Nathan Runkle
Mercy For Animals
PO Box 265
Urbana, OH 43078

4 October 2001

Dear Nathan,

Teri Barnato of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights forwardedto me your letter and video of the Ohio egg farms. I watched the video a couple of times and here are my comments:

I am an avian veterinarian in private practice. I do almost exclusively house-calls. As well as companino parrot species, I also see backyard poultry and waterfowl. I do not see commercial poultry flocks, but I have some understanding of the industry through my work with AVAR on legislative and educational work I've done on the issue of forced-molting laying hens.

In the video, the hens appear to be going through a heavy molt or feather loss. This may be due to a forced-molt, since there is no food visible and the hens do not appear to be eating at all. The barns are also dark, although I do not know what time of day the video was shot. The hens also appear lethargic, which would be consistent with a late forced-molt period. The bumps on the neck of some hens appear to be feather cysts. This is a benign conditon, they don't appear to be infected and therefore not causing harm to the birds.

Some of the hens shown are severely beak trimmed. This is known to cause chronic pain in the beak stump because of neuoroma formation. It also makes it more difficult for the hens to eat.

Several of the hens are shown with swellings in and around the eyes. Some swellings are very large. These swellings may be from eye infections or irritation from dust or ammonia fumes. The swelling could also be caused from sinus conditions just below the eye. In most, if not all cases, these conditions would be very painful, as they would be for humans. They would also be debilitating as they would blind the bird on the affected side. Birds are very visual animals and would be even more stressed by the loss of vision. These conditions would not likely resolve themselves, thereby causing long-term pain and suffering as long as they go untreated.

Then hens trapped in parts of the cages where they cannot reach food or water would be suffering from an agonizing death from starvation, or more likely, from dehydration. In addition, there is the pain inflicted on the body part, such as the wing, that is trapped. It could become twisted, broken, or lose circulation, all of which are painful conditions.

It is difficult to analyze the suffering caused by being stuck in the manure pit. The main problem would be the distress at being trapped, in addition to the risk of dehydration and starvation, and the caustic fumes from the ammonia.

As to the live chicken in the dumpster, this is an extremely inhumane way to leave a living creature. The hen would eventually die from dehydration or starvation or from being crushed by additional birds being dumped on top of it. Often, birds dumped in this way have broken bones and other illnesses and injuries from which they are suffering, so by not being humanely euthanized, they are cause a slow and agonizing death.

I should comment that because of the economic advantage, forced-molting is an accepted practice in the egg industry. Birds die in large numbers from this practice and are caused immeasurable suffering, much of which can be seen in the video. Individual birds with injuries or illnesses are eiterh ignored or 'culled' because there is no economic advantage to treating them. The conditions seen in the video are commonplace in the industry, and are not isolated to the particular farms shown. This does not begin to make the practices acceptable to the humane movement or to the general public.

Let me know if I can be of any more assistance.

Sincerely,

Laurie Siperstein-Cook, DVM