Breaking News! US egg prices have skyrocketed at over $8 a dozen! Consumers are in an uproar! Say what? In Canada, we’ve been paying $9 or more for eggs at the groceries for years. You don’t hear a peep from us. But then, we’ve always paid more than the US in practically everything. Consider the egg. The oval shell is so Zen. Eggs are the quintessential perfect design of nature. And yet, we treat the whole laying process with such utter cruelty. Many, in fact, consider eggs the cruellest animal product of all.
Those of us who live outside urban areas know what a real egg looks and tastes like. In the grocery coolers it’s a whole different story. At first, our choices were white eggs, big ones and even bigger ones. Then brown ones, free-run, free-range, omega three, and organic. And now, we have from Burnbrae Farms, “nestlaid,” “nature’s best,” and…“solar free-range” eggs.
Let’s unpack these cartons, shall we? Perhaps the biggest confusion and fraud are the terms “free-run” and “free-range.” Forget about happy flocks of chickens running wild and free. Free-run laying hens are crammed by the thousands in open-style barns with not even a perch – and the required minimum space is ONLY one square foot per hen. The birds never leave the barn, cannot adequately roam, forage or move freely. Free-range hens are like free-run hens in solitary confinement – they get to have an “unspecified amount of time” for outdoor access in “weather appropriate conditions.”
Nestlaid eggs sound so warm and cozy. Who wouldn’t want to have one of those in the morning? Let’s take a peek. These eggs come from hens raised in “enriched colony housing.” The hens live in “small social groups and are free to perch, scratch and lay their eggs in a nesting area in a furnished cage environment.” I’m having problems visualizing this breakthrough in factory farming. A “furnished cage environment”? Wicker love seats surrounded by metal bars?
Don’t be fooled – enriched furnished cages are still indoor wire cages that are barely distinguishable from a conventional battery cage. Six to eight hens are kept in cramped, wire cages, stacked by the thousands on top of each other inside warehouses without any fresh air or sunlight. Hens can’t stretch their wings, forage, move and or even leave their cages. Enriched cages are battery cages that have a perch that they can barely reach.
Sounding like a business pitch on Dragon’s Den, we have solar free-range eggs produced by free-range birds that have access to the outdoors, “weather and environmental conditions permitting.” Note the word “permitting” which probably means never. The hens may live in solar-powered open-concept barns equipped with nests, perches, and dust-bathing areas; it’s still the same morally cruel environment. An energy-efficient solar-powered egg. What next? Wind-powered eggs and turbine omelettes?
On their first day of life, considered expendable, male chicks are ground alive or suffocated. In the US alone, more than 260 million male chicks are killed every year; that’s 30,000 newborn chicks killed every hour for eggs. But, hey, most veterinarians consider grinding male chicks a legal form of euthanasia. Female chicks are worse off. On their first day, they have their beaks seared without anaesthetic, causing horrible pain and distress and then have to live in an infested, crowded, and diseased cage for two years. That’s their life span (thankfully). Happy chickens? They can live up to 15 years.
Burnbrae Factory Farms is Canada’s largest egg supplier; it’s also its cruellest. In April 2024, Animal Justice conducted a massive investigation in Canada, at dozens of Burnbrae egg farms in BC and Quebec. Footage showed caged hens forced to live in filthy, crowded conditions, both in conventional and enriched battery cages, where the ammonia-filled air burns their skin and eyes. Many hens had missing feathers, and were frequently forced to live next to the rotting carcasses of their dead cage mates.
Despite all this, 83% of Canada’s laying hens continue to be housed in battery cages. While the rest of the world is abolishing cages, Canada has committed only to transitioning to enriched cages by 2036, which is like saying you’re going to quit smoking cigarettes by switching to menthol. Hens will still be condemned to a lifetime of suffering.
There are more than 1,200 egg farms across Canada, housing an estimated 25 million laying hens who produce more than nine billion eggs each year. Locally, in BC we have over three million laying hens on 145 farms, with the average flock size at 22,274 hens.
Last week, in the US, more than 4 million chickens in Iowa were killed after a case of bird flu was detected. That’s 4.2 million chickens at ONE factory farm. Fun fact: Three-quarters of US egg-laying hens are raised on only 347 factory farms.
The response, as always, to every farm outbreak has been the same: kill infected animals and continue business as usual. Animal activist, Michael Corthell writes: “A true solution must address the root cause – industrial animal agriculture itself.” Scientists have been warning us for years: the next pandemic will come from a factory farm. Coincidentally, last month in February, Burnbrae Farms initiated a voluntary recall for eggs from their Manitoba farm due to possible Salmonella contamination.
I’ll leave you with these reassuring words: “At Burnbrae Farms, the passion for delivering premium eggs is palpable in every aspect of their operation. From their meticulous farming practices to their state-of-the-art facilities, each egg is a testament to their unwavering commitment to excellence. Embracing a farm-to-table approach, this supplier ensures that every egg reaching your plate is not just a product but a symbol of their respect for nature and dedication to providing wholesome goodness.”
