These are photos of forty hens that RASTA rescued from a “small” factory farm in Camrose, Alberta.  They are one-year-old egg laying hens that were scheduled to be “disposed of” in a wood chipper (alive) after their egg production had decreased by 10%. Unfortunately RASTA had only enough space and money to rescue forty hens, leaving 4960 birds behind.  The remaining birds were killed in a wood chipper.

The majority of store bought eggs come from factory farms which consist of battery caged hens in huge warehouse-type structures often housing an average of 17,500 hens.  There are currently 26 million battery cage egg laying hens in Canada.

• Battery cages measure 16″ by 18″ (size of an average web page) with as many as seven birds confined to each cage. The hens have no room to stretch their wings or even stand up straight.
• Due to the insane confinement of these birds, their beaks are usually cut off with a hot blade (an incredibly painful procedure) when they are just chicks to minimize the damage of pecking one another.
• After one year, egg production naturally decreases slightly which means a loss of revenue for the industrialized factory farm profiting from the the misery of these animals and so they are often “disposed of” and replaced with younger stock.  Sadly, one of the most common ways that farmers dispose of laying hens is to throw them into a wood chipper (alive!).  The gruesome remains are then often fed to other animals as a cheap protein ration, or used as compost.

Please do Not Support the Cruelty of these Factory Farms

The best option for hens is not to use eggs at all.  Many common and easy egg substitute recipes are available online. Please visit; www.chooseveg.com

These are the same hens that RASTA rescued after a couple of months of TLC at the Sanctuary: