Egg-laying hens are stuck in cages for 12 to 18 months. When they’re no longer productive, they’ll be manhandled and jammed into small boxes, stacked onto a truck, and sent to slaughter. Photo by The HSUS
Step into a smallish elevator. Have a dozen others file in and fill it up, so much so that shoulders are pressed against one another from wall to wall.
The elevator breaks down. The lights go out. Panic sets in.
“I’ve got to get out of here!” – that’s the sequence of words racing through the head of every person trapped in that box.
That’s an image from television and online advertising we’re doing to represent the unending living conditions for hens caught up in battery cages on America’s factory farms, crammed together and denied even the ability to extend their wings.
While the fire department will rescue the people trapped in the fictional elevator, no one is on the way to help the hens, whose circumstances are all too real. They’re stuck in cages for 12 to 18 months – not for a few minutes or a couple of hours, but for a year and more. When they’re no longer productive, they’ll be manhandled and jammed into small boxes, stacked onto a truck, and sent to slaughter.
This must change – this disgraceful system of egg production must be ripped up from the ground and the hen cages ripped apart.
On this blog, I’ve delivered much good news to you on the progress we’ve made working with companies to eliminate their use and sale of eggs from caged chickens. We’ve worked with everyone from McDonald’s to Denny’s to Nestle to Walmart to enact exclusive cage-free egg policies that have timelines attached.
In any issue related to animals however, whether it’s the last state to ban dogfighting, or the last province or nation to defend seal clubbing, there’s always a holdout. Somebody, or some entity, on the wrong side of history.
Publix has become that holdout on cage confinement. It is the only grocer among the 25 largest that refuses to enact a timeline to go 100 percent cage-free.
What makes the situation more exasperating is that company spokespersons claim our plan to transition to cage free isn’t workable – even as every other top grocer has concluded otherwise. We’ve reached out, yet the folks there are not engaging, making me skeptical of public pronouncements that they’re taking a careful look at the idea of cage-free.
Today, Vampire Diaries actor Paul Wesley sent a letter to Publix’s CEO, asking him to commit to going cage-free. In it, Paul describes the conditions for these poor animals as “each caged chicken is provided less space than this very sheet of paper on which to live for her entire life. She’s nearly immobilized, unable to spread her wings, and is prevented from engaging in behaviors that allow even a remotely decent life—like walking, perching, scratching, dust bathing, and laying eggs in a nest.”
Just reading that depiction pains the heart of any caring soul. And we can’t sit and just wait for policies to be put in place to remove animals from situations characterized by extreme neglect and suffering. We have to speak out publicly and call out those who prefer the status quo rather than change in response to the ever-growing consumer demand that all animals, including those in food production, deserve protection from cruelty.
Please visit our CagedForPublix website to see how you can help.
The post A Publix disgrace – grocery chain is a holdout on cage-free future appeared first on A Humane Nation.
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