vegan treats for folks to try. IDA can help you contact the person.
* Send a friend or family member who lives far away a gift certificate to a restaurant in their own town. Visit Happy Cow for reviews of vegetarian restaurants around the country.
* Write a letter to the editor about the benefits of a vegan diet or the cruelties of factory farming, or ask your local newspaper to write a story on the subject.
* If you are religious, or participate in spiritual services or gatherings, look for opportunities to incorporate the vegan message into the discussions. If you participate in study groups, suggest discussion fo the vegan message.
* Visit a farmed animal sanctuary and take a friend who still eats meat. There are a number of farmed animal sanctuaries where you can visit rescued cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep and rabbits live naturally in peace and harmony without fear of abuse or slaughter. Check out Animal Acres, Animal Place, Farm Sanctuary, Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary, or IDA's Project Hope.
* Encourage a Compassionate Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks, talk to your community food banks about providing vegan options such as Tofurkys. Consider buying a few Tofurkys, preparing them, and bringing them to your food bank or other similar community dinner. Be sure to check out Gentle Thanksgiving which offers a lot of information and guidance on this special observance.
* Share the ideals of veganism with your community of friends and colleagues by adding this quote to your email signature:"Veganism gives us all the opportunity to say what we 'stand for' iin life -- the ideal of healthy, humane living. Add decades of health to your life, with a clear conscience as a bonus." - Donald Watson
* If you are a part of an animal protection organization, become a presenter of World Go Vegan Week. There are no costs to you for joining us as a co-presenter. All you need is to post the World Go Vegan Week banner on your web site, which links to the World Go Vegan Week web page. Contact Hope Bohanec, for more information: hope@idausa.org or call (415) 448-0058.Celebrate Compassion
The 5th annual World Go Vegan Week is taking place this year... more
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PART ONE...
Ingrid Newkirk on Principled Veganism: “Screw the principle”
Posted by Gary L. Francione
In an article in Time Magazine, PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk discusses “flexitarianism,” or “[p]art-time vegetarianism.”
The goal for many activists is simply to get more people to eat less meat. “Absolute purists should be living in a cave,” says Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can’t take the position that it’s all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.”
We can make several observations about Newkirk’s statements:
First, Newkirk repeats the mantra of the new welfarist movement: that animal welfare reforms actually reduce suffering. The reforms that are promoted by PETA and the other new welfarist groups for the most part do not provide significant welfare benefits for animals. They just represent a different form of torture. Waterboarding someone on a bare board and waterboarding them on a padded board is still waterboarding.
Moreover, for the most part, industry would eventually adopt these reforms anyway because they generally increase production efficiency. Giving slightly more space to veal calves or using alternatives to the gestation crate result in increased animal productivity, lower veterinary costs, and a better bottom line for producers. PETA explicitly recognizes that gassing chickens is an economically efficient thing to do. The symbiotic relationship between large animal groups and institutional exploiters is clear when we see that groups like PETA and institutional exploiters are involved in a drama whereby animal advocates target an economically vulnerable practice; industry puts up a token fight; the reform, or some modification of the reform, is eventually accepted because it does not harm, and usually helps, industry; the animal groups declare victory; the animal exploiters bask in the praise that industry gets from animal advocates. Only the animals lose.
Second, Newkirk conveniently ignores that the relentless promotion of these welfare reforms by PETA and other new welfarist groups and the claims that these reforms make exploitation more “humane” make the public feel more comfortable about consuming animals and, as a result, consumption increases. It is interesting to note that per capita consumption of animal products is going up and not down. When groups like PETA give an award to slaughterhouse designer Temple Grandin, or praise animal flesh/products peddlers, or call off the boycott of KFC in Canada because KFC agreed to phase in buying gassed chickens from producers, what does that say to the public? It is nothing less than one big stamp of “animal rights” approval.
