Mercy For Animals

EXCLUSIVE:
MFA INVESTIGATION AND OPEN RESCUE
AT OHIO'S LARGEST EGG FACTORY FARMS

On August 8, 2001, Mercy For Animals sent certified letters to Buckeye and Daylay Egg Farms, Ohio’s largest egg producers. MFA requested a tour and expressed concern over the treatment of the millions of hens confined at the two battery cage facilities. To date, MFA has yet to receive responses from either Buckeye or Daylay.

When the two factory farms ignored our requests, the decision to launch a covert investigation into animal mistreatment was made. Using the darkness as a cover and compassion as their guide, six Mercy For Animals investigators began an extensive investigation at Buckeye’s facility in La Rue and Daylay’s facility in Raymond.

The investigators made repeated late-night visits over the course of the following month. In hundreds of photographs and hours of video footage, MFA investigators documented countless egregious acts of animal cruelty, neglect and abuse. On site aid, such as releasing trapped hens, offering water to dehydrated birds, and removing dead bodies from cramped caged, was provided during the investigation as well.

Like over 95% of egg-laying hens in the United States, hens at Buckeye and Daylay Egg Farms are imprisoned in crowded battery cages (long rows of wire cages holding an average of eight birds per unit). Hens confined to such cages live until their violent deaths without seeing the sun. The cages make it impossible for the birds to fulfill their most basic urges, such as walking freely, dust bathing, foraging, and sunbathing. 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, continuously being assaulted by the trampling of other hens, and having their feathers pecked by other birds, leave many of the hens naked with feather loss. Investigators found countless hens suffering from major damage to the primary and secondary flight feathers. Since feathers act as not only an insulation layer to reduce heat loss, but also as a protection from skin damage, many of the birds have long deep scratches on the skin caused by the claws of other birds scraping into their bare skin. Inflamed by the filthy living conditions, these otherwise minor scrapes had become major infections for many of

the hens MFA investigators encountered.

Forcing a naturally physical bird to spend her life in a cramped and stationary position causes numerous other health problems such as: muscle degeneration, poor blood circulation, osteoporosis, and foot and leg deformities.

Each shed at Buckeye Egg Farm confines over 150,00 hens. Each cage is approximately 24 inches wide, 20 inches deep, and 16 inches tall. With an average of eight hens per cage, each four-pound animal with a wingspan of 30 to 32 inches is allowed less than half a square foot of space, about 3/4 the area of a standard 8 ½" x 11" piece of paper.

Similar conditions of confinement and crowding exist at Daylay Egg Farm. The sheds investigated confined 140,000 to 250,000 birds. The cages measure only 20 inches wide, 17 to 20 inches deep, and 17 inches tall. Again, an average of seven to eight hens were crammed into each cage.

"Each cage at the facility appears to contain at least eight hens. The hens are severely crowded - so crowded that wire floors of the cages are barely visible and the hens cannot move to another part of the cage without climbing over one another. The wire of the cage is caked with feces and feathers."

Eric Dunayer, VMD