Wegmans still supports battery cage eggs
Wegmans still sells eggs from its former egg facility, where hens are crowded into tiny, barren cages, allowing each hen less than half a square foot of space. These animals are forced to live in their own waste and on top of the corpses of their cage-mates. A team of investigators from Compassionate Consumers found hens at Wegmans Egg Farm with severe infections and suffering from extreme dehydration. Some hens were trapped in the mesh of their cages, and others were drowning in liquid manure.The cruel battery cage system used to produce Wegmans brand eggs has been banned in the European Union, and many food service companies, universities, and national grocery chains such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats have pledged to no longer sell or use battery cage eggs. Please seek out alternatives to battery cage eggs, and ask Wegmans to work with The Humane Society of the United States to improve these inhumane conditions.
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In 2004, a team of investigators from Compassionate Consumers visited Wegmans Egg Farm in Wolcott, NY. The facility is the largest of its kind in New York State, housing 750,000 egg-laying hens. Investigators found hens subjected to egregiously inhumane conditions much like those documented at other large-scale egg farms across the United States.
CONFINEMENT
At Wegmans Egg Farm hens spend their entire lives in barren, wire cages called battery cages. Battery cages allow each chicken a floor space no bigger than a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Crowded conditions make it impossible for these animals to act out even their most basic natural behaviors. They cannot properly spread their wings, perch, dust-bathe or preen their feathers. Hens at Wegmans Egg Farm constantly stand on a wire mesh floor and barely have enough room to walk.
Housing chickens in this way is industry standard. Even though Wegmans claims to surpass this industry standard, it is simply not possible to house chickens humanely in battery cages. Battery cages have already been banned in the European Union. Unfortunately, in the U.S. there are few laws protecting farmed animals and even less protecting chickens and other birds. So it is up to the egg industry to regulate themself. And it is up to consumers to stop the cruel use of battery cages.
ILLNESS & INJURY
With less than 60 employees overseeing the 750,000 animals at Wegmans Egg Farm it is no wonder that individual birds are overlooked. Therefore, sick, injured and trapped hens are commonplace at large corporate egg farms like Wegmans. Trapped hens are unable to reach food or water, are trampled by cage-mates, and often die slowly of dehydration, strangulation or injury. Sick and injured hens are denied even the most basic veterinary care and are left to die.
DEATH & CORPSES
Sick, injured and trapped hens often die in their cages. Investigators found countless dead hens in many of the cages. These corpses were in various states of decay, many becoming a mess that has fused to the wire cage floor. Others become nothing but bones and feathers. Living hens are forced to live on these rotting corpses.
Angie's Story
A hen walks through the manure at Wegmans Egg Farm
In the sheds we entered at Wegman's Egg Farm, there were long manure pits below the rows of battery cages. Hens who manage to escape from the crowded battery cages often fall through into the pits below. Once there, they have no way to access food or water. Of the hens we found there, some had surrendered to a dark end, sinking into the murk and giving up. In such a terrible place, this reaction is hardly a surprise. Some of the hens, though, showed us that they had resolved to survive.
Angie was one of those hens. We saw her soon after entering the pits, slowly making her way along the top of a tall manure pile. Without hesitating, Melanie showed impressive balance and agility as she moved to scoop her up. Angie saw her coming and tried to scoot away quickly, but was hindered by the fact that her feet and legs were encased in solid dried manure. Only a couple of toenails were visible at the ends of her 'boots'.
Hens on their way to their new homes
Through the entire ride to her new home, Angie periodically stomped her muck-covered feet inside the plastic carrier. It sounded like someone rapping on a door, the manure on her feet was so hard. She backed up and stomped harder the first time I reached in to give her some water and food, then slowly inched forward to investigate the offerings. When she recognized the water, she drank all of it and seemed to look for more, so I opened the carrier again to add some. Again, she stomped, backed up, then came forward, but this time with a more confident movement toward the water and my hand. She drank, ate, then settled back into the corner.
Angie looked otherwise healthy
Her body condition was surprisingly good, considering where she had been. She didn't look terribly underweight and unlike most of the birds in the cages, she had very little feather loss. Other than the fact that she could barely walk because of the manure immobilizing her feet, she seemed to have taken care of herself very well in a very unlikely situation.
Her feet needed soaking to free up the manure . . .
