What Happened in Winnipeg Should Be A Wake Up Call!
On April 1, 2021, workers at the Brady Municipal Landfill site in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, discovered a very disturbing scene . . .
Thousands upon thousands of dead, egg laying hens litter the Brady Landfill, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Note the dead pigs in the background. It is unclear where they came from and garnered no mention in media reports.
On April 1, 2021, workers at the Brady Municipal Landfill site in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, discovered a very disturbing scene: tens of thousands of dead, egg-laying hens. Treated like trash, their broken and fragile bodies had been dumped at the site by an area egg farm. However, there appeared to be movement among the mass of contorted bodies - some of the hens were still alive! Shocked, the workers called a local farm sanctuary to inform them of what they saw and in hopes of having these few remaining souls rescued. Sadly, this was not the first time this had happened.
Ethics
News of this atrocity got out and was first reported by CTV News Winnipeg. Interestingly, the focus of the news report was not necessarily about the thousands of dead hens rotting in the open air, it was about the few who survived and were found writhing amongst the carnage. Make no mistake, the fact that still-alive hens were left to die a slow, painful death is a horror unto itself, but no less were the thousands of innocent ‘spent-hens’ who were killed and dumped like garbage simply because they were no longer profitable.
Above is a photo gallery of images taken from the Brady Landfill, April 1, 2021. Photo credit: The Good Place Farm Sanctuary.
A spokesperson from the Winnipeg Humane Society interviewed by CTV News was quoted as saying that these birds, “were among thousands of euthanized hens that were dumped at the landfill”. Euthanized? The definition of euthanasia is as follows: it is the practice of intentionally ending life to relieve pain and suffering. These hens were not euthanized, they were killed (gassed) to ensure profitability for the egg farm. Commercial hens have been genetically manipulated to lay an excessive number of eggs in their abbreviated life span of approximately 18 months. Once they reach the end of their laying cycle, their exhausted bodies can no longer lay the quantity or quality of eggs for the farmer to keep housing and feeding them, and must make way for younger pullets who have reached egg laying maturity. Thus, egg farms will “de-flock” their barns and kill the spent-hens (an industry term) either through on-site killing or sending them to slaughter. The natural life expectancy of a rescued commercial hen can be anywhere from 4-8 years, as can be testified to by many farmed animal sanctuaries, or longer if their bodies do not succumb to the common illnesses afflicting commercial hens such as ovarian cancer, osteoporosis, egg-yolk peritonitis or other diseases. In nature, their wild cousins can live 10-12 years.
A photo of “Penny”, a spent-hen rescued from the manure pits at an egg farm in British Columbia, Canada. Photo credit: Geoff Regier
How Did This Happen?
We interviewed Jen from The Good Place Farm Sanctuary (GPFS) to learn details of what happened.
A dump truck carrying thousands, perhaps tens-of-thousands, of “spent hens” arrived from an area egg farm. They were dumped at this municipal landfill to ultimately be moved into a pit. Workers, as on previous occasions, saw movement among the dead pile. Six hens on top were still alive. Jen and one of her volunteers arrived at the scene. One of the hens died on site and they managed to rescue five others. They searched the pile hoping to find others. But given the pile was many feet high over a vast area, there were no doubt alive birds near or at the bottom that could not be saved.
Jen and her volunteer were haunted by the possibility that they might miss one. After a period of time, the five they rescued were driven to a local vet. One of the hens, in particular, was in bad shape - they named her “Pearl”. She didn’t make it. The remaining four did and most ended up at several other sanctuaries (see footnote below).
Jen managed to reach out to the provincial vet responsible for farmed animals in Manitoba. Jen learned that a company was contracted by farms throughout the province who would conduct the mass killing of these birds using a mobile CO2 gas chamber. According to sources, this issue of still-alive hens being dumped at landfills had happened multiple times dating back to at least 2020. There was an investigation that year over a similar incident and recommendations were made to improve methods to ensure no hen came out of the chambers alive. Clearly, the issue was never resolved. Sources informed Jen at GPFS that the same thing happened approximately four days later after this particular incident. Landfill workers have said they often dread the days hens come to the facility because they would routinely see the same thing, over and over and over again. (Note: it is our understanding that municipal workers at this landfill have been reprimanded and instructed not to speak to anyone in the future on matters such as this.)
