Investigation and Rescue at a Battery Cage Egg Facility
The tactic of conducting investigations followed by open rescues is not new by any stretch of the imagination. Under the leadership of Patty Mark, Action Animal Rescue Team in Australia has been openly rescuing farmed animals for nearly 20 years. In the United States, Compassionate Action for Animals in Minnesota conducted an open rescue at a battery cage facility in 2000.
It was after meeting Patty Mark that COK activists became interested in the idea of overtly defying the factory farm system by openly rescuing animals. Almost without exception, rescuers who save animals from places of exploitation go to great lengths to ensure their anonymity. The idea behind an open rescue is the exact opposite: to fully document abuse, alert the authorities to the cruelties, and, then, if the prosecutors and police do nothing, openly rescue animals in particularly grave situations and accept full responsibility for the action.
The following pages document only a small part of the investigation and rescue. For a more detailed account, please visit www.ISECruelty.com or contact COK at info@cok.net.
COK's investigation and rescue garnered more publicity for the plight of egg-laying hens than anything we've ever done before. The story was covered by The Washington Post, USA Today, CBS, FOX, and countless other papers that picked up the story from the AP and UPI wires. Hundreds of thousands of people read about and observed conditions in a modern egg production facility. Even more important, eight lives have been drastically altered, going from complete and total misery to relief and freedom.
In early April this year, COK received an anonymous tip that animal cruelty was a routine part of business at International Standard of Excellence-America (ISE-America), a major egg supplier with facilities up and down the East Coast. On 13 April 2001, we sent a letter to ISE-America's corporate headquarters in Galena, Md., and requested a tour of its Cecilton, Md., facility. To this day, we have yet to receive a response.
When our request was ignored, we made the decision to investigate the factory farm on our own. Our initial visit was meant to be purely investigative, but we quickly realized that we would have to provide on-site assistance to many birds.
We made repeated nighttime visits over a month—documenting egregious cruelties in photographs and videos—and contacted Cecil County state's attorney John Scarborough and notified him of the conditions at the facility, and we requested that ISE-America be prosecuted for animal cruelty. Mr. Scarborough responded that his office only prosecutes cases referred to him by the police or other investigative bodies. So, we then contacted Sheriff Rodney Kennedy of the Cecil County police department and told him about the cruelty at ISE-America and asked that he refer the case to the prosecutor's office. To this day, Sheriff Kennedy has not gotten back to us.
Having no other options available, four COK investigators—Suzanne McMillan, Lance Morosini, Miyun Park, and Paul Shapiro—entered ISE's Cecilton facility on 23 May 2001 and rescued eight hens who were in dire need of immediate veterinary attention. These hens have all been seen by a veterinarian and placed in homes where they can now scratch the earth beneath their feet, feel the sun on their backs, and never again exist as mere profit-making tools for the egg industry.
More than 250 million egg-laying hens aren't so fortunate.
The unceasing suffering of hens in battery cages is unconscionable. This is the reality of the hopelessness of their lives as we saw at ISE-America.
Decaying bodies lie in mass graves in the manure pits.
800,000 hens are housed in nine long sheds—each nearly the length of two football fields—and crammed into battery cages with up to ten other birds. The batteries are long rows of wire cages measuring 24-inches wide and 17-inches deep—about the size of a folded newspaper. They're stacked one on top of another, reaching four tiers high. In cages with 9 to 11 hens, each four-pound animal with a wingspan of 30 to 32 inches is given about 40 square inches of floor-space, which is about half a piece of letter-sized paper—obviously not even remotely enough to move about without disrupting her other cellmates, freely stretching her wings, exercising at all, or engaging in any normal chicken behavior. The hens spend nearly their entire lives in these metal cages.
This hen was found in the manure pit. She was so weak from dehydration that she could barely lift her head.
Beneath each floor is a manure pit where hundreds and hundreds of feet of excrement are piled up, teaming with flies, maggots, and the decomposing carcasses of hens who managed to escape from their cages and ultimately fell and died amidst the manure. Live hens can also be found in the pits, with no access to food or water, and, if not found and carried back upstairs to be stuffed into a battery cage, will most likely die of dehydration.
A gas mask hangs on the wall for workers to wear as protection against the toxic, ammonia-filled air.
As you can imagine, the air around the nine sheds is heavy with the smell of feces. The thickness of the stench is magnified exponentially once inside, and this is the air the animals are forced to breathe every moment of every day. In fact, breathing is so difficult, that gas masks hang on the walls for workers to protect themselves when in the sheds. Unfortunately, the hens don't receive that same relief from the nauseating stench and toxic ammonia emitted from the more than 100 tons of wet manure produced each day.
They're treated as mere commodities. Everything natural to them is denied. In fact, they aren't even allowed to produce eggs as they would in nature. In these windowless facilities, artificial lighting is kept on for 16 or 17 hours a day to unnaturally stimulate and extend egg production; and, today, as a result of genetic, chemical, and industrial manipulations, hens lay an unnatural number of eggs: about 240 to 250 each year, as opposed to the approximately 60 to 70 eggs the average domestic hen will lay.
Hens in battery cage egg facilities are constantly assaulted—physically and psychologically.
