Undercover Investigators Documented The World’s Most Comprehensive Look into Egg Farms. It’s Devastating.
The largest-ever global investigation into egg farms reveals a chilling truth. From Canada to Vietnam, from Nigeria to Australia—billions of hens face the same horrific cruelty.
The largest-ever global investigation into egg farms reveals a chilling truth. From Canada to Vietnam, from Nigeria to Australia—billions of hens face the same horrific cruelty.
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Hens stuck in manure, unable to move. Hens clambering over dead bodies. Hens caught in cage wires—trapped and suffering, crying out for help. This is the largest undercover investigation into egg farms that the world has ever seen. And it proves that the fight to end cages is the fight of our time.
In the most comprehensive investigation of its kind, bold advocates documented the lives of egg-laying hens across 37 countries. What they found shatters any illusion that extreme confinement is an isolated problem. From North America to Asia, from Europe to Africa, the evidence is clear: The global egg industry has built its empire on normalized suffering.
In other words, extreme animal abuse is not an aberration. It’s the norm. Around the entire world.
A global crisis, hidden in plain sight
In Canada, investigators found hens forced to climb over the decomposing bodies of their cagemates. In Nigeria, hens peer out from between rusted bars, their feet mutilated from standing on metal wires for their entire lives. In Hong Kong, birds are stacked so tightly they climb on top of one another in desperate attempts to move.
The physical toll is horrific. In India, nearly every hen observed had raw patches of skin from constant friction with wire bars. One bird suffered from a bloody vent, the area from which she lays eggs—likely caused by the demands of constant laying—with no veterinary care in sight. In Indonesia, a hen who had somehow escaped her cage lay injured and helpless on the ground, unable to walk after a lifetime of confinement.
But the psychological suffering is equally devastating. These naturally curious, social beings—who in natural settings spend their days foraging, dust bathing, and caring for their young—are reduced to eating and sitting. That’s all their lives amount to: 10,000 hours of nothing but existing in a space too small to spread their wings.
A broken system
This isn’t about one bad actor or one country’s failed regulations. This is about an entire system built on the premise that it’s acceptable to treat living, feeling beings as mere units of production. It’s about an industry that has decided that subjecting hens to lives of extreme confinement is an acceptable way to produce eggs.
From Bulgaria to Vietnam, from Israel to Japan, the scenes repeat themselves with crushing predictability. Dead birds left to rot in cages. Living hens trapped by cage wires, crying out in pain. Piles of mutilated bodies tossed into buckets or left on facility floors—some birds still conscious.
A crisis even beyond animal welfare
Factory farms aren’t just unconscionable—they’re a threat to public health. When we pack millions of birds into crowded, unsanitary conditions, we create perfect breeding grounds for disease. The devastating bird flu outbreak has made this painfully clear.
Since early 2022, more than 160 million birds have been killed to contain the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Most were killed through ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+)—a brutal process where farmers seal off airflow, spike temperatures, and wait while birds slowly die from heat stress.
And the implications extend far beyond animal welfare. The H5N1 virus has now spread to every continent except Australia, with concerning spillover events to mammals including cows, cats, and humans. Scientists are monitoring the virus’s mutations closely, and experts are raising alarms about the potential threat of a new human pandemic.
The factory farming industry’s response? Build bigger facilities. Pack in more birds. Continue the same practices that created this crisis in the first place.
The path forward: how we end cruel cages
Here’s what gives us hope. It’s the system that’s broken—and systems can change.
Corporations have woven a worldwide web of cruelty that spans continents and decades. But every thread we pull unravels more of that web. Together, we’re dismantling their entire network of abuse, proving no system of cruelty is too big to fail.
We are building the most powerful movement to end cages that the world has ever seen. Through the Open Wing Alliance—a global coalition of 95 member organizations across 67 countries—advocates are fighting to transform their food systems in each of the countries documented in this investigation. In 2023 alone, the OWA awarded 2.1 million in grants to over 40 groups across the globe, with an additional 1.3 million committed for 2024.
And it’s working. Since 2016, the Open Wing Alliance has secured over 3,000 commitments from companies to end the worst abuses of chickens. Our strategic pressure campaigns have already transformed the industry, with major corporations like Hilton Hotels, Burger King, and Whole Foods pledging to eliminate cages from their supply chains. Laws banning cages are being passed. The infrastructure of cruelty is beginning to crumble.
In fact, in the United States alone, the percentage of hens free from cages has risen from less than 5% in 2010 to 40% today. That’s over 125 million birds who will never know the crushing physical and psychological torment of extreme confinement.
How you can help
People like you made this investigation possible. Our global community of action-takers, volunteers, donors, and supporters enabled investigators to document these conditions and bring them to light. Now, we need your help to turn this evidence into action. We’re about to show the world exactly how far this abuse extends—and precisely how to end it. Everywhere.
The egg industry would like us to believe this transformation is impossible. But every day, through the dedication of supporters like you, we’re proving them wrong.
Your voice is powerful. Speak up to hold corporations accountable for this abuse. Connect with advocates fighting for animals in your area. Or make a gift to help us spread this investigation far and wide.
Around the world, the egg industry speaks one language: cruelty. But the rest of us speak the same language: compassion. And compassion will win.
The Humane League, PO Box 10476
Rockville, MD 20849
Abby Jade Sarfas