One of the rescued hens. Source: The Good Place: Farm Rescue & Sanctuary
Jen also observed that the pile of discarded hens at the Brady Landfill were likely not caged birds, but free-range or free-run. Jen noted that these hens did not have curled feet which comes from living on a wire floor in a cage for up to a year-and-a-half, as most hens do in Canada. The few they rescued didn’t seem skittish or afraid of her and her volunteer and seemed adept to walking on the ground. Caged hens are unfamiliar and unaccustomed to walking on the ground or interacting with people.
Another one of the rescued hens. Source: The Good Place Farm Rescue & Sanctuary
The “Manitoba Egg Farmers said it was "devastated" to hear about the five hens found alive”. “Devastated”? Why because the farm and/or the hired company failed to kill the few who survived which made its way to news reports? The Manitoba Egg Farmers, and Canada’s egg industry in general, kills millions upon millions of spent hens every year in addition to an equal number of male chicks who are useless to the egg industry as they don’t lay eggs. The egg industry IS a slaughter industry no different than meat or dairy production.
And herein lies the issue as it relates to the exploitation of egg laying hens: some of us (certainly not the egg industry) are not necessarily shocked or saddened to learn of thousands being killed in a story like this, we are saddened to learn that some were still alive. Think about this for a moment: is our empathy reserved largely for the suffering of those still alive, while ignoring the suffering of all those who were once confined and condemned to lay only to be killed and discarded like trash? Are not all the dead hens in this story entitled to the same moral concern as the ones found alive? Should we not be outraged and sickened by the massive dead pile? Absolutely!
Manure pits beneath the stacks of battery cages on an egg farm in British Columbia, Canada. Photo credit: Geoff Regier
Disease
A live market in New York City. Click on photo to enlarge.
In the sober new reality of global pandemics, our world needs to take a very hard look at the risk factors of animal agriculture and, in this case, the egg industry. Avian and swine flu, antibiotic resistance, zoonotic diseases such as SARS, MERS, AIDS, Ebola, and now Covid-19 are either caused directly, or indirectly, by intensive animal agriculture, stress imposed on natural ecosystems as a result of human encroachment, the harvesting of wildlife (ie. bush meat), and wet markets.
Yet despite all that we have learned, we still see scenes like the Brady Landfill playing out - thousands upon thousands of corpses from factory farms, rotting in the sun and out in the open? One thing most of us surely know from having been to a landfill or waste facility, there is a lot of wildlife that are attracted to these places: sea gulls, mice, rats, turkey vultures, raccoons, cats, dogs, and those predators preying on those scavenging the garbage. It is absolutely shocking that in a first world country like Canada, in the 21st century, dead farm animals would be dumped at a municipal landfill with the corpses of these animals free to come into contact with wildlife. And let’s not forget the municipal workers who are working at these facilities - what about the risk of exposure to them? All it takes is one pathogen to jump from animal to human. It has happened before and will, in all probability, happen again.
Propaganda
“We take accusations about animal cruelty very seriously”. How many times have you heard a PR person for an industry group say this every time a story emerges like this landfill story? Are they to be believed?
A screen shot from Manitoba Egg Farmers website depicts, ‘smiling, laughing’ people joyfully engaged in the business of egg production. A business that imposes untold misery and deprivation for the millions upon millions of hens exploited across Canada annually.
This is a standard reply designed to assuage public concern about animal welfare. The egg industry in Canada, and elsewhere, devote considerable sums of money to present an image of a clean, green and caring industry. They focus a lot of their efforts to remind consumers that they are feeding “you and your family” - sounds wholesome doesn’t it? Often they’ll recruit from their 1,200 members across Canada to profile a few of those who run and operate egg farms and portray them as ‘smiling, hard-working Canadians’ . . . . just like you! And if they are just like you they can’t be all bad, right? The focus of these carefully, crafted advertising campaigns are always on the family-run farms and invoke words like “community”, “care” and promote the healthful and nutritious aspects of eggs. Never do they focus on the hens and rarely show you inside an egg barn containing thousands of birds. And if they do, it is always of a barn that has been “de-flocked”, cleaned and re-populated with pullets who have just reached egg laying maturity and look clean, healthy and vibrant. Never will you see images or video of a barn 12-18 months afterwards. Why? Because it is not a pretty sight.
