Oral Statement by MFA investigator Amie Hafner Presented on Thursday, October 18, 2001 at the Mercy For Animals Press Conference at the Ohio Statehouse Atrium

Good Morning and thank you everyone for joining us. My name is Amie Hafner and I'm an investigator with Mercy For Animals, a not-for-profit Ohio grassroots animal-rights organization.

On August 8, 2001, Mercy For Animals, wrote to Ohio's two largest egg factory farms, Buckeye Egg Farm and Daylay Egg Farm. We requested a tour and expressed concern over the facilities treatment of hens. To this day, we have yet to receive responses from either facility.

When our requests were ignored, we were forced to investigate the factory farms on our own. Myself and four other MFA investigators began an extensive investigation. We made repeated nighttime visits over the course of the following month. In hundreds of photographs and hours of video, we documented many egregious acts of cruelty, neglect, and abuse.

At both facilities investigated, we discovered severe overcrowding and confinement, hens whom had become trapped in the wire of their cages, and dead birds left to slowly rot next to their cage mates. At Daylay, in a dumpster admits trash and hundreds of dead birds, a live hen was discovered. She was left to die a slow and agonizing death, breathing the stench of the decomposing corpse, which surrounded her.

Over 95% of hens raised for egg production in the United States are confined to tiny "battery cages" (long rows of wire cages holding an average of eight birds per cage). The millions of hens imprisoned at the two factories we investigated, Buckeye Egg Farm in LaRue, Ohio and Daylay Egg Farm in Raymond, Ohio, are confined to such cages.

Hens confined to battery cages live day in and day out without ever seeing the sun. The ability to walk freely, fully stretch their wings, or dust bathe, become impossible tasks. The battery cage frustrates every natural instinct. These naturally clean animals are reduced to living in the excrement of their cage mates.

Constant rubbing against the wire cages, and continuously being assaulted by the trampling of other hens, many hens become naked with feather loss.

Just one shed at Buckeye Egg Farm confines over 150,000 hens. Each cage is approximately 24 inches wide, 20 inches deep and 16 inches tall. With an average of eight hens per cage, each bird is allowed less than half a square foot of space, about 3/4 the area of a standard 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper.

Similar conditions of confinement and crowding exist at Daylay egg farm in Raymond. The sheds investigated confined 140,000 to 250,000 birds. The cages measure 20 inches wide, 17 to 20 inches deep and 17 inches tall. Sickness and disease are inherent problems in these, and all, factory farms where birds are forced to live in filth and extreme confinement. In an attempt to minimize costs, and maximize profit, even the sickest of hens are denied veterinary care. We found hens left to die a slow, and often agonizingly painful, death from sickness and injury.

Forcing a naturally physical bird to spend her life in a cramped and stationary position causes numerous health problems such as: muscle degeneration, poor blood circulation, osteoporosis, and foot and leg deformities. Numerous other health problems plague hens on factory farms. At Buckeye and Daylay, we found birds suffering from raging eye and sinus infections, mechanical feather damage, pasturela, paralysis, vitamin deficiency, enlarged vents, wing hemetones, and blindness.

At Buckeye Egg Farm, we found numerous birds that had been badly debeaked. Severe overcrowding reduces the hens to "cannibalistic" pecking. The egg industry combats this problem, not by giving the hens more space, but by taking a hot blade and cutting off part of the chicken's beak. Debeaking is an extremely painful process that is done without any painkillers.

At Buckeye Egg Farm and Daylay, we discovered many hens that had become trapped and immobilized when their bodies become lodged underneath the feeding trays or caught in the wire of the cages. Once trapped, it is nearly impossible for the hens to free themselves. With no access to food or water, trapped hens are at great risk of dying slowly from starvation or dehydration.

Premature death is a common occurrence on factory farms. We encountered many hens that had met a cruel and prolonged death when their bodies had become lodged underneath the feeding trays or trapped in the wire of the cages. With no escape, these trapped hens must endure the constant physical assault of being trampled by their cage mates. Other hens succumb to untreated sickness, disease, or injure.

Management, who have neither the time nor inclination to remove the corpses, overlooks numerous dead birds. At both Buckeye Egg Farm and Daylay, severely decomposed hens were discovered in cages with live hens. The birds were left to slowly rot and decompose in their cages. Their cellmates are forced to live with the stench this creates.

Factory farms treat the hen's lives as mere commodities, to be disposed of once they are no longer useful. At Daylay, we discovered a live hen thrown in a dumpster filled with trash and hundreds of dead birds.

Below the cages, the mounds of feces stretched as far as the eye can see. At both Buckeye and Daylay, massive cobwebs engulf the walls and ceilings, the manure crawls with maggots, beetles, and other insects. Flies swarm everywhere.

The high emission of ammonia created contributes to the spread of disease and infection for the hens above. This toxic ammonia rises from the decomposing uric acid in the manure pits beneath the cages to produce a painful corneal ulcer condition in the chickens. This is known as "ammonia burn," a condition that often leads to blindness. At Buckeye Egg Farm and Daylay egg farm, hens that had managed to escape their cages would often fall to the manure pits below, where they become trapped. At both farms, hens in the manure pits had no source of water. Many had insects crawling over their weakened bodies.

Our initial investigation was meant to be purely investigative, but we quickly realized that we would have to provide immediate on-site assistance to many suffering birds. We released trapped hens, offered water to dehydrated birds, and removed dead bodies from crammed cages. On September 8th, 2001 we rescued 15 hens from Daylay and again on Sept. 9th, 2001, we rescued 19 hens from Buckeye. All 34 hens rescued were in dire need of immediate veterinary treatment. They were taken to an avian specialist for emergency care. (enter treatment info) They are now recovering and living on a farm sanctuary.

We will now present the documentary that we produced about the investigation and rescue at Buckeye and Daylay Egg Farms, followed by brief closing comments. Nathan Runkle, another MFA investigator, will then be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

{SHOW INVESTIGATION VIDEO}

There is absolutely no federal legislation that protects these hens. In fact, according to the definition of "animal" as written in the federal Animal Welfare Act, hens are not even considered animals.

But they are. They are sentient individuals - as are we - who feel pain, have desires, and have a right to live free of exploitation.

The European Union has already banned battery cages because of their inherent cruelty, and a recent Zogby poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of standard egg industry practices, including confining birds in battery cages.

We are calling on Americans of conscience to take a stand against animal cruelty by refusing to buy eggs. And we are calling on our government to stop ignoring the plight of factory-farmed animals. Banning battery cages in the United States is the first step to eradicating the view of animals as mere commodities, a view that has led to enormous and unconscionable suffer.