Animal Activists Bring Human Sized Battery Chicken Cage to Capitol

March 11, 2015

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Animal Activists Bring Human-Sized Battery Chicken Cage to Capitol

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Animal Place, California’s oldest and largest sanctuary for farmed animals, will hold an eye-opening demonstration March 20 on the Capitol steps as it invites people to “brave the cage” – a human-sized battery cage typical of those found at egg production facilities.

Date: Friday, March 20, 2015

Time: 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Location: L Street (North) Side of the State Capitol in Sacramento

After state voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 2 in 2008, new laws took effect this past January 1 that address how eggs are produced for California breakfast tables. Unbeknownst to most consumers, however, hens used by the egg industry are typically still confined in small cages.

To show people what life is like for 95 percent of the approximately 18 million hens on California’s egg farms, Animal Place will challenge the public to step inside the life-sized cage.

A photo of the cage is available at https://app.box.com/s/9honmhem66vjt89qeif7ac3zn2sskup9

Volunteers will also offer samples of vegan treats to prove how easy and delicious it is to avoid eggs – at Easter and throughout the year.

“Chickens are social animals with rich emotional lives and distinct personalities, just like the cats and dogs we cherish as companion animals,” said Animal Place education director Marji Beach. “Easter is a celebration of rebirth and renewal, and what better way to celebrate than by adopting an animal-friendly diet and avoiding holiday traditions that support an abusive industry mistreating and exploiting hens.”

In the past three years, Animal Place has rescued more than 16,000 hens from egg facilities throughout California. Even though they have many years of life ahead of them, once their production slows down, at 12-24 months, hens in industrial egg facilities are typically killed and replaced with new ones.

Crowded, unsanitary conditions are not limited to caged facilities; in cage-free environments, thousands of hens may be confined in filthy, toxic sheds. Whether caged or cage-free or free-range, in industrial egg production, mutilations like de-beaking are common, and hatcheries kill all male chicks because they have no value to the egg industry – 150-200 million baby chicks per year.

Because of selective breeding, hens today produce three to five times what would be considered natural or normal. Such high production takes a toll, drains their bodies of calcium, causes ovarian cancer, osteoporosis, deadly infections, and injuries such as eggs lodging in their reproductive tracts and uterine prolapses. Still, egg producers use artificial lighting, set for prolonged periods, and forced moulting through starvation to encourage hens to lay more.

To view photos from Animal Place’s rescue of 3,000 hens from a typical battery-cage facility, please see https://app.box.com/s/5hzo34enr89mb6nrashw

About Animal Place

Animal Place, founded in 1989, is one of the oldest and largest animal sanctuaries in the nation, operating a 600-acre sanctuary in Grass Valley, California, a 60-acre animal shelter in Vacaville, California, and an all-vegan market in Berkeley, California. Animal Place’s California animal shelters fill a much-needed niche of farm animal rescue, sanctuary, education, and adoption. Animals arrive from small and large farms, slaughterhouses, research facilities, and neglect or cruelty cases. Nestled between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, its Grass Valley location offers tours, cooking classes, and workshops at the sanctuary as well as volunteer and internship opportunities. In 2010, Animal Place began rescuing animals directly from California egg farms, and since then has saved more than 24,000 hens. At its Vacaville location, these hens, as well as many other animals, are rehabilitated and placed in permanent adoptive homes. Animal Place – named best farm sanctuary in the country by Best in Shelter – is a nonprofit 501c3 organization funded by private donors. For more information, visit www.animalplace.org.

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