Generally speaking, the egg industry routinely anthropomorphizes animals when it comes to their consumer packaging and advertising campaigns by using cartoon depictions exhibiting human like qualities and facial expressions. This is true for Canada as it is for many countries around the world like the United States, United Kingdom, the European Union, etc. This is done in an effort to depict the industry as benign or harmless. Words like “Happy”, “Farm Fresh”, “Organic”, “Local” are ubiquitous.
The fact is, egg farming is a slaughter industry - it is violent and bloody. Male chicks are shredded alive shortly after hatching, females are often de-beaked, vaccinated against high risk diseases as a result of high stocking densities, endure many illnesses along the way, and then slaughtered after 18 months. Sometimes they are killed on site, dumped in a pit and buried, or incinerated.
Canada’s egg industry does not want you to know any of this because they know the average Canadian would be appalled at this kind of animal cruelty. Nonetheless, it is how commercial hatcheries, egg farmers, and the industry as a whole, can maximize profitability. And let’s be clear, all egg farming associations, whether provincial or federal, exist to promote the financial sustainability and profitability of their members first and foremost. And, part of that mandate, requires them to market and promote what they do in the most sanitized and favourable light possible.
The photo gallery below shows what the Egg Farmers of Canada publishes on their website and accompanying photos of the reality on Canadian egg farms:
Conclusion
Don’t trust anything the egg industry says. At least, view what they say with deep suspicion. It is in their interest to keep information like this out of view from Canadians. Even now, animal agriculture has succeeded in enacting legislation like Bill 156 in Ontario. And now Manitoba is considering the same thing - and you can be assured that the Manitoba Egg Farmers are in favour. Bill 156 in Ontario was lobbied for very hard by the animal agriculture sector. They’ll tell you it is about “protecting the food supply”, and ensuring that “food biosecurity” is a priority or by “protecting the property rights of farmers”. While this sounds reasonable, it is really about eliminating these kinds of videos and stories getting out. Why? Because it hurts business. And as the Premier of Ontario has often said, “Ontario is open for business”. It appears this is certainly true - but in the end, it is the animals who will pay the price.
But there is an alternative to all of this. There are so many cruelty-free, delicious and affordable egg-free alternatives available. And the great news is these alternatives are readily available in most grocery stores and health food stores across Canada! So please consider leaving eggs off your plate. Compassion is never the wrong thing.
And please consider contacting your area MP or MPP to tell them that you oppose any type of ag-gag legislation:
Search for your Canadian Member of Parliament.
Search for you Member of Provincial Parliament:
British Columbia
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Support Farm Sanctuaries Not Animal Farmers
If you would like to support the rescue of egg laying hens, please consider becoming a volunteer, or offering financial support to The Good Place Farm Sanctuary. And if you want to help one of the organizations who rescued the hens from the Brady Landfill, consider a donation to:
Rainbow Ranger Station (who rescued “Piper”)
Ledwich Family Farm (who took in “Karen”)
The Little Red Barn Sanctuary (who took in “Star”).
Or, consider supporting any number of farm sanctuaries around the world. Our “Resources” page has a very comprehensive list of sanctuaries, large and small, across the globe.
Footnote:
Dead pigs are visible in the background. Click on photo to enlarge.
We reached out to the Canadian Pork Council asking for comment on the dead pigs visible in the background of the photo of the pile of dead hens. A excerpt from their response is below.
To highlight, the CPC says, “mortalities are an unfortunate part of food production”. Unfortunate because they couldn’t profit from the ones that died? All animals face “mortality” in the food system. Mr. Ross the ED of the Canadian Pork Council goes on to say that the $83/tonne fee to dump dead pigs is the same as commercial garbage. We have reduced living beings to “commercial garbage” like tin cans, plastic containers, paper, and discarded cardboard.
““ . . . mortalities are an unfortunate part of food production . . . The disposal of mortalities is regulated by the Province of Manitoba. One approved option is to utilize the Brady Landfill . . . animal disposal arrangements must be made in advance and are subjected to an $83/tonne fee. This is the same fee applied to commercial garbage disposal.””
