Eggs aren't cruelty free. Here's why.

Transcript

Announcer: Eggs, three to five a week, but one a day preferred.

Narrator: A well-balanced breakfast. When we hear those words, many of us will conjure up images of fresh squeezed orange juice, warm toast, two strips of bacon nuzzled up to a couple of sizzling eggs.

Ron Swanson: Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have.

Narrator: Well, we've come a long way since that was the standard. Breakfasts tend to look a lot different now. More and more Americans are choosing to leave meat off their plates, be it for personal health, environmental concerns, or ethics. Regardless of the reason, there are now an estimated 15 million vegetarians in the US, a number that continues to climb. Bye bacon.

What about the other stuff on the plate? What's wrong with eating eggs? As it turns out, a lot. You don't get eggs without chickens, of course. But how much do you know about these chickens? Did you know that chickens are smart? Like, really smart. Sadly, you'd never know how emotional and intelligent chickens are because chickens raised for food are unable to engage in any natural activities.

In the egg industry, a chicken's life starts at a hatchery. For male chickens, the day they are hatched is also the day they are killed, typically thrown into a high-speed grinder called a macerator. This is because male chickens don't lay eggs, so their lives are considered worthless to the egg industry. Female chickens are separated from the males and undergo a beak trimming process. They are shipped away to spend their entire lives confined to a cage made of wire mesh. These are called battery cages. The barren cells are packed full of hens and stacked on top of one another in massive windowless warehouses. Battery cages are considered one of the most cruel aspects of modern farming. They're outlawed across the European Union and in several states in the US. Yet battery cage facilities still make up around 80% of America's egg industry.

What makes them so terrible? For starters, they're incredibly small. Each hen has only the space equal to an A4 sheet of paper. A hen can't spread her wings without hitting the cage or one of the other hens living inside. Sometimes there are as many as 10 hens in a single cage. Because she can't move, a hen's muscles and bones deteriorate. Often, crippled or sick birds will die in their cages due to dehydration, forcing the other birds to stand on their rotting, mummified carcasses. The industry labels this common occurrence cage fatigue.

For the hens who survive, the wire cages take a severe toll on their bodies. Constant rubbing on the wire mesh destroys their skin and feathers. The cages are rarely maintained, so the birds often get cut and stuck by the sharp metal wires, and their overgrown claws can become trapped in the cage floor. In the US, there is often no solid platform for hens to stand on. This is another scenario where the bird will become trapped and eventually die.

A battery cage doesn't just destroy chickens' bodies, it also destroys their minds. Research from the University of Bristol found that "Chickens do not just live in the present, but can anticipate the future and demonstrate self-control, something previously attributed only to humans and other primates." The battery cage strips away every natural desire from these intelligent animals. They will never be allowed to become mothers. They will never perch, forage, take a dust bath, nest, or explore their surroundings. Under normal circumstances, hens search out private places in order to construct nests before laying eggs. In battery cages, this is impossible. Hens resort to repetitive stress-induced behaviors such as constant pecking at other chickens or vacuum nesting, where a hen essentially mimes creating a nest on the wire flooring of the cage. Doesn't seem like a very natural process, now does it?

Well, it gets worse. Molting is a natural, seasonal process occurring once a year with the onset of winter, when chickens consume less food, replace their feathers, and produce fewer eggs. However, in factory farms, this decrease in egg production is unacceptable to producers, so birds are either killed and sold as meat, or a forced molt is conducted. Forced molting involves withholding a chicken's food, light, and even water for an extended period of time. This starvation halts the reproductive cycle, reduces body mass, and causes feathers to fall out. Because of this, chickens begin to produce eggs at even higher rates. Forced molting is known to cause chickens prolonged stress, discomfort, and even death.

In nature, chickens can live for more than a decade. But on factory farms, after about 18 months to two years when their egg-laying begins to slow down, young hens are finally taken out of their cages only to be slaughtered. These spent hens are ripped from their cages and thrown into six-foot high crates for transport. The industry calls this "catching." It has been reported that workers will catch 6,000 birds in just one hour. As you can imagine, chickens regularly have their brittle bones broken during this process. Regardless if the hen is coming from a battery cage or a cage-free facility, they'll end up in the same tragic situation.

Once they arrive at the slaughterhouse, they're dumped from their crates and hung upside down in shackles that can further injure their legs. Then, their short, painful lives are ended by having their heads dunked in an electrical water bath to stun them and then a machine cuts the blood vessels in their necks and finally puts them through boiling water for feather removal. Tragically, as the stunning often doesn't work, half a million birds each year will remain fully conscious for this horrific process. It may sound extreme, but sadly, this is all common practice for egg-laying hens on factory farms.

But it doesn't have to be. Globally, there is a growing movement to put an end to battery cages. In the US, there has been a rapid shift away from these cruel facilities, as a growing number of egg producers, retailers, and food service providers switch to cage-free eggs. Though, real change happens when you choose to leave eggs off your plate. So when we picture tomorrow's breakfast, I urge you to join me and millions of others who are re-balancing breakfast with plant-based meals.

Ron Swanson: What is on your foot, sir?

Eagleton Ron (Ron Dunn): My trusty sandals. For the man's feet should remain uncaged. Same goes for all chickens.