The day that battery farms are obliterated will be such an amazing day, until then we have to suffer news reports like the one below. It is possible to take heart from enlightened countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark that all have moved or are in the process of moving to totally banning battery cages..

Update: Pennsylvania Court Finds that Animal Abuse on Egg Factory Farm is Legal

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An Injustice for Battery Hens

During November and December 2005, a COK investigator was employed at Esbenshade Farms in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.

The video footage was then presented to a state certified humane officer.

In January 2006, the officer charged the owner and manager of this egg
factory each with a total of 70 counts of criminal animal cruelty.

Despite the clear evidence of cruelty, in June 2007, the court found the
defendants “not guilty.”

Please watch this video and decide for yourself. Is this something you’re
willing to support?

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Acquittal in Cruelty Case Further Demonstrates that the Foxes Are Guarding the Factory Farm Henhouse

On June 1, 2007, a Lancaster County judge acquitted a Pennsylvania egg factory farm owner and manager of animal cruelty charges, essentially re-writing state cruelty law to find that abuse is perfectly legal as long as it is committed against farmed animals.

“This ruling reveals that—under this judge’s opinion—farm animals in Pennsylvania have no legal protection from the horrific conditions that were clearly documented inside this egg factory farm” stated Erica Meier, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Compassion Over Killing (COK). “This court may have acquitted these two defendants, but the court of public opinion is certainly turning against the egg industry and its cruel practices.”

The verdict was handed down after a trial in which the court was presented with undercover video evidence revealing appalling conditions for hens in the facility. The footage was gathered by a COK investigator who was employed at Esbenshade in late 2005, then presented to Pennsylvania-certified humane officer Johnna Seeton of the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network (PLAN) who subsequently filed 70 counts of criminal animal cruelty against the owner and manager of the farm. See Background section below for more detail.

According to COK’s general counsel Cheryl Leahy, “If these animals had been dogs or cats, there’s little doubt this case would have resulted in a conviction. There is a clear double standard here, and that hypocrisy is troubling.”

Read COK’s press release on the court’s ruling.

Background

From November 30 to December 9, 2005, an investigator affiliated with Compassion Over Killing worked undercover at Esbenshade Farms, one of the nation’s top egg producers, located in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. While there, he documented appalling conditions for hundreds of thousands of hens including:

• birds overcrowded in wire cages so small, they cannot spread their wings,
• hens left to suffer from untreated illnesses or injuries,
• birds with their wings, legs, or feet entangled in the wires of cages, unable to access food or water,
• injured or dying birds removed from their cages and left in the aisles without access to food or water,
• birds impaled on the wires of the cages with many found already dead as a result of the painful immobilization, and
• hens living in cages amongst decomposing bodies of other birds.

To learn more about the investigation:

Visit our photo gallery		Read the investigator’s log notes		Review expert statements

Criminal Charges Filed

COK presented the video footage to a Lancaster County humane officer who agreed that the conditions for hens at this factory farm are cruel and inhumane. As a result of the video documentation and other evidence, the owner of Esbenshade Farms and the manager of the facility in Mount Joy were each charged with 35 counts of criminal animal cruelty. Read more about this investigation and the charges filed as reported in a feature article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Case Goes to Court

The criminal trial against the owner and manager of Esbenshade Farms started on April 18, 2006, during which the defense’s motion to suppress COK’s video evidence was denied.

The trial continued on August 7, 2006, and resumed again on March 1, 2007.

On March 2, the defense’s motion for acquittal was denied.

Visit our Press Room for media coverage of this case.

Esbenshade and the Egg Industry

Esbenshade Farms does not even participate in the United Egg Producers’ (UEP) voluntary certification program, which sets forth the absolute barest of minimum guidelines for laying hen husbandry. While these guidelines still permit a wide variety of abuses, the fact that Esbenshade Farms will not even agree to follow them says a lot about the company. In fact, more than 80 percent of the egg industry participates in the UEP’s program.

Esbenshade Farms is Pennsylvania’s third-largest egg producer operating three egg factory farms, which house a total of 2.25 million hens in battery cages. At the facility in Mount Joy, the investigator was one of four workers monitoring seven sheds in which an estimated 600,000 battery hens are confined. In other words, each worker is responsible for the care of approximately 150,000 birds each day. To make matters worse, the cages at this facility are so dilapidated that countless birds become injured or imapaled on loose wires, preventing them from accessing food or water. Many die as a result of these debilitating conditions.