Nigel Osborne is the Executive Dir. of Egg-Truth. Nigel has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. Nigel's extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and it's social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production, expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year, and reveal the true impact of egg consumption on human health.
Open Letter To The Ontario Legislature (Canada)
“Psychology Today” published an article, dated June 16, 2020, by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado
Photo: Sabrina Desgagne, taken 2018, Fearman’s pork processing facility, Burlington, Ontario. Images like these will no longer be seen by the public as a result of Bill 156.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Dear Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament,
“Psychology Today” published an article, dated June 16, 2020, by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, regarding statements made by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Read here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202006/do-animals-think-or-feel
In particular, the OFA’s following statement to the Standing Committee on General Government regarding the Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act (Bill 156) as it relates to the cognitive ability of non-human animals:
"The concept of 'sentient beings' refers to beings with the power to reason and think. The term also implies beings with an awareness of their surroundings who respond to sensations, have cognitive thoughts and have the capacity to perceive and experience life subjectively. Feeling is a subjective state, available only to the animal feeling it. As animals and humans are built and function differently, it is unfair to automatically attribute the sensations experienced by humans to be the same as those experienced by animals. Humans have the ability to communicate their experiences, and what they feel. Since animals cannot communicate with us, there’s a huge assumption by animal activists that animals have emotional responses and the ability to reason and think, in the same way that humans do. We simply do not know if animals are capable of reasoning and cognitive thought, therefore we cannot attribute human qualities of reasoning and cognitive thought on animals as the activists would like."
Mr. Bekoff rightly expressed shock and dismay at the ludicrous nature of such an assertion. The sentient nature of non-human animals is not a debatable point. Read here “The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness”: https://www.egg-truth.com/egg-blog/2019/5/13/the-cambridge-declaration-on-consciousness
We understand that the OFA and its members have no interest in the public ever seeing how farmed animals are genetically manipulated, routinely mutilated, altered, confined, prodded, transported and slaughtered in Ontario – this wouldn’t be good for business.
We also understand that the OFA and its members have to assume a level of extreme, cognitive dissonance on these matters to assuage any moral culpability in their collective treatment of farmed animals.
The OFA is free to live in a universe where up is down, left is right and animals are not sentient. What is most outrageous is the OFA either knowingly and willingly lied to the standing committee, or were in possession of such a level of stupidity as to warrant them from being barred from making any submissions related to farmed animal welfare in future. Any credibility they may have had in the eyes of the public should be completely shattered.
Given taxpayers money is used to subsidize and help fund an organization that attempts to fool elected officials and the public by pretending they have some unique insight into the subject at hand, is of great offense and a colossal misallocation of government funds.
Bill 156 is transparent in what it is attempting to do – deny the public from scrutinizing how our food is produced. Bill 156 has nothing to do with safety. This was an industry driven agenda and we object to the OFA attempting to ‘hoodwink’ the standing committee, and thus the public. This is a classic example of regulatory capture and an affront to democracy, free speech and the public’s right to know. For those of you who supported this bill you have succeeded in concealing animal cruelty in our food system – history will judge you, and it won’t be kind.
We look forward to future court challenges on this Bill and it’s inevitable failure.
Regards,
Nigel Osborne, Executive Dir.
Egg-Truth.com
Nigel Osborne is the Executive Dir. of Egg-Truth. Nigel has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. Nigel's extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and it's social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production and expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year.
Balanced Perspectives
One of the many challenges of explaining to consumers the true nature of egg production, are stories that are disseminated in the media such as this.
Watch this brief interest story on one of the largest egg farms in Ontario, Canada (click image above).
One of the many challenges of explaining to consumers the true nature of egg production, are stories that are disseminated in the media such as this.
Not only does it promote the idea that egg production is benign, it also becomes the unwitting, and FREE, marketing arm of the egg industry’s public relations machine. Through their contrived nutrition studies and financial capacity (some of which is subsidized by taxpayers), the egg industry already has unrivaled access and reach to manipulate public perception through their marketing and advertising initiatives.