PETA has made it possible for people who eat at KFC in Canada or at McDonald’s, or who buy “happy” meat or other animal products at Whole Foods, to proclaim themselves as “animal rights” advocates.
It should be increasingly clear that the “happy meat/animal products” movement is a giant step backwards.
Third, Newkirk conveniently misses the most important point in the debate whether to pursue a clear vegan moral baseline or instead to pursue welfare reforms.
It’s a zero-sum game. That is, we live in a world of limited resources. Every cent of money; every second of time; every bit of effort that we devote to welfare reform is less money, time, and labor that we devote to clear, unequivocal vegan advocacy. If the large new welfarist corporations put all of their resources into vegan advocacy, they could reduce suffering and death by reducing demand and helping to shift the paradigm away from the notion that animals are things that we can use if we treat them “humanely” to the notion that animals are beings with inherent moral value whom we should not be using at all.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
Ingrid Newkirk on Principled Veganism: “Screw the... more
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September 1, 2010
Dalai Lama Says Caging Hens is Cruel
By Nathan Runkle
dalai-lama-10-07-lg.jpg
The Dalai Lama is speaking out for the millions of egg-laying hens condemned to lives of misery inside tiny, wire battery cages and is urging consumers to switch to cage-free eggs.
"In these cages, birds cannot engage in natural behaviors such as spreading their wings, laying eggs in a nesting area, perching, scratching at the ground, and even standing on a solid surface. Each hen has less space to live than the very sheet of paper I have written this letter on," wrote the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
According to the Hindustan Times on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama added that "Cage-free hens may not be able to go outside, but they are able to walk, spread their wings and lay their eggs in nests - all behaviours denied to hens confined in battery cages."
Over 95% of the chickens raised to lay eggs in the U.S. are forced to live crammed together inside battery cages, small, barren wire cages stacked in rows inside filthy windowless sheds that can stretch the length of two football fields. Not only are battery-cage egg operations extremely cruel, they pose a serious public health menace by dramatically increasing the risk of salmonella.
As the Dalai Lama noted, cage-free does not mean cruelty-free. The best thing people can do to protect their health and prevent needless cruelty to animals is to adopt a healthy and compassionate vegan lifestyle.September 1, 2010
Dalai Lama Says Caging Hens is Cruel
By Nathan Runkle... more
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August 17th, 2010
02:24 PM ET
Eggs recalled over salmonella concerns
Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, is voluntarily recalling some of its eggs out of concern they may be tainted with salmonella bacteria.
After an uptick in salmonella infections, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, traced the source and determined it was most likely eggs from Wright County Egg. The company says it is working to determine how the shell eggs are being contaminated.
Wright County Egg packages shell egg products under the following brand names: Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma's, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps. The brands are distributed nationwide. The recall affects eggs packed in several different sized cartons, from a half dozen to 18-eggs.
The Egg Safety Center says recalled eggs are in cartons with a three-digit code ranging from 136 to 225 and plant numbers P-1026, P-1413, and P-1946. The numbers are on one end of the egg carton.
Consumers are encouraged to return the eggs in their original packaging to where they were purchased for a full refund.
Salmonella bacteria can be found inside and outside of eggs that appear to be normal. For more information from the CDC on ways to reduce the risk of Salmonella poisoning from eggs click here.August 17th, 2010
02:24 PM ET
Eggs recalled over salmonella concerns
Wright... more
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Sickest lines in spot:
"So rest assured, ladies, it's gonna be a rough day for you egg-layers"
AND
"Great day to be an American, bad day to be a chicken"
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Down with Denny's! ... among others.
As vegans, we often tell ourselves that if all the omnivores out there knew how and why animals were grown and slaughtered for our consumption, they'd surely give up animal products altogether. I've come to understand, however, that there are many reasons, besides misinformation, that keep the masses intent on maintaining the property status of animals. Some of these include tradition, convenience, taste, and social conformity.
Change isn't easy, especially when we grew up learning about all the "benefits" of animal products, whether it be their ability to provide lots of protein (way more than the average person needs), prevent osteoporosis (because of the calcium, which by the way, is actually supplemented because most of the calcium is leeched out of cow bones due to inhumane treatment), or provide us with energy (which would be way more efficient if we just got it from yummy and delicious greens, like the non-human animals do).
So - I get it. I get that really thinking about where we get meat, dairy, and eggs doesn't necessarily make the average person want to reach for an apple instead.
That being said, I must admit, I just can't wrap my head around using the concept of what is basically animal torture as a marketing campaign, which is what Denny's did when they unveiled their new ads during the Superbowl last night.
The gist is basically that chickens should be very worried and upset, because Denny's is offering up tons of cheap and free eggs, so they best be careful. Here are the three that I saw, although my guess is that more will be popping up over the next few months.
I was particularly grossed out by these two lines:
"So rest assured, ladies, it's gonna be a rough day for you egg-layers"
AND
"Great day to be an American, bad day to be a chicken"
I just don't get it. Not only do people know that the mass-production of eggs means a horrific life for chickens, but they actually make jokes about it, and use the information as a selling point???
It's not like Denny's is the first either. I remember Thanksgiving commercials showing cartoons of terrified turkeys, and a McLobster campaign that showed these little lobsters sneaking around and turning off all the neon signs advertising the sandwich made from their flesh. I would expect that to destroy someone's appetite, not whet it.
Paul McCartney, a famous vegetarian, once said that everyone would be vegetarian if slaughterhouses had glass walls. I guess he was wrong.
Thank you to Busy (Happy) VeganSickest lines in spot:
"So rest assured, ladies, it's gonna be a rough... more
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"Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, claims agribusiness is guilty of "the worst kind of manipulation." He says the lies range from leading people to believe there's a "well funded" anti-meat lobby to applying meaningless "free-range" labels to eggs."
Good speech.
It' all a lie, how could a company like Smithfield, one of the largest pork companies, make
7,000 violations of the clean water act (CWA) in one year, this keeps happening as we speak.
When you have 100,000 chickens, what do you do with their urine and feces?
You dump it. This waste will pollute the air and the water.
Read this excerpt for a more detailed explanation, from EPA:
http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/faqs.cfm?program_id=7#125
"What are the water quality concerns related to AFOs?
Manure and wastewater from AFOs have the potential to contribute pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, organic matter, sediments, pathogens, heavy metals, hormones, antibiotics, and ammonia to the environment. Excess nutrients in water (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) can result in or contribute to low levels of dissolved oxygen (anoxia), eutrophication, and toxic algal blooms. These conditions may be harmful to human health and, in combination with other circumstances, have been associated with outbreaks of microbes such as Pfiesteria piscicida.
Decomposing organic matter (i.e., animal waste) can reduce oxygen levels and cause fish kills. Pathogens, such as Cryptosporidium, have been linked to impairments in drinking water supplies and threats to human health. Pathogens in manure can also create a food safety concern if manure is applied directly to crops at inappropriate times. In addition, pathogens are responsible for some shellfish bed closures. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate, can contaminate drinking water supplies drawn from ground water."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbx0hpVIuxg
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, claims agribusiness is guilty of... more
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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."New Yorker writer Michael Specter, on his first visit to a chicken farm:
"I... more
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From the BBC...
There may be no experience of life more fraught with stress and pain than that of the battery caged hen. She does not live on a farm, but inside a gigantic metal factory like the one pictured here. Such facilities hold literally millions of hens who are confined in row after row of tiny wire 'battery' cages. These cages are too small to allow hens to stand in a normal upright position, much less stretch, unfold their wings, or exercise. Throughout the course of her short life, the battery caged hen will be forced to endure beak mutilations, overcrowding, filth, disease, and periodic starvation.From the BBC...
There may be no experience of life more fraught with stress and... more
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