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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2008 - 9:51:38 AM |
Despite the $9 million the egg industry spent to defeat California's Proposition 2 including a racist "egg immigration" scare campaign, more votes were cast for Prop 2 than 11 other propositions and even for Obama.
Proposition 2 banned battery cages used in egg production--file cabinet size wire cages which hold 4-7 hens who are unable to walk, fully stretch their wings and perch--as well as veal and gestation crates.
Seems the "science based" system the egg industry claims it uses is not what Californians saw when they looked at undercover videos of prolapsed, cannibalized hens on California farms. http://www.mercyforanimals.org/norco/.
Nor did the bloody, insect covered eggs resemble a "wholesome product."
Californians also did not believe anti Prop 2 veterinarian Nancy Reimers who made the talk show circuit on behalf of agribusiness when she said the very fact that hens were producing eggs proved they were healthy because stressed "chickens quit laying eggs."
And the anti Prop 2 arguments about loss of jobs, higher egg prices, diseased eggs and the risks to human health if birds were uncaged.
Still, agribusiness has responded to the defeat by circling the battery cages.
In a post Prop 2 interview on Cattlenetwork.com, Steven L. Kopperud, senior vice president of Policy Direction, Inc. says factory farmers must protect their "valuable, safe, sustainable, effective technologies [is there a joke coming?] that allow us to maintain and enhance animal care, provide consumers a quality product and allow us to make a living for ourselves and our families."
"Aaron," a humane investigator for Mercy For Animals had one such job making a living for himself and his family at the Menifee, CA based -Norco Ranch by maintaining the egg conveyor belts in 11 barns, 12 hours a day, six days a week for $8.50 an hour with no overtime.
His non English speaking coworkers earned even less to remove manure--toxic with pink fly poison pellets--and depopulate spent hens in carbon dioxide chambers.
Thirty barns constitute the Norco Ranch facility, says Aaron, with one employee assigned to from 180,000 to 330,000 chickens.
So much for "maintaining and enhancing animal care."
You can't breathe without a face mask in the mice and maggot infested 100 degree barns or hear without yelling when the birds are being depopulated says Aaron who kept a diary while he worked at Norco during August and September.
"This morning I saw that one of the barns was empty of birds and about 10 kill carts and 45 carbon dioxide containers were in the room. One kill cart was about ≤ full of dead hens, who had died inhaling the acidic, pungent CO2 gas. A worker told me that the birds were killed after about 1 year and 8 months in cages," writes Aaron.
"Another worker told me that he had found a live hen in a cage he was
cleaning. I told another worker about this hen and she explained that it was likely that the bird's leg was caught in the cage wire and no one bothered to dislodge her. I asked her what we should do with the bird, and she said to leave her there until she died."
When factory farms like the famous Chino, CA-based Hallmark Meat Company or Denny's supplier House of Raeford in North Carolina are confronted with video taken by undercover employees, they often accuse the documenters of tolerating or encouraging abuse by not reporting it. (see: Swiftboating.)
But Aaron says he repeatedly pointed out suffering animals to other
employees and oblivious supervisors.
"I told one woman who had worked at Norco for 27 years that the birds had prolapsed egg vents which were bleeding and painful," Aaron told a reporter.
"You mean their insides are coming out?" she asked in Spanish, recounts Aaron, conveying she had never heard of the condition before. "You should kill them but first ask the supervisor."
The supervisor said to kill them if "it wasn't too many."
While the animal rights community is cheering the sunset of battery cages in California under Prop 2 with other states expected to follow, gassing of newborn male chicks and 18 month old "spent" hens will continue under non-caged egg production.
"To really address animal suffering you have to go vegan," says Aaron.
© 2004-2008 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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