For our efforts, we can only respond to this video story by sending a letter to “viewer mail” on their website (see below). Hopefully, this will catch someone’s eye and forward to the journalist who did the story. And maybe in the future we will have an opportunity to provide another perspective and let the public decide.
Moral and social progress is dependent entirely upon information and the news media has an obligation to provide balanced perspectives. Their complicity in doing the work of a commercial enterprise is not what real journalism is supposed to do. This type of interest story clearly panders to the demographic of their audience which is, in large part, rural. We can only presume that this ingratiates their network to potential advertisers with whom their sales department will be eternally grateful.
Thus, another example of why news departments should never be a profit center for corporate owners and shareholders.
Nigel Osborne is the Executive Dir. of Egg-Truth. Nigel has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. Nigel's extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and it's social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production and expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year.
Stories of An Undercover Investigator
I am a former whistleblower who worked with Mercy For Animals. During my time undercover, I worked for Canadian egg barns.
"Emily" was a whistleblower for Mercy For Animals.
I am a former whistleblower who worked with Mercy For Animals. During my time undercover, I worked for Canadian egg barns.
The first egg barn I worked at was a pullet barn (pullets are young egg laying hens who have not yet started egg production). Baby chicks would live at the pullet farm from approx. 0-24 weeks, until they were ready to start egg production. Hatchery trucks would show up with crates of newly-hatched, day-old, de-beaked chicks; they would be unloaded off the trucks and transferred directly to battery cages. The chicks were so tiny we had to lay out newspaper over the bottom of the cages so they wouldn’t get caught in the wire, and each cage was stocked with about 45 chicks in each cage.
Typical pullet barns.
I remember how heartbreaking it felt to put these chicks into barren cages, where they would spend their entire, miserable lives. The chicks did not know what to make of these strange, foreign environments and many got tangled in the cage wire. Every day I walked the barns, I found birds trapped or mangled in the cage wire, or painfully run over by automatic feeders’ setup in the barn. Since the softest place to sleep in the cage was on top of the feed, many of these babies fell asleep in the feed troughs, and then got run over by the automatic feeders which moved up and down the barns. Some died instantly, and others had to be euthanized because they were mangled from being run over by the heavy factory equipment.
Pullet cages.
After the chicks were put into cages, mortality spiked for the first week. Over a 3-day period, I counted over 1,000 dead baby chicks.
Often injured or failing chicks will be dumped in garbage bags, dumpsters or incinerators.
Death did not come quickly, or painlessly, though. Careless farm workers smashed the heads of sick and injured chicks against hard objects to kill them; they used whatever surface was available, from buckets to feed troughs. Many times, this was done ineffectively and did not kill the chicks, it only mangled them. Sometimes, they were thrown into garbage bags to die while they were still alive and suffering. If the chicks were not killed properly, they would be thrown into an incinerator on the farm to slowly and painfully burn to death.
In one instance, I noticed the supervisor hadn’t correctly killed a chick. I immediately pointed this out to him, and then went to go do a job in another barn. When I got back I found out the chicks he was working with had been taken to the incinerator. I asked him if he had properly killed the chick and he just shrugged. The peeping of that chick still haunts me to this day, because I feel she was most likely thrown alive into the incinerator.
An injured baby chick tries to escape an incinerator. Photo credit: Anonymous for Animal Rights.
As the birds grew, we separated them into cages with fewer numbers, so eventually each cage was stocked with about 7-8 birds, which is standard in the egg industry. Each hen would have no more than a regular size piece of paper to live out her entire life. As someone who had always felt a deep connection with animals and had done rescue work with battery hens before becoming a whistleblower, it felt truly awful to be in these environments, witnessing so much suffering and cruelty on a daily basis.
A typical battery cage (Australia). Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Occasionally, chicks daringly escape their cages and have a chance to stretch their limbs; they would run around on the barn floors, sometimes in packs of 2 or 3. I would see them scurrying together across the barns, running as fast as they could – for a few moments, maybe they felt free. Eventually, workers caught them and put them back into cages, where there was no space to run around. As the chicks grew, the space in their cages shrunk, until there was barely enough room to stretch their wings.
While working at this egg barn, there was a pre-announced inspection by the provincial egg board. I watched as the inspector walked through a barn of 100,000 chicks in less than 10 minutes and then walked into the office to tell jokes with the barn staff.
