Eggs produced in 67 square inches?

Most people have no idea just how sad the life of animals used to produce food in factories instead of farms truly is. How could you know? The doors to food factories are locked, off limits to even the customers that purchase the factory produced foods. That in itself is always a bad sign.

Today I offer another example to demonstrate just how inhumanely sad the life of factory animals is: The egg producing chicken. Do you purchase eggs from a grocery store? If you do, then this very likely applies to you, as virtually all eggs sold in grocery stores today come from factory imprisoned chickens, regardless of what the label says. ( you can search this blog for a previous post on the falsehoods of chicken eggs labels like "free range, organic, etc")

In this news post you find the story of a bill introduced in Oregon, in an attempt to make chicken egg production a little less inhumane.  Lets take a quick look at the details:

Current lay requires that factory egg production give chickens a minimum of 67 square inches of space. Do the math.. that's less room than a piece of notebook paper. The poor chickens spend their entire life in this tiny square of existence barely able to turn around, let alone stretch out and be a chicken. If that is not prison, I don't know what is!

The new bill introduced proposed moving that minimum size up to 116 square inches... so just a tad larger than a sheet of paper. WOO HOO! The chickens can now turn around in place!  No walking, no running, no wings stretched out, but they can turn around! What would we do without government??!  (before we get too excited, keep in mind it doesn't go into effect for 5 more years)

It's appalling to think that these factories are treating chickens this way, and then putting bright happy colorful labels on the egg cartons with pictures showing the equivalent of a family farm. They should be forced to put pictures of the inside of egg factories, showing the overcrowded disease ridden conditions that the eggs come from! Why do factories get to use pictures of OUR farm when they are in no way similar to any real farm. It's a factory, a prison, a sweatshop where the ones doing the work (the chicken) is treated with less respect than a factory robot. (sorry, i get passionately emotional about this).

Even more appalling is the comment from a very popular egg factory that you see on the grocery stores in Oregon daily (read the news article to find the name).  The original bill required free ranging of chickens, but there was so much push back form factories that a compromise was done to only 116 sq inches. The co owner of this local egg factory explained  "He said free-range chickens are more prone to hen-to-hen aggression, pathogen exposure, and movement-related injuries."   that statement is so full of wrongness that I don't know where to begin! Bottom line is that this shows that factory production of food is so far from farm production of food that there is no common ground, no similarities, absolutely none. What he is saying is essentially that you can't free range chickens because they will just hurt each other, caging them is better for their own safety. I can't use the language that properly explains that comment! Farms all across America are filled with happy, healthy, free range chickens who do NOT need their beaks removed to prevent cannibalism, who do NOT suffer from disease, who do NOT attack each other under any reasonable management system. The fact that the co owner of this egg factory either does not know that, or denies that, shows that perhaps he doesn't understand the basics of chickens.

Sigh.

Back to the point, if you are buying eggs in the grocery store, and you see the images of peaceful green acres with chickens running around green grass and sunny skies, close you eyes and see reality: thousands of chickens in disease infested closed houses with limited or no fresh air or sunshine, so overcrowded that the chickens can not turn around in place, beaks removed to prevent cannibalism, dead chickens laying around here and there, and owners that think that is the best thing for the chicken. that is more likely the real scenario behind that label and those eggs.

At little sprouts you can come visit any time and see how our animals, your food, is raised. Our chickens have free range of our entire 10 acres, no limits. The actually live on green grass and sunshine. Yes there is the occasional scuffle between roosters or competitive hens over a scrap of food, but no injuries, no deaths, no battles to speak of. Our chickens live like chickens, as nature intended. The eggs they produce are full of nutrition and love.

I strongly encourage you to stop buying factory produced food. Make the  switch to real farms producing real food. Even if you don't choose Little Sprouts, choose to give your family real food from a local farm. Your children, and your world, will thank you.