Eggs, With a Side Order of Blood and Filth (Videos)

One of Canada’s largest egg producers is under fire for alleged cruelty to its chickens. According to The Huffington Post, a graphic video released last week shows horrendous conditions at the Gray Ridge Egg Farms facility in Listowel, Ontario. The footage was recorded earlier this year by an anonymous undercover investigator who works at farms and slaughterhouses.

From The Huffington Post:

“You’d see the dead rotting birds decomposed beyond recognition, just left in cages with hens still laying eggs that all go for human consumption.”

“You’d see birds with bleeding prolapses, extreme feather loss, and other serious afflictions, all of these birds denied proper veterinary care,” he alleged.

Many of the hens would get their legs trapped in the sides of the cages, unable to reach food or water, and would be trampled by other hens, he said in an interview.

Mike Walsh, vice-president of marketing for Gray Ridge Egg Farms, disputed the animal group’s video being filmed at his company.

“We are really struggling to recognize that as our barn,” he said in an interview with HuffPost Canada. “So it’s probably offered more questions to us than you have for us.”

He said battery cages are a common industry practice, but that no new ones were being built at Gray Ridge. … A 2006 study from Humane Society International that included Canadian researchers found that battery cages fostered “abnormal” behaviour including cannibalism.

90 percent of egg-laying hens live in battery cages.

Below is a video released by Mercy for Animals that shows the footage of the alleged abuse:

Here is another video, released last year by Mercy for Animals, that shows chickens at Maple Lodge Farms in Brampton, Ontario:

–Posted by Donald Kaufman.