A mother hen and her baby chicks.
After about a month of working in the pullet barn, it was time to say goodbye. I remember walking out of the pullet barn and looking back at the hens in cages one last time; I felt a profound sense of sadness that this would be their lives and everything they would ever know. They would never be free; they would never get a chance to feel the sun, walk on grass, be loved, or enjoy life; they were stuck in windowless barns, crammed into cages with no stimulation. When their egg production declined, they would be ripped out of their cages, crammed into transport crates, and mercilessly killed.
In nature, mother hens will sit on eggs until they hatch; she will even sing songs to her unborn chicks. When they hatch, she keeps them close under her wings and protects them. However, that is totally the opposite experience of chicks raised for the commercial egg industry, where they are treated as mere egg-producing machines.
Please, don’t support this animal abuse; the only chance to free hens and other animals from the inherent cruelty of the animal agricultural industry is for people to adopt a compassionate vegan diet. With so many amazing products and support groups available, it’s never been easier to be vegan. Your health, the environment, and most of all the animals, will thank you.
Egg Industry's Shocking Cruelty Exposed!
Animal rights activists in Canada have exposed shocking cruelty and abhorrent conditions on several egg farms in British Columbia, Canada. National media outlets have picked up on this story including CTV News and CBC News.
Animal rights activists in Canada have exposed shocking cruelty and abhorrent conditions on several egg farms in British Columbia. National media outlets have picked up on this story including CTV News and CBC News.
Egg-Truth was granted an interview with one of the animal rights activists involved in documenting conditions on these farms.
Interview with Jeff Rigear
ET: Good evening Jeff, thanks for agreeing to an interview.
Jeff: You're very welcome, my pleasure.
ET: What made you choose this particular farm or was it random?
Jeff: They were completely random. There were actually 3 farms involved. We wanted to get a good sample of the industry because, of course, every time the Canadian public gets a glimpse into the animal ag industry, whether it is egg farming or other types of animal agriculture, they’ll always say this is an isolated incident. So, we selected 3 farms, and all 3 were chosen randomly. There were hen’s dead or dying in the manure pits, dead or dying hens in the cages and in various forms of decay.
ET: So you found hens dead or dying in the manure pits of just one farm or all of them?
Jeff: All of them. Alive and dead in all three.
ET: How many birds do you estimate were in these sheds, roughly? 5, 10, 15,000?
Jeff: I estimate maybe around 20,000.
ET: Per shed?
Jeff: Yes, per barn.
ET: And how many of you were there that entered these facilities?
Jeff: There were up to four people including myself.
ET: From the media reports published thus far or the video that PETA has shared, is there anything that hasn’t been disclosed or documented that you’d like to make the public aware of?
Jeff: I’d want people to be aware that what you see in the videos and images is common practice. I’d want people to know that beyond hens being left to drown in their own excrement hens are dying in other excruciating ways even on the very best egg farms. For example, there were hens dying on these farms from prolapses or from being egg bound – this is not unique to the facilities we documented. I can only imagine how excruciating it would be to die like that. And I can tell you from experience this is extremely common for animals that have been genetically selected to lay 300+ eggs a year. So the issue goes far beyond one farm doing a poor job. The industry is just inherently cruel.
A hen suffering from a prolapse.
ET: And this is the constant refrain that we hear from the egg industry marketing boards and public relations people. They always frame these exposes as being an “isolated incident” that “this is the exception not the rule”, that they “have high standards” and they are “very disturbed and upset by what they’ve seen”. But when whistleblowers constantly choose facilities at random and consistently reveal these conditions without exception, it’s pretty hard to credibly use these excuses. How would you rate this facility relative to others you have been in?
Jeff: Average.
ET: Did the same company own these farms you went in to or were they separate entities?
Jeff: I believe they were separate entities; at least they appeared to be registered under different names. So I assume they all had different owners.
ET: Were these facilities battery cage facilities or enriched cage facilities?
Jeff: They were battery cages or what the industry calls “conventional”.
ET: Looking at those manure pits, how long do you think since they were last cleaned? There were picture of you standing next to 5’ and 6’ mounds of manure?
Image shows accumulated manure in pits are approximately five to six feet high.
