Responding to a predictably horrifying Humane Society (HSUS) undercover investigation, Cal-Maine, the country’s largest egg company, attempted to reassure the egg-buying public by noting that its eggs are produced in accordance with the industry’s animal care guidelines. Unfortunately this defense does little to help Cal-Maine and only serves to expose those guidelines as completely useless.
During a 28-day stint working at a Cal-Maine facility in Waelder, Texas, a HSUS investigator recorded a variety of stomach-turning infractions including, but not limited to:
- Birds in cages with rotting corpses of other birds
- Dead hens that had been trapped under the trough feeders of their cages and had died with their heads on the egg conveyor belts, exposing passing eggs to the decaying bird
- Birds trapped by their wings, necks and legs in the thin, rusty wires of the battery cages
- Birds suffering from bloody uterine prolapses, caused by too much egg-laying, being stepped on by other hens in the crowded cages
- Hens in the bottom two tiers of the cages covered in feces from birds in cages above them
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