When we reached the place that would be Angie's new home, she had to endure the unpleasant ordeal of having her feet cleaned off. Closer inspection revealed that the material cemented onto her would have to be soaked before it would come off. After soaking in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water, hoof trimmers and other tools had to be used in order to carefully cut the debris from her feet. After about fifteen minutes, Angie's feet and legs were her own again and she was ready to take her first steps. When she was released, she quickly righted herself and lifted her right leg to take a step, then froze.
. . . and horse hoof trimmers cut off the manure.
She seemed truly astonished, holding her foot in the air and bending her neck to inspect it carefully from all angles. After a very long moment, she began to lower it, ever so slowly, and placed her foot flat on the straw. She looked down again and almost lost her balance. After living with her 'boots' for so long, she didn't recognize the sensation of her foot on the ground, and no doubt had never felt a surface of clean straw with those feet, accustomed to the wire mesh floor of a battery cage. My heart welled up as I watched her find her balance and quicken her pace until she was running across the straw to rejoin the other hens.
Angie's first steps
We don't know how long she spent in the manure pits, but it obviously took a great deal of time to accumulate that much hardened manure on her feet. I wonder what all those days were like for her there, struggling through the quicksand of the manure pits, surviving because of her tenacious refusal to give up and die. I am so grateful for the message Angie brings about perseverance and personal strength. She is a beautiful soul, now spending her days pecking outside, dustbathing, and walking confidently on solid ground.
Phoenix's Story
Holding onto the wall, I carefully reached one leg down, feeling for a solid place to stand between the piles and puddles of putrid manure. I looked up at my hands; the beetles that covered the wall were beginning to crawl onto them. As I dropped to the floor, sinking into the muck, I looked into the dark abyss of the manure pits stretching out below the battery cages at Wegmans Egg Farm in Wolcott, NY.
The manure pits were dark and disgusting
The blackness was punctuated by white feathers drifting until they stuck on the tar-like surface of a wall, beam, or manure pile. I felt paralyzed momentarily, scanning the ground for a solid place to step and finding none. On every feather-covered pile of feces, there were solid masses of the shiny black beetles. There was no place to look away from the abhorrent scenery. The hot, dense air did nothing to ease my discomfort and the knowledge that I was inhaling chemicals like ammonia and methane didn't help either. Finally, I shifted my weight and tested a spot, stepped forward, and found myself ankle-deep. I realized that there was no easy way through. Adam, Melanie and I trudged toward the ladder leading up to the cage level, often stopping to free a foot from the gripping suction of the muck.
Phoenix sinks into the manure
Slight movement on the ground, more urgent than that of the amoeboid insect swarms, caught my eye. All that was visible was a hen's head and neck, weakly bobbing and stretching to keep her open beak from being submerged in a puddle of black ooze. Our careful footsteps were forgotten as Mel and I moved toward her. She barely moved as Mel squatted and carefully pulled her from the muck. She looked like an oil spill victim. Only her head and neck were distinguishable as parts of a chicken. Her feathers, wings, and legs were a single mass of sticky black glue. I poured some water into a container and extended it uselessly, then offered a few drops through a syringe. The hen didn't seem to notice. Her beak opened over and over, trying to pull in a breath that would not come. I felt my own throat grow tight and tears came to my eyes. I opened the door of a carrier and Mel eased her in backwards, laying her limp body inside.
Hours later, when we arrived back in Rochester, she still had not moved. Determined that she would rise from her would-be grave and survive to see a life of sunlight and open space, I had given her the name Phoenix. My assertions to her about her survival were met only with weakening gasps for breath. As I waited on hold with the emergency vet, I saw that her exhausted body had let go; that gasping beak had finally closed.
Sadly, Phoenix did not survive the ride home.
I looked at my hands as I hung up the phone, let them fall back to my lap. I was thankful that Phoenix had not disappeared into the manure pits at Wegmans Egg Farm. She held on long enough to share her story with me and with others who can help all the hens who were left behind. — Megan Cosgrove
Expert Opinions on Wegmans' Practices
“In no way can these living conditions meet the demands of a complex nervous system designed to form a multitude of memories and make complex decisions.”
—Lesley Rogers, Ph.D., on battery cages, author of The Development of Brain and Behaviour in the Chicken
Wegmans, as a member of United Egg Producers (UEP), tries to defend the inhumane practices at its egg facility as scientifically sound. Yet the company ignores credible, scientific research that suggests standard practices in the egg industry cause unnecessary animal suffering. These practices include crowding birds into barren cages with no opportunity to exhibit natural tendencies such as nesting, roosting, or dust bathing; starving birds to induce another laying cycle; and mutilating their beaks without painkiller.