Jeff: I feel I don’t have a good handle on how long it would take for what I saw to accumulate. I would guess a year perhaps, but I’m really not sure. I haven’t worked on an egg farm that long to know. I’ve been in lots of egg farms for shorter periods of time.
ET: Are the feces accumulating in these pits accumulating from just the bottom row of cages or is this also coming from those rows stacked on top as well. And if so, are the birds in the upper rows urinating or defecating on the birds below and eventually working its way to the pits?
Jeff: Partially they are. They’re called a-frame battery cages. They are kind of like a stair, so it partially overlaps the cage below. So a bird at the back of the cage may be getting some excrement and urine on them.
ET: How many rows of cages were there?
Jeff: I think there were at least 3 aisles with cages on either side.
ET: Stacked how many rows high?
Jeff: Three.
ET: There was a recent case in the U.S. where the FDA recalled millions of eggs due to a salmonella case from one particular farm. On this farm it was cited that the source of the salmonella was rodent and insect infestation and uncleanliness. From the pictures and video, these farms looked like there was quite an infestation of insects, was that in fact the case here and did you see rodents?
Egg-laying hens routinely endure painful injuries.
Jeff: Oh yeah, there was quite an infestation. It was teaming with maggots and other insects. Rodents were all over the place; you had to be careful not to step on them. It was crazy!
ET: And this was in the manure pits or up above in the barns themselves?
Jeff: Both.
ET: You had a mask and breathing apparatus on during your time in the barns?
Jeff: I did. Once, the breathing mask broke so I was not wearing one when I was at one of the farms. But most of us were wearing something.
ET: How bad was the ammonia in the barns, were there any monitors to keep track of the level of ammonia or toxic gases?
Jeff: I didn’t see any. However, I can tell you that the ammonia is so strong it makes your eyes water in the manure pit and up above where the hens are caged as well.
ET: How do you think the birds got trapped in the manure pits? Was it careless handling when the birds were loaded/unloaded in or out of the cages by workers or did they simply fall out somehow?
Jeff: Careless handling. With the farm that had the highest number of hens living in the manure pit, I believe, had been emptied by chicken catchers from, (according to CTV News), Elite Farm Services. However, some of the hens clearly had been down there before the chicken catchers came because there was a large accumulation of dried manure built up on their legs and feet. So I have to imagine, because there were 50-60 live birds down there that they would have escaped during handling when the catchers emptied the cages.
A dead hen left to decay inside a cage with still living hens.
ET: Do you know of any brands or retailers who carry the eggs harvested from these farms?
Jeff: No I don’t. I believe, however, there is only one egg packing plant here in B.C. called Golden Valley Eggs. I know the same owners of Gray Ridge farms in Ontario own it. When I worked in the packing plant in Ontario, for example, the eggs come from the farms and get sorted by size, quality and colour and go on to be sold in many places and under different brands. The same is true out here. So, it is quite possible these eggs end up virtually everywhere out west.
ET: So what you’re saying is that these farms you went in to supply the one packing facility that in turn distributes to a broad variety of brands and retailers?
Jeff: Yes.
ET: Has the BC SPCA or other law enforcement group interviewed you thus far?
Jeff: I filed the complaint. I initially made the call and submitted a witness statement. And I think on that basis they raided one of the farms owned by Jaedel Enterprises the same or next day. But there hasn’t been a formal witness interview yet.
ET: Are you worried about reprisals from anyone for being a whistleblower?
Jeff: No, not really.
ET: Describe the sensory experience of being in these sheds with 20,000 hens. It must have been deafening and the smell overwhelming?
Jeff: It’s loud; you can see the air is just full of particulate matter, mostly dried chicken excrement. The dust is airborne and really thick. There is a really powerful stench of ammonia. This is egg farming, this experience is exactly like the other farms I’ve worked in.
ET: Were the vents and air circulation systems working in the sheds to mitigate these gases and airborne particles?
Jeff: If they were, they weren’t working very well. However, they may not be on all the time so maybe they just weren’t on during the time I was in there. But if they were working, they weren’t doing a very good job.
ET: Jeff thanks for your time. We really appreciate it!
Jeff: Thank you!
Photo and images courtesy of: Jeff Rigear, PETA