Taking Action

Choose Egg-Free Foods: The best way each of us can help laying hens is to leave their eggs out of our shopping carts. Get free eggless recipes and/or order your free Vegetarian Starter Guide today!

Another week another story of the horrendous torture of chickens.

During an undercover investigation at a KFC “Supplier of the Year” slaughterhouse in Butterfield, Missouri—owned by George’s, Inc.—it was documented that live birds were being thrown by workers and crushed by metal dumping machines.

Birds were often impaled by mangled transport cages, and workers were instructed to simply yank them out when this happened; PETA’s investigator saw workers doing this and found dismembered limbs left behind in cages after the birds had been removed. Birds also got stuck in the spring-loaded doors of the cages, and workers whacked them with metal poles in order to push the doors open, sometimes impaling live birds. One morning, PETA’s investigator saw roughly 50 “red birds”—the ones who are scalded to death in defeathering tanks while they’re still conscious.

In contrast to the horrors of the previous post about intensive duck rearing, here is a video of a happier duck outing.

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Dooby Duck’s Duck Truck

Mental 80s kids tv show where a bunch of puppets perform chart tunes.

Found this on an old VHS tape.

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Ducks…most people tend to think of them as a distraction at the pond or as a ‘treat’ when going for a meal out without putting the two ideas together, but behind that portion of meat on the plate lies a wholeload of suffering.

Ducks Out of Water

Through undercover filming and careful research Viva! has exposed what the producers and the retailers don’t want you to know – what really goes on down on the factory farm.  Viva! has filmed squalid conditions, diseased and injured ducks.  We have exposed how these aquatic, wild birds are denied access to water for swimming or preening. How they are killed at just seven weeks old and how they never even see their mothers.  Many people still don’t know that ducks are even factory farmed – let alone the fact that 19 million are slaughtered in the UK each year.

These ducklings will never know their mothers

During our long running campaign to highlight the suffering of factory farmed ducks Viva! investigators have visited almost all the major producers in Britain (which supply British supermarkets). In one unit, where we filmed this year, we saw thousands of adorable, yellow fluffy ducklings – but without their mothers to protect them, to teach them how to swim, what to eat, how to preen. In these places no one cares. These birds are to be killed for the growing market in duck meat and, like every other ‘new meat’, it is hailed as the healthy choice. But is it?

Water is life for ducks – but not on today’s factory farms

Viva! is reinvigorating its national campaign to expose how ducks are reared for meat. And we need your support. Almost all duck meat comes from factory farmed birds. Our footage shows they are crammed into huge sheds on concrete and given dry pelleted food. These are largely aquatic animals – they are meant to eat, swim, dive, clean and play in water – and yet they never see it, except in their drinkers. One of the main breeders of ducks in Britain has even added an enzyme to the feed of the ducks to reduce the amount of water they drink! Why? Because ducks like to splash the water around and over their bodies but this causes ammonia to build up in factory farm sheds…

No doubt like me, you’ve spent many happy days watching ducks on your local river or pond. You’ll have seen that these inquisitive animals spend lots of time preening. It is vital to ducks’ health that they can immerse themselves in water. At the very least, ducks should be able to dip their heads under. But in intensive farms, limited water supply makes this impossible, leading to poor feathers, difficulty in keeping warm, eye problems and even blindness.

Water is so restricted, many ducks develop dirt encrusted eyes – some even go blind

As part of our investigation, we went back to the duck farms five weeks later. The ducklings were already fully grown, white feathered, beautiful but dejected birds. The sight of thousands of ducks waddling through excreta around a dark shed, with no way to escape and nothing to do was dreadful. Some could barely walk, others had fallen on their backs and hadn’t been able to turn back over – they died a horrible, stressful death.

These poor birds have been bred from the wild mallard. The Council of Europe has ruled that farmed birds are essentially wild, and despite what factory farmers claim, they ‘retain many biological characteristics of their wild ancestors’. In the wild, mallards are mainly aquatic and social, living in large flocks in autumn and winter but in pairs in spring and summer. The female lays about eight eggs, two to three times a year. The ducklings learn from their mother – even their downy feathers are oiled by her. She teaches them what to eat – seeds, plants, insects and worms. They forage on land but eat mainly in water by dabbling their beak along the surface straining out plankton.

Mother ducks have been bred to produce 100 per cent more ducklings than five years ago. Cherry Valley say that they have produced a ‘superduck’ which lays up to 275 eggs a year – ten times what she has evolved to lay. This unnaturally high output of eggs causes a disease – egg peritonitis – that is the main cause of death in laying ducks. The duck’s ovaries become inflamed and the reproductive tracts rupture causing agony.