Compiled on this page are relevant quotes from expert scientists and veterinarians, as well as The Humane Society of the United States. This collection of quotes was originally published at EggScam.com.
* Joy Mench, Ph.D.
* Ian Duncan, Ph.D.
* Lesley J. Rogers, Ph.D.
* Michael Baxter, Ph.D.
* Michael Appleby, Ph.D.
* Temple Grandin, Ph.D.
* Eric Dunayer, DVM
* Christopher Patterson, DVM
* The Humane Society of the United States
Joy Mench, Ph.D.
Dr. Mench on Battery Cages
(UEP guidelines, which Wegmans follows, recommend barren battery cages.)
Notes: In November Wegmans announced that it would be working with Dr. Mench over the next year and that she will, "examine [its] egg farm operation and make recommendations for improvement if necessary." Dr. Mench sat on the UEP’s advisory committee for its animal welfare guidelines, which recommend 67 square inches of cage space per bird for white laying hens, an amount of space Dr. Mench calls “meager”:
* “The recommended space allowance for laying hens in some countries is 60-80 square inches per hen, barely enough for the hen to turn around and not enough for her to perform normal comfort behaviors; however, many hens are allowed less than even that meager amount.”
* “Battery cages provide an inadequate environment for nesting, lacking both sites which fit these criteria [concealment and separation from other birds] as well as substrates for nest-building. Hens housed in battery cages display agitated pacing and escape behaviors which last for 2 to 4 hours prior to oviposition.”
* “A different decision about the minimum recommendation would have been reached had the committee given more weight to the information from the preference testing and use of space studies, since these indicate that hens need and want more space than 72 square inches.”
Dr. Mench on “Beak Trimming”
(Wegmans cuts off the tips of hens' beaks without painkiller.)
* “There is mounting evidence that beak trimming also results in behavioral and neurophysiological changes indicative of acute and chronic pain. … Both beak trimmed chicks and adults display difficulty in grasping and swallowing feed even when their pecking rates are high.”
Mench: “Chickens explore their environment with their beaks. They like to pick things up, and that’s their main way of exploring and touching and feeling things.”
NPR: “So, cutting off the beak is a big deal, if you’re a hen?”
Mench: “It’s definitely a big deal.”
Dr. Mench on Forced Molting
(Wegmans follows UEP guidelines, which do not prohibit forced molting.)
* “The bird is starved. Yes, the bird is starved. I don’t like to see hungry animals not being given food.”
* “Feed restriction and deprivation can thus lead to boredom and the development of stereotypies and vices.”
Ian Duncan, Ph.D.
Dr. Duncan on Battery Cages
(UEP guidelines, which Wegmans follows, recommend barren battery cages.)
* “Hens in battery cages are prevented from performing several natural behaviour patterns. … The biggest source of frustration is undoubtedly the lack of nesting opportunity.”
* “The lack of physical space may actually prevent them from adopting certain postures or performing particular behaviours.”
* “[T]he difficulty of inspecting cages means that the welfare of the birds is at some risk.”
* “The lack of space in battery cages reduces welfare by preventing hens from adopting certain postures—such as an erect posture with the head raised—and performing particular behaviors—such as wing-flapping.”
* “Battery cages for laying hens have been shown (by me and others) to cause extreme frustration particularly when the hen wants to lay an egg. Battery cages are being phased out in Europe and other more humane husbandry systems are being developed.”
Dr. Duncan on “Beak Trimming”
(Wegmans cuts off the tips of hens' beaks without painkiller.)
* “There is now good morphological, neurophysical, and behavioral evidence that beak trimming leads to both chronic and acute pain.”
* “[Beak trimming] has been shown (by me and by others) to cause both acute and chronic pain and should not be allowed to be carried out routinely. It has been banned in some European countries and they have shown that it is possible to keep hens without de-beaking them.”
Dr. Duncan on Forced Molting
(Wegmans follows UEP guidelines, which do not prohibit forced molting.)
* “[T]he evidence suggests that hens suffer enormously during forced molting.”
* “[Forced molting] is a barbaric practice which doubles mortality in the flock while it is going and leads to great suffering in all the hens involved.”
Lesley J. Rogers, Ph.D.
Dr. Rogers on Battery Cages
(UEP guidelines, which Wegmans follows, recommend barren battery cages.)
Referring to battery cages, Dr. Rogers writes:
* “In no way can these living conditions meet the demands of a complex nervous system designed to form a multitude of memories and make complex decisions.”
Dr. Rogers on Chickens
* “With increased knowledge of the behaviour and cognitive abilities of the chicken, has come the realization that the chicken is not an inferior species to be treated merely as a food source.”
Michael Baxter, Ph.D.
Dr. Baxter on Battery Cages
(UEP guidelines, which Wegmans follows, recommend barren battery cages.)
* “The space available in a battery cage does not allow hens even to stand still in the way they would in a more spacious environment. Some behaviours are completely inhibited by confinement in a cage causing a progressive accumulation of motivation to perform the behaviours.”
* “When crowded together this regulatory system breaks down and the hens appear to be in a chronic state of social stress, perpetually trying to get away from their cagemates, not able to express dominance relations by means of spacing and not even able to resolve social conflict by means of aggression.”
* “The frustration of nesting motivation is likely to cause significant suffering to the hen during the prelaying period every day.”
* “Hens without access to perches may have more welfare problems resulting from increased aggression, reduced bone strength, impaired foot condition and higher feather loss.”
* “The fact that hens are restricted from exercising to such an extent that they are unable to maintain the strength of their bones is probably the greatest single indictment of the battery cage. The increased incidence of bone breakage which results is a serious welfare insult.”
Michael Appleby, Ph.D.
Dr. Appleby on the UEP Guidelines
* “We believe the egg industry still has a long way to go before they can claim to be treating animals humanely. … The proposal put forth recognizes that animal welfare is a consideration, but it fails to address the worst abuses that are standard practice in the egg industry.”
Temple Grandin, Ph.D.
Dr. Grandin on the "Animal Care Certified" standards (which have recently been replaced with "United Egg Producers Certified"):
* “[Grandin] said the egg industry is improving, but the new standards are too weak.”
“Some of these people have forgotten a hen is a live animal,” Grandin said. “This is what happens when people get totally desensitized to suffering.”
Grandin said the industry is still held back by old-guard, animals-as-machines views that are standing in the way of more progressive approaches. She said in many cases, hens are still crammed so tight in cages they can't lie down.
Dr. Grandin on the Egg Industry
* “When I visited a large egg layer operation and saw old hens that had reached the end of their productive life, I was horrified. Egg layers bred for maximum egg production and the most efficient feed conversion were nervous wrecks that had beaten off half their feathers by constant flapping against the cage. …
“Some egg producers got rid of old hens by suffocating them in plastic bags or dumpsters. The more I learned about the egg industry the more disgusted I got. Some of the practices that had become “normal” for this industry were overt cruelty. Bad had become normal. Egg producers had become desensitized to suffering.
“There is a point where economics alone must not be the sole justification for an animal production practice. 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.”
Dr. Grandin on Male Chicks
(UEP guidelines, and Wegmans, are silent on male chicks.)
* “One of first things she did was tour a chicken hatchery. She asked a worker what he did with the boxes of cull baby chicks. She was told the worker who looked after them was on vacation.
* ‘Ya sure,’ I said. ‘I know what you’re doing with them and it’s going to stop,’” she said.
* “They were throwing live animals in the dumpster to get rid of them. I was going ‘What? They were doing what?’ Nobody would throw a live calf in a dumpster. These people forgot this is a live animal.”
Eric Dunayer, DVM
Dr. Dunayer on the UEP Guidelines
* “In the end, the UEP’s guidelines do little more than codify already present industry practices. The proposed increase in space allotted to each chicken is both insignificant and falls well short of the area a chicken needs to carry out her normal behaviors.”
Christopher Patterson, DVM
Dr. Patterson on the UEP Guidelines
* “The UEP’s attempt to address welfare concerns in laying flocks and to standardize husbandry practices is meager at best. Even though some useful recommendations are made, in most cases they are so vague and riddled with loopholes, that practically any egg producer could be “Animal Care Certified.” My biggest concern is how this certification program will mislead consumers into believing that they are buying eggs from producers that treat hens humanely.”
The Humane Society of the United States
* “The United Egg Producers is not tackling the systematic abuses within the industry that severely compromise the welfare of individual birds. … [The UEP guidelines] seem designed more to mollify consumers than to address the extreme animal welfare abuses that have become the norm in this industry.”
Former Wegmans Employees Speak Out
Source: Wegmanscruelty.com
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