Animal advocates look at ‘cage-free’ hens

Group: Video shows what life is like in freer environment.

After years of pressure from animal advocates, dozens of food companies have committed themselves to “cage-free” eggs produced by hens not living in the cramped quarters known as battery cages.

Now, however, some of those same advocates are turning their attention via video cameras on the farms where cage-free eggs are produced. Using some of the same tactics that drove food companies to move away from caged hens, the advocates are asking if conditions for cage-free chickens are much better.

Direct Action Everywhere, an all-volunteer animal advocacy group, has released a video of a stealth visit to a cage-free barn in California that produces eggs sold at Costco under its private label brand, Kirkland. The video shows dead birds on the floor and injured hens pecked by other chickens.

The video focuses on a hen that Direct Action rescued and named Ella. When the organization found her in the cage-free barn, she was struggling to pull herself up and had lost most of her feathers. Her back was covered in feces.

“There were birds rotting on the floor, and there was one dead bird that seemed to have lost its head,” said Wayne Hsiung, who helped make the video for the group, which is better known as DxE. “There were birds attacking birds, and the smell was horrible.”

The egg industry has long warned that hens living cagefree in aviary systems will experience higher mortality rates and more disease. Research by the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply, which is financed by egg producers and food companies, found “substantially worse” levels of aggression and cannibalism in cage-free systems, also known as aviary systems, compared with caged systems. It has also found more damage to the birds’ sternums.

“Consumers have an idyllic vision of what cage-free farming looks like,” Hsiung said. “They need to be shown the truth, which is that cagefree is far from humane.”

Yet, partly in response to graphic videos and reports about the conditions of caged chickens, consumers pressured companies including McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Costco to turn to cagefree eggs. Those companies have rushed to promise buying only cage-free eggs in the years to come, which has pushed egg producers to invest tens of millions of dollars in aviary systems. Many animal rights activists have applauded those commitments.

Direct Action, which mounts protests on the treatment of animals with a goal of ending meat consumption, decided to test these companies. The group bought a carton of cage-free eggs sold under Costco’s Kirkland and traced them back to Pleasant Valley Farms, an egg producer in Farmington, Calif.

Volunteers from Direct Action shot the video over several visits to the barns in late September and early October. Most, but not all, video was taken at night. The group did not seek permission to enter the farm, Hsiung said, but he argued that the group had not broken any laws because it had suspected animal cruelty and that gave it a right to enter the property.

Richard Jenkins, the owner of Pleasant Valley Farms, said Wednesday that he had no comment on the video. He said that he had taken video in the barn himself and that Costco was sending an auditor to have a look.

Craig Wilson, vice president for quality assurance and food safety at Costco, also declined to comment, saying he had not seen the video. More than a quarter of the eggs that Costco sells are cage-free, and Wilson said the company does regular audits of its suppliers.

Paul Shapiro, vice president for farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States, said that cage-free hen housing is without a doubt better than battery cages, though not without problems.

“DxE has a vegan agenda so it’s understandable it would want to point out flaws in a cage-free system,” Shapiro said.

He noted that an assessment by researchers in the Netherlands that ranked various types of hen housing for animal welfare on a scale of 0 to 10 gave aviary systems a 5.8, while cages were 0.

“With companies like Costco,” he said, “it’s better to welcome them for taking the first steps rather than punish them for not taking the last step.”

AP The egg industry has warned that hens living cagefree in aviary systems will have higher mortality rates.