Wild birds fly, swim, dive and walk – however, the farmed birds are bred to be heavy. They may be unable to fly, have difficulty in walking and are prone to leg disorders. All this in a seven week life. The natural life-span of a duck is 15 years. And what of their death? They are usually hung upside down on a conveyor system, causing great pain to birds which may already have broken legs or injuries. Their heads are then supposed to be dipped into an electrical waterbath. However, both the Council of Europe and Bristol University have shown that the majority of ducks are not stunned properly – and are knifed fully conscious.

At just seven weeks old, 19 million ducks are slaughtered in the UK for the supermarket and restaurant trade

Sales of duck are not just confined to the supermarkets. Sadly, the most popular dish in British Chinese restaurants is ‘Crispy Duck’. Whilst some duck for the restaurant trade is imported from abroad, most of it comes from the same factory farms that supply the main supermarkets in the UK. 

Viva!’s Ducks Out of Water campaign has already had outstanding success – a few years ago, we shamed every supermarket chain in the UK into ceasing the sale of ducks that were maimed by the cruel practice of debeaking. Read more about the Ducks Out of Water campaign history here.

Please support our work and find out how you can help us get Britain’s favourite bird out of the factory farm and back on the pond!

For more information on the factory farming of ducks in the UK, read Viva!’s in-depth on-line report Ducks Out of Water [updated for 2006]

The EU lays down the law and states to what degree of misery the most abused animal on the planet gets to live its short sad life.

New rules to improve the welfare of broilers have been approved under a “political agreement” by EU ministers, making it likely that the legislation will be in place by mid-year.

The directive sets a maximum stocking density – 33kg of live animals per square metre – for intensively reared chickens. This can rise to 39kg if extra welfare measures are taken, such as the installation of ventilation systems, which keep the ammonia, CO2 temperature and humidity levels within strict limits.

Ministers also agreed that if exceptionally high welfare standards were met over a continual period, the stocking density could be further increased by 3kg per square metre. At present there is no EU legislation covering space for broilers and the new directive, which follows a surge of public demand across Europe for action, will therefore have a pronounced effect.

In other areas, the new directive stipulates that lighting in broiler sheds must include minimum periods of darkness to allow chickens to rest, fresh litter must be permanently available and proper ventilation must be in place.

Markos Kyprianou, EU commissioner for health and consumer protection, said the Commission would prepare a report on the possible introduction of specific welfare labelling for chicken meat, allowing operators who met high standards to benefit competitively.

More meat advert tie-ins. This time Bernard Matthews associating themselves with Spiderman. Or to put it another way, associating themseleves with happy childhood memories and becoming a lifelong comfort food. Children (and adults too) should be taken to intensive farming sheds and abbatoirs so as to learn to associate turkey with suffering and horror.

Bernard Matthews ‘brand refresh’ programme is kicking off with an advertising campaign tied in with the UK release of Spider Man 3.

For a four week period from 16 April, the TV campaign will tie in with Bernard Matthews’ Superfood for Superheroes on-pack promotion, which runs across the company’s core cooked meat and frozen family products throughout April and May.

Opening with the line “get your superheroes ready for action”, the 10-second commercial incorporates footage of Spider Man swinging across the Manhattan skyline plus accompanying music.

The voiceover details promotional prizes of family trips to New York and urges viewers to ‘Grab a pack in store today!’

Matthew Pullen, Bernard Matthews’ marketing director, said: “The tie in with superhero Spider Man underlines turkey’s supermeat credentials and we are very excited about working with such a major property.

“Spider Man has huge appeal for our target family market and will guarantee major awareness of our promotion and drive trial of our improved products.

How turkey became a fast food

By Megan Lane and Jonathan Duffy BBC News Magazine

Time was when turkey was rare; a seasonal treat. These days you are as likely to find it bulking out briny hot dogs or pet food, as come across it at Christmas lunch.

The grisly fate of the 160,000 turkeys gassed at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk this week is the latest regrettable twist in the history of the bird.

Even its name derives from a cock up - 16th Century Europeans confused the bird with the guinea fowl, which had recently been introduced to Europe by the Turkish.

By the 19th Century, however, turkey had an esteemed culinary status in the UK, when it was beloved of the upper and middle classes as a quality food, says food historian Ivan Day.

Not just for Christmas

Fast-forward a century or so, and it has become as unremarkable as beans on toast, and every bit as cheap.

