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New England Raid Is New Blow To Egg Industry--in time for Easter
By Martha Rosenberg (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Martha Rosenberg - Writer
For eight hours law enforcement and agriculture officials entered the ammonia reeking barns on Plains Road where 3 million laying hens are stacked on top of each other over manure pits, gathering photos, shooting video and removing dead and living hens for evidence. The live hens had to be euthanized said state veterinarian, Don Hoenig.
Quality Egg of New England, registered to Mountain Hollow Farms, a division of Radlo Foods and the former infamous DeCoster Egg Farm produces 21 million eggs a week.
Yet to hear their customers tell it, not one of the eggs from the facility where live hens were kicked into manure pits and left to hang by their feet or suffocate in garbage cans went to their stores.
Eggs from the raided farm, stamped 1183 or 1203, were found at Shaw's, Hannaford and Wal-Mart by the Sun Journal yet Shaw's, Hannaford's and customer Stop & Shop denied doing business with Quality Eggs. Hello?
Even Eggland's Best--which has three dedicated barns at one Turner facility site where it feeds hens vegetarian food and whose truck can be seen during the raid--denies doing business with Quality Eggs! P.S. Its birds are just as abused.
Take one look at the video http://www.mercyforanimals.org/maine-eggs/ and photos click here captured by Mercy For Animals (MFA), a national animal protection group, from December 2008 through February 2009 and you'll see why the grocery stores are lying.
Barely live birds, their beaks oozing, limbs useless and unable to hold their heads up are kept alive to lay one more "incredible, edible" egg for Quality Egg factory farmers. Oblivious, $7.25-an-hour workers twist hens' necks in incomplete "euthanasia," casting them aside to flap on the floor in the death sequelae which is painful to watch.
Nor is the diary of the MFA investigator upon whose evidence the Department of Agriculture's raid was based, pretty.
"A hen's head and wing were trapped under the cage's front wall. One of her legs was stretched out and would not move or bend. She had a gash on her right side, leaving the skin split open and mostly yellow inside. A gash on her left side was red from fresh blood with a layer of dust partially covering the wound," writes the investigator. "Another live hen, also trapped under her cage's front wall, had the side of her face on a moving egg belt. I saw that the side of her face, including her eye, was encrusted in what appeared to be egg yolk and dust."
Even point and click bloggers were turned off. "Seeing how awful these hens look. there hair falling out, and green stuff coming out of there eyes and nose. Are the eggs safe even to eat?" wrote Bob on the Sun Journal site. "I wouldnt think so." Say that.
But even as state vet Don Hoenig told a state agricultural committee workshop in Augusta that conditions were "deplorable, horrifying and upsetting,"-- the search warrant has been turned over to Franklin County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson as egg-laying hens are protected by Maine's animal cruelty laws--Quality Eggs Compliance Manager Bob Leclerc said shucks it wasn't that bad.
Not only was the situation "isolated incidents committed by a couple of employees," said Leclerc, "none of these incidents were ever brought to the attention of management before."
Au contraire. MFA video shows management briefed, repeatedly, about the ongoing animal mistreatment--they said to ignore it-- including Jay DeCoster, the owner's son. Oops.
Leclerc also noted that Quality Eggs adheres to United Egg Producer guidelines--which permit battery cages and other cruelty and are largely the reason California's Proposition 2 passed by such a large margin--and promised the egg farm will conduct is own investigation.
Maybe they'll discover they have 3 million hens packed together so tightly they can't move with no vet or humane care.
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Bizness
Sick by abacus (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 73 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 5, 2009 at 2:57:35 PM  (1+)
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Corporations
If corporations can not give even bad treatment to bio-life, but too often give only wretched treatment, to all else but itself and a handful of rich owners, who say "I did not do it, my corporation did it" and are legally empowered to do that ..... then why should these artificial constructs be allowed to exist? Humans made corporations and humans can unmake them. I would like to say to corporations ... "If you had to hurt something to make what you make then you can keep it" I am struggling to grow some of my own food so that that statement will be more than just words. by Theresa Paulfranz (23 articles, 1 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 372 comments [45 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 5, 2009 at 4:46:10 PM (2+)
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Corporation
T-shirt, stupid bloody tuesday, man you've been a naughty boy you let your face grow long. I am the egg sammich man. I am the egg sammich man. Goo goo ga joob. Who could have ever predicted the merchants would be selling Easter again? What will the be selling next, Christmas? El Predicto strikes again. Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive. by shadow dancer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1443 comments [162 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 5, 2009 at 8:32:41 PM (1+)
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When in doubt, deny, deny, deny...
Now, this would be an easy one & an opportunity we can use to our advantage. Instead of taking to the streets with pots and pans like the Argetinians did in the early 90s when faced with their own economic collapse, we Americans can all take to Wall Street with rotten eggs and dead chickens from Quality Eggs which could be used as projectiles. If that doesn't teach the Wall Street barons a lesson, it will at least leave them reeking like hell and with the unquestionable need to take a bath. by Trailing Begonia (4 articles, 224 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 996 comments [622 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Monday, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:02:59 AM (1+)
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Boycott Eggs - Stop Factory Farming System's Cruelty
Animal advocates, such as myself, are glad this brave disclosure by a courageous animal rights group is making waves in the horrid industrial factory farming system of egg and chickens production. Sadly, it exposes only ONE of thousands of unthinkable hell holes of animal cruelty that exists in industrial factory farming/animal production/slaughter. Chickens are probably the most abused of all, and thats saying a lot, in AgriBusiness. Until human beings - consumers- start showing compassion for the billions of animals who are subjected to unspeakable cruelty, misery, terror from birth until brutal death, WITH our pocket books ($$) - Cruelty will reign and be ignored by Dept of Agriculture, in the Profit-Driven Dungeons of animal production and slaughter. The suffering behind each egg you see in the grocery stores, is beyond moral and ethical comprehension. by Netanya (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments [26 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Apr 7, 2009 at 1:30:17 PM (1+)
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