To All Living Things
Last Week's Column

Tell It Like It Is
by Kathy Gay

ast month, like many other Americans, I "went home" for Thanksgiving. For me, that meant returning to Ohio.

Of course I spent some time each day perusing the local newspaper to find out just what kinds of activities were going on in the hometown I left so many years ago. I ran across the usual kinds of warm and fuzzy articles one would expect to find at that time of year. One showed in living color the winning entries for the Best Turkey and the Best Cornucopia in a coloring contest. Another showed school childrend dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians in a re-enactment of a harmonious first Thanksgiving (some of these little Pilgrims and Indians may change their views about this event as they grow older). But probably my very favorite article was one that described some kids’ explanations of how one should cook a turkey -- one young chef said to bake it for 4 minutes at 800 degrees...and I seem to recall some mighty unusual "recipes" for stuffing.

So, whether one eats turkey or not, Thanksgiving is definitely the time that turkeys make the news. This is to be expected. What I was not expecting was for egg farms to be in the news. But in the news they were -- specifically, a company named AgriGeneral that owns and operates some huge egg farms in Ohio, two sites at LaRue and five at Croton.

It seems that AgriGeneral had just applied for migrant-camp operating licenses for its two LaRue, Ohio sites. Apparently, AgriGeneral had been operating the houses at these sites illegally as migrant worker camps. Until inspectors from the State of Ohio Department of Health paid them a visit and cited them for thirty health violations during the month of November, the company had resisted the idea of paying the $46-per-site fee, claiming that the homes were not really used as migrant housing for the 19 workers there.

But that wasn’t all. AgriGeneral had also been cited for violations at its five Croton, Ohio sites. Seven homes at those sites had violations similar to those cited at LaRue: no license to operate as a migrant camp, fly infestations, unapproved water and septic systems, overcrowding and uncleanliness. Three of the migrant homes at Croton had even more serious sewage problems -- "effluent" pools 3 feet wide and 18 inches deep. And another had septic water in the basement. At least 51 migrant workers live in the seven Croton-area houses.

So, here we’ve got at least 70 migrant workers living in disgusting conditions. Is this new news? Hardly. But I must admit that I had no idea that there were migrant workers in Ohio. Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly eighteen years, I have seen migrant workers on numerous occasions toiling in the fields of Northern California. And certainly it is well known that the farms of Southern California and the Central Valley could not harvest their crops without the manual labor provided in large part by migrant workers -- some here legally, others not. But I had no idea they were also in Ohio.

Except for the descriptions of the homes AgriGeneral so graciously provided its migrant workers, I have no specific information about the company’s overall treatment of its employees. However, if American history has taught us anything about the plight of migrant workers, it’s not hard to imagine what it might be like. Historically, migrant workers have been exploited far more often than natural-born citizens. Not only have they been housed under conditions that most of us would consider totally unacceptable, they have received a mere pittance in wages in exchange for long hours of grueling, back-breaking work. In many instances, the migrant workers do the jobs that nobody else wants or will even consider doing.

At the AgriGeneral facilities, one of the jobs assigned to migrant workers is removing the lifeless carcasses of chickens who have died in their cells. Imagine waking up each morning and going to a job like that -- collecting and discarding dead birds.

Imagine working in an environment where the air is heavy with all kinds of bacteria and other contaminants from poultry dust and manure. Imagine having to get rid of all that animal waste, most likely by transporting and dumping it somewhere else. Imagine trying to ignore the smell and the hordes of flies.

And, if you’re a migrant worker employed by AgriGeneral, imagine going home to cramped and dirty housing next to polluted pools of sewage.

So, as far as AgriGeneral is concerned, we’re talking about 70 migrant workers -- living and working under miserable conditions. What about the chickens? Just how many are there, and what are their lives like? Believe it or not, according to the news articles I read, there are 2.5 million birds at LaRue and 4.5 million at Croton. That’s 7 million chickens.

If you’re reading this and wondering what the life of a hen at a typical egg farm (or, to be more accurate, egg factory) is like, let me fill you in. For just a minute pretend you're a chicken in one of these places.

You are put in a cage with four or five other birds when you are about 18-20 weeks old. You and your cellmates will spend all your lives imprisoned together in a tiny cage that hardly leaves you room to move. Your cage is stacked on top of another, just like the cage above is stacked on top of yours. The building you are housed in is literally filled with rows and rows of cages stuffed with chickens.

The heating, ventilation and lighting of your home are all automatically controlled. The artificial lighting is kept on for approximately 17 hours a day to encourage you to produce more eggs.

The floor of your cage is slanted to allowthe eggs you produce to roll onto a belt. That slanted floor is made of wire mesh so you are forever having to brace yourself with your toes. You must take care that your feet do not become permanently entangled in the cage floor. If this happens, you may not be able to reach your antibiotic-laced food and water, and then you will die of hunger or thirst.

Of course, if the last digit of your toes has been amputated -- without anesthesia, of course -- then this "problem" of getting your toes permanently stuck in the floor will probably not occur. Even so, inactivity due to your intense confinