some animal rightsists are right

Right - here's an article on the cruel ways chickens are treated in large
scale commercial farms.

Small farmers that treat chickens humanely simply can NOT compete. It costs
about $2.65 right now to produce a dozen eggs - if the chickens are treated
humanely and fed something other than pig brains and other dead chickens
that have been ground up (this is what they feed the chickens you buy at the
store, by the way).

Perhaps you have noticed that eggs are as low as 50 cents/dozen at the
store. There is a reason for this.

It's like if you go to buy a new computer and there's a guy you know who can
get you one for $100 -- brand new in the box and top of the line.

You have to know that there is something wrong going on.

I ask all those opposed to animal cruelty to start asking hard questions
about the food they buy. Find out where it came from. Drive there and check
it out if necessary. Discuss if with others. And don't buy things that are
priced at unnatural levels -- such products, whether cheap shoes from China,
or cheap eggs from California, are subsidized through the torture and pain
of living creatures.

- Jeff

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Egg Farms Attacked As Cruel to Chickens

By JOHN BIEMER, Associated Press Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - An animal rights group alleged Wednesday that its
investigation of a Baltimore-area egg farm found chickens living in
"unimaginably cruel conditions" with up to 11 hens stuffed into wire cages
so tightly they couldn't stretch their wings.

Miyun Park, the president of Washington-based Compassion Over Killing, and a
colleague sneaked into Red Bird Egg Farms in Millington, 40 miles east of
Baltimore, six times from August to November, discovering the hens in cages
the size of a filing cabinet drawer.

The chickens sometimes lived in the same cages with the decomposing
carcasses of dead hens, the group reported. Others were clearly sick or
injured ‹ many with their feathers rubbed off by the wires or other
chickens. Still more were found foundering below the long lines of stacked
cages in a pit designed to catch manure.

"If the abuse egg-laying hens endure was forced upon dogs or cats, it would
be illegal," Park said. "It's time we take a stand against such cruelty and
stop buying eggs."

The campaign is part of a new focus by animal rights groups, targeting what
they call "factory farms," which raise million of chickens, cattle and hogs.
In the past, such advocates conducted high-profile campaigns highlighting
the practices of fur farms and cosmetics companies which tested their
products on animals.

Compassion Over Killing and other like-minded groups say they found the same
conditions at other major egg farms in Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio and New
Jersey.

"Everything natural to being an animal is denied when they're raised for
food, and people are revolted when they find out," said Bruce Friedlich, a
spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Shirley Steele, the owner of Bear, Del.-based Red Bird Egg Farms Inc., did
not immediately return calls Wednesday. A woman who answered the phone said
Steele was the only person who could comment.

Ken Klippen, vice president of government relations for United Egg
Producers, a trade group representing 85 percent of the country's egg
producers, defended the industry's commitment to producing eggs in way that
does not harm chickens.

He said scientific research can "support having chickens in cages as the
humane way of producing eggs," he said.

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On the Net:

Compassion Over Killing: http://www.cok.net

United Egg Producers: http://www.unitedegg.org