 |
Add to My Group
1
View Ratings |
Rate It
Why do we need Prop 2? Ask these Norco Ranch hens
By Martha Rosenberg (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Martha Rosenberg - Writer
When she swore, working against the November 4 California ballot initiative Proposition 2 that would outlaw battery egg cages, that "non-caged birds have more contact with their own droppings and are therefore at a higher risk of infecting their eggs" than caged birds, she did not expect videotaped images of blood and insect covered eggs from the farms she defends to be available for voters to make up their own minds.
LINK http://www.mercyforanimals.org/norco/
And when Reimers contends that caged hens' very ability to lay eggs proves their wellbeing since stressed "chickens quit laying eggs," she did not expect full color, videotaped footage of their bleeding, prolapsed vents to surface--showing how much pain the hens are actually in.
As the egg industry and agribusiness trot out "experts" to defend California's $337 million egg industry against Prop 2's humane changes, the diary of "Aaron," who worked at the Norco Ranch egg farm in Menifee, CA in August and September of this year stands in sharp contrast.
Sunday, 9/7/08
"I found a live hen with her body trapped under her cage's front wall and draped over the egg belt with eggs backing up against her head. I picked up the hen and took her to a worker, saying, 'She's not dead.' The worker immediately grabbed the hen by the head and spun her in circles for several seconds before throwing her on the concrete floor, where she gasped, twitched her legs, and convulsed for nearly two minutes."
Aaron was hired to maintain the egg conveyor belts in 11 barns at Norco Ranch in Menifee, CA for $8.50 an hour, 12 hours a day, six days a week with no overtime--one of the "jobs for working families" the egg industry boasts about.
His non English speaking coworkers remove manure--toxic with pink fly poison pellets--and depopulate spent hens in carbon dioxide chambers for considerably less an hour.
Thirty barns constitute Norco Ranch's Menifee facility holding 30,000 hens each. Two employees work seven barns; another is responsible for six barns.
Of course it is not pleasant to enter the mice and maggot infested 100 degree barns where you can't breathe without a face mask or hear without yelling thanks to the distress calls of panicked, packed birds.
But it is even less pleasant to live there.
Live hens in dead piles and failed "euthanasia," dying birds unable to get to food and water and decomposed hens on whom live ones stand are clearly seen in the video Aaron shot at Norco Ranch for Chicago-based Mercy For Animals.
While egg industry veterinarians work the news show circuit, no veterinarian care is given to laying hens like those in the video who suffer from orbital lesions occluding their eyes, debeaking mutilations hampering their eating and severe trauma around their cloacas or vents.
"Several of the video shots show birds suffering from what appears to be cloacal prolapse. The production of large eggs by small birds is one factor that may predispose laying hens to this condition," says researcher and animal welfare consultant Sara Shields upon viewing the Norco Ranch footage. 
1 | 2
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Author |
Contact Editor |
 View Authors' Articles |
$30.00
Number of pages: 88
Publisher: Food
by Food and Agriculture Organization
$5.00
Number of pages: 73
Publisher: Food
by Simon Tarsnane
$24.95
Lowest New Price $24.94
Number of pages: 277
Publisher: Hancock House Publishing
by Karrie Rose
Number of pages: 54
Publisher: Food
| 3 comments |
Want to post your own comment on this Article? 
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2009, OpEdNews |
