Animal Confinement in California Egg Production

 

Each year over 19 million egg-laying hens are raised in concentrated confinement to produce table eggs for consumers. According to the California Poultry Workgroup, the vast majority of egg-layers in California are confined to cages. On large-scale commercial farms, over 125,000 egg-laying hens are housed in each warehouse-style structure. Inside the sheds, hens are confined to 'battery cages' (small wire or plastic confinement enclosures).

 

Typically, three to eleven hens are confined to a single cage. Each bird has less than 67 square inches of space for her entire life. This nearly-universal practice violates Section 597t of the California State Penal Code, which requires that confined animals have adequate exercise space.

 

Cage production prohibit hens from engaging in natural behaviors such as wing-spreading, perching, and dust bathing. As well, a portion of egg-layer's beaks are severed without the aid of anesthesia.  

 

At two years of age, matured hens complete their egg production cycle within the industry. 'Spent hens' are slaughtered without any protections under California's 1990 Methods of Slaughter law. California producers no longer have a facility to bring its 'spent hens' for processing. In May 2006, Valley Fresh Inc., California’s only 'spent hen' slaughterhouse, ended its live poultry processing operations. Now, the slaughtering of 'spent hens' is carried out by the individual egg companies. Producers have used gassing/composting and woodchippers as methods of euthanizing 'spent hens'. To learn more about the collapse of the 'spent hen' market in California, click here.

 

Create Change in California

 

Legal loopholes and lack of humane enforcement in California egg production have a detrimental effect on animal welfare. Without a major overhaul of egg-production practices, California's huge population of egg-laying hens will continue to suffer enormously.

 

A shocking investigative film reveals the lives of hens in California cage egg production. The footage includes conditions at egg facilities in Sonoma, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Merced and San Diego counties. ABC-7 News in San Francisco broadcasted segments of the new film. Cage egg production is not unique to California. This practice is commonplace through out the U.S. egg industry.

 

1. Support the Humane California Campaign to ban battery cages. 

 

2. Ask the United States Department of Agriculture to protect poultry under the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.

 

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