But seriously, folks, forced "molting results in the need to add 40 to 50% fewer new hens each year," says UEP in its Animal Welfare Guidelines, 2006 edition. "This in turn results in significantly fewer spent hens that have to be handled, transported and slaughtered. Without molting a flock's life is usually terminated at about 75 to 80 weeks of age. Under the right economic conditions, the useful life of a flock may be extended to 110 weeks or longer through the judicious use of induced molting."
Of course UEP doesn't officially talk about how it gets rid of spent hens and unwanted male chicks.
But Dr. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University did after visiting large egg layer operations.
"Some egg producers got rid of old hens by suffocating them in plastic bags or dumpsters," says Grandin. "When the egg producers asked me if I wanted cheap eggs I replied, 'Would you want to buy a shirt if it was $5 cheaper and made by child slaves?' Hens are not human but research clearly shows that they feel pain and can suffer."
The monks at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina probably thought their "United Egg Producers Certified" designation meant something. After all, the trade group represents 85% of US egg producers and 180 egg farms. Can they all be complicit?
Little did they know UEP was stripped of its original designation--"Animal Care Certified"-- by the Federal Trade Commission in 2005 for the institutionalized cruelty it is now accused of.
It probably wasn't singing to the hens either.
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