Published Letters and Op-Eds from
COK’s Writers Group

Animal Cruelty

Editor,

I disagree with Lex McCorvey of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, who says people are OK with agribusiness’s treatment of spent layer hens (“Recycling chickens?” Nov. 22).

I have rescued hundreds of hens from battery cages, and I can tell you they live in misery. Hens are crammed eight to a cage, with nothing else to stand on but wire and not even enough space to spread a single wing. Moreover, the birds endure inhumane procedures such as forced molting through starvation and painful debeaking that prevents chickens from eating normally.

Battery hens spend as many as 24 months in a darkened shed, breathing ammonia, until their bodies are used up and their egg yield declines. Then they are killed.

No, I am not OK with how we treat layer hens, before or after they are deemed to have no value to the farmer. The good news is everyone has the power to make a difference in the lives of these birds. Each time we choose not consume eggs, we help to end the industrialized abuse egg farms are responsible for. With so many delicious, nutritious alternatives available, there's no reason to buy eggs at all and perpetuate the cruelty.

MARK HAWTHORNE
Rohnert Park