A recent undercover investigation by Viva!, Vegetarians’ International Voice for Animals, has exposed the British egg industry’s routine practice of throwing millions of unwanted male chicks alive into electric grinding machines or painfully suffocating them to death with carbon dioxide gas. Viva’s gruesome investigation was covered in depth by The Daily Mail, exposing millions of people to the plights of factory farmed and organic/free-range chickens, who are exploited and killed for eggs in the United Kingdom. Shockingly, these practices are standard, deemed legal and defended by the egg industry.
Because male chicks will never lay eggs, and because egg-laying breed
chickens do not grow quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat,
the egg industry disposes of millions of newborn chicks each year. MFA’s investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery,
the largest egg-laying breed hatchery in the United States, revealed
cruel practices similar to the Viva! investigation. Hidden camera
footage at this Spencer, Iowa hatchery documented up to 150,000 male
chicks a day being thrown, dropped, mutilated and ground-up alive.
Other common killing methods include throwing live male chicks into trash bags and suffocating them to death or simply tossing them into giant trash bins and allowing them to slowly die under the weight of other birds.
Egg producers have gone to great lengths to hide their cruel practices from consumers. Grocery aisles from coast-to-coast are stocked with egg cartons featuring idyllic images of free-roaming hens and crowing roosters. These deceptive marketing gimmicks conceal the cruel and violent nature of industrial hatcheries and egg factory farms. Driven by consumer demand, the egg industry will continue to exploit, abuse, and kill day-old animals as long as doing so remains profitable. Empowered consumers can put their ethics on the table by choosing kindness over cruelty at each meal by adopting an animal-friendly vegan diet.