From pre-prepared oven-ready steaks to frozen breaded drumsticks, turkey is a staple of many a modern diet. In its mechanically-recovered form, it even crops up in such culinary delights as gravy powder, pet food, diet chicken curry and tinned mini hot dogs.

A popular variety of novelty luncheon sausage uses turkey to render the face of a children’s cartoon character.

Today, almost half the flesh consumed in the UK is poultry, and turkey accounts for 6% of the meat market as a whole. UK breeders reared more than 17 million turkeys for our consumption last year.

In its unprocessed state, turkey was the only meat to make it onto an influential list of 14 “superfoods” to eat for health and vitality (along with blueberries, broccoli and walnuts). And with meat high in protein and low in fat, it’s a favourite with followers of the Atkins, Zone, GI and South Beach diets.

However, the Turkey Twizzler, a legend in its own lunchtime after it became the focus of a campaign to buck up school nutrition standards, is no more. The outcry was too much and even Bernard Matthews, whose company made the product, admitted its “nutritional value wasn’t fantastic”.

Meet the ancestors

Such economies come at a price, though. Today’s top-heavy variety of factory farmed turkey - with its overdeveloped breasts bred for more lean meat - would struggle to recognise its native American forbears.

SALES OF BRITISH TURKEY Whole birds +2.3% £29m Mixed cuts +177% £4m Steaks +173% £7m Mince +11.8 £8m Breasts -7.3% £54m Mini-fillets -4.3% £7m Diced -4.9% £11.5m British Poultry Council figures How turkey farms work

The first turkeys brought back to Europe from North America in the early 16th Century were “scrawnier, with browner, gamier flesh” than today’s, says Mr Day. Farmers in East Anglia set to work on cross-breeding it, and some time later exported the plumper result back across the Atlantic.

By the 19th Century, turkey had become the Christmas dinner of choice and a not uncommon fixture on grand country house menus. Yet the privations of two world wars meant that by the mid-20th Century it, along with chicken, was in seriously short supply.

But turkey had some important factors in its favour, says Mr Day. Easy to rear, particularly, when compared to goose, indoors; cheap to feed and able to “put on a fantastic amount of weight quickly”, turkey lent itself well to the emerging techniques of factory farming.

Step forward Bernard Matthews, the prime mover in democratising this previously elitist food.

“Everyone remembers his “bootiful” ads. He brought turkey to a wider audience, not just the Christmas market,” says Richard Griffiths, of the British Poultry Council.

Bernard Matthews talking turkey

Says Ivan Day: “Turkeys became the protein factories of the 1960s and 70s. Breeders tried to develop new strains to put on more breast meat.”

Matthews’ sealed his place in every harassed housewife’s heart with the launch of his first breaded product - Crispy Crumb Turkey Steaks - in 1982. Today, 2.7 million of the eight million turkeys devoured at Christmas in the UK are from his farms; other products include “turkey ham” for sandwiches, novelty dinosaur-shaped nuggets and, at the posher end of the scale, marinated fillets.

But blazing a trail before Mr Matthews was US food scientist Robert Baker, who transformed the way we eat poultry by devising products that fed the post-World War II demand for convenience food (and used parts of birds that otherwise would go to waste). He patented his chicken nugget recipe in the 1950s, and invented the aforementioned “turkey ham”. Today, 40% of poultry sales involve processed meat.

Staple ingredient

Yet to food writer Joanna Blythman, turkey’s triumph tells a wider, worrying story about the UK public’s attitude to food.

Demand for free-range is on the up

“Turkey is a kind of iconic food and symbolic of what’s gone wrong with British food production,” says Ms Blythman, author of Bad Food Britain: How A Nation Ruined Its Appetite.

“It’s easy to prepare, very low grade, intensively farmed food and very cheap. It has almost no taste without the additives they put in. The turkeys that provide this meat have hugely overdeveloped breasts and are a travesty of what a turkey should be.”

There are signs, however, of more traditional turkey trends resurfacing. Sales of organic, free-range birds have rocketed, and in the US, so-called Heritage Turkeys - tastier, traditional breeds - are making a comeback.

But these birds are almost exclusively reared for the festive season, be it Christmas or Thanksgiving. Those eaten year-round are, by and large, factory-farmed turkeys. While sales of UK-reared turkeys are down from the early 1990s peak of 30m a year, Mr Griffiths says this is because of an increase in imported turkey meat - also likely to be intensively-reared - rather than a drop in consumption.

Previous bird flu scares haven’t dented poultry sales in this country. Now that H5N1 has come to these shores, only time will tell how sales of this now staple ingredient will hold up.