Canada’s egg industry is in damage control mode, reeling
from television showings of video of an Alberta operation penetrated by members
of Mercy for Animals Canada.
The video shows hens crowded in cages, some injured, some
dead.
Peter Clarke, chairman of Egg Farmers of Canada, is trying
to dismiss the videos taken at Kuku Farms and Creekside Grove Farms as “an
abberation,”, but Mercy for Animals counters that more than 90 per cent of
Canada’s eggs are produced by hens in similar housing.
The videos, which were first shown by the CTV national
network, included “thumping” of sick and injured hens – smashing their head on
concrete floors to euthanize them.
The challenge for the egg industry is that many consumers
will be horrified by the video and it will be almost impossible to convince
them that caging hens is better for their welfare because it reduces diseases,
infections, parasites and social pressures.
The challenge for the egg industry is similar to the one
facing hog producers who are under pressure to stop using stalls or crates to
house gestating sows.
Two years ago, Harry Pelissero, general manager for Egg
Farmers of Ontario, was delighted by an advertising campaign, “Who Made Your
Eggs Today?,” that met a positive response from the public.
It featured families that own egg farms, but none of the
advertising showed hens or the inside of barns.
Pelissero told farmers that the ad campaign would gradually
evolve to include footage from inside barns and the highly-sensitive issue of
caging hens.
So far that has not happened.
