The Mepkin Abbey Monastery’s Case

Mepkin Abbey is a Christian (Trappist) monastery in South Carolina that runs an egg factory farm to make money. In January 2007, a PETA investigation found that the abbey’s hens endured constant abuse for almost two years before they were killed.

On December 20th, 2007  the news that the monks at Mepkin Abbey have decided to phase out their egg-production business over the next year and a half following pressure from PETA. According to the Associated Press, Mepkin's Father Stan Gumula said  that the focus on the monks' practices as a result of PETA's investigation has been too much of a distraction, and that they will be looking for a new industry to help meet their expenses.

Thanks to PETA these abuses are over!

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Summary of PETA’s Investigation Against Mepkin Abbey

PETA investigation found that the abbey’s hens endured constant abuse 24 hours per day, seven days per week for about  18 months—abuse so awful that it would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims.
Sadly, and for no scientifically tenable reason, South Carolina does not criminalize cruelty to chickens, although they feel pain and fear just as other animals do, understand sophisticated
intellectual concepts, learn from watching each other, demonstrate self control, worry about the future, and even have cultural knowledge that is passed from generation to generation. Dr. Chris Evans, who studies animal behavior and communication at Macquarie University in Australia, says, “As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys.”

While it is legal to abuse chickens in South Carolina, it is not legal to lie about it—which Mepkin Abbey does. PETA filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), State
Agriculture Department, and attorney general, urging actions to halt Mepkin Abbey’s lies. Mepkin Abbey’s Hens Endured Constant Agony
• At the hatcheries that supply Mepkin Abbey, male chicks—“worthless” because they don’t produce eggs or develop quickly enough to be sold as meat—were often suffocated in plastic bags, decapitated, crushed, or ground up while still alive.3 Those who survived (the ones who end up at the abbey) had the sensitive tips of their beaks cut off with a hot blade. This procedure,
performed without painkillers, not only permanently deprived the hens of the ability to engage in natural behaviors (chickens rely on the use of their beaks to explore their environment) but also caused chronic and acute pain that lasts for more than a month.4,5

At Mepkin Abbey, the monks crammed birds into tiny wire “battery cages” that were so small that the animals couldn’t even spread their wings. Their bones became weak and often break because the birds were unable to exercise them. They never saw sunlight, breathe fresh air, or do anything else that is natural and important to them.

Sick and injured hens were often left to suffer. PETA’s investigator observed two hens with broken legs who were removed from a cage by one of the monks and left to suffer on the floor of the barn for at least 45 minutes while the monk continued to perform routine chores.

When the hens’ bodies became so weak that they stop producing eggs, the abbey starved them using a technique called “feed-withdrawal forced molting” in order to shock them into another laying cycle (to increase their economic utility). This practice was so cruel that up to 5 percent of the hens died during the molt, and many of the surviving hens lost all their feathers and much of their body weight.

After every last egg had been squeezed from the birds, Mepkin Abbey ships its hens to gruesome slaughterhouses. There, the hens’ fragile—and possibly already broken—legs were snapped into tight metal shackles and the birds were immobilized (but not rendered insensible to pain) with electrified water. Next, the birds—still conscious but unable to move—had their throats cut open with a metal blade. Many missed the blade and end up at the next stage—the scalding-hot defeathering tank—while they were still able to feel pain.

Source: Peta