At birth, a significant portion of their beaks—which chickens use much like we use our hands—are seared off with a hot blade—without any painkillers. It's been well documented—most notably by avian expert Dr. Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph in Canada—that debeaked birds are in chronic pain and distress. Debeaking is standard industry practice to reduce the impact of stress-induced aggression as well as to lower feed costs. According to an article in the industry publication Journal of Applied Poultry Research, debeaked hens suffer from reduced appetites and are unable to efficiently and effectively grasp their food, causing them to eat less and expend less energy than non-debeaked birds. So, it's claimed that the mutilated hens save the egg industry money. And we saw many birds with severe beak injuries.
The unyielding wire batteries cause many hens to become caught by their heads, necks, wings, and legs, in the bars of the cages, immobilizing them without access to food or water. We freed as many as we were able during our visits, but we know with absolute certainty, that at this very moment, countless hens are trapped, dying of starvation and dehydration, inches away from food and water.
An all-too-common sight: immobilized and left to die.
After freeing her head, immobilized in the bars of the battery cage, we quickly realized that both of her legs were also caught.
Rose, one of the eight rescued hens, was stuck in the bars separating two cages.
This hen's head was stuck underneath the feeding rail, trapping her without access to food or water.
Christina was rescued and immediately examined by a veterinarian for the fluid-filled cyst covering her eye.
Of course, the sheer number of animals in ISE's Cecilton facility—about 92,000 hens in one shed alone—makes it impossible for prompt veterinary caregiving. But, because it's cheaper to let these hens die from illness and disease than it is to provide veterinary assistance, we saw bird after bird after bird with eye infections, cysts, and such severe feather-loss that it looked as if they had been plucked.
As you can imagine, the rate of mortality is very high given these cruelly taxing and unsanitary conditions. According to a report by the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, for every 700,000 hens in a modern egg facility, 1,500 birds die each and every week in their cages.
Inside ISE-America's Cecilton facility, we saw dozens of dead animals still trapped in the unyielding battery cages, forcing their former cellmates to eat, sleep, and exist in the immediate presence of their decomposing bodies.
An all-too-common sight: immobilized and left to die.
After freeing her head, immobilized in the bars of the battery cage, we quickly realized that both of her legs were also caught.
Rose, one of the eight rescued hens, was stuck in the bars separating two cages.
This hen's head was stuck underneath the feeding rail, trapping her without access to food or water.
Rose, one of the eight rescued hens, was stuck in the bars separating two cages.
This hen's head was stuck underneath the feeding rail, trapping her without access to food or water.
There is absolutely no federal legislation that protects these hens. In fact, according to the definition of "animal" as written in the federal Animal Welfare Act, hens are not even considered to be animals.
But they are. They are sentient individuals—as are we—who feel pain, have desires, and have a right to live free of exploitation.
A dehydrated hen enjoys a drink of fresh water.
The European Union has already banned battery cages because of their inherent cruelty, and a recent Zogby poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of standard egg industry practices, including confining birds in battery cages.
We call on Americans to take a stand against animal cruelty by refusing to buy eggs.
And we call on our government to stop ignoring the plight of factory-farmed animals.
Banning battery cages in the United States is the first step to eradicating the view of animals as mere commodities, a view that has led to enormous and unconscionable suffering.
Expert Statement by Veterinarian Dr. Eric Dunayer
"The conditions revealed by the videotape [provided by Compassion Over Killing] impose extreme physical and psychological deprivation. Prevented from engaging in normal chicken activities such as dustbathing, foraging, and sunbathing, the hens appear listless and dazed … I have no doubt that these hens suffer terribly under such conditions. Keeping hens in battery cages is unquestionably cruel."
—Eric Dunayer, D.V.M.
Expert Statement by Veterinarian Dr. Suzanne Cliver
"I reviewed a videotape [provided by Compassion Over Killing] of hens kept in a particular battery cage egg facility … There is inherent cruelty in any battery cage facility due to overcrowding of hens … The hens were dull, lifeless, and many appeared near death. Their wings, feet, and beaks were often trapped in the wires, allowing them to die in positions of extreme pain … Battery cage egg facilities never provide hens with a humane existence. They are designed so that the hens are overcrowded and unable to make normal postural and positional changes. In addition, the wire flooring is very painful for their feet. It is essentially a prison-like situation for their entire lives … It is as if these hens had been left to die unattended. Their deprivation and suffering is without question."
—Suzanne Cliver, D.V.M.
From the investigators…
Choosing the eight hens who would be saved secured in my mind more strongly than ever that nearly 800,000 beings had been sentenced to inevitable torture and death. That is a reality too large for anyone to comprehend. —Suzanne McMillan
Each time I went home after a night of documenting, I felt the softness of my bed and thought of the hens at ISE who will never get to feel such a comfort that I'd previously taken for granted … My greatest regret is that we were only able to secure homes for eight of them. —Paul Shapiro
Seeing the normally strong and proud hens crammed inside battery cages, fighting for their lives, was like nothing I've ever experienced. The unspeakable cruelty inflicted upon those and countless other hens must end. —Lance Morosini
As I carried away two hens from the death chamber known as ISE-America, I tried to feel any sense of happiness or peace. But, the only thought racing through my head—and haunting me to this day—is knowing that 800,000 animals are still trapped, exploited, and dying inside those walls at the hands of the egg industry and its supporters. —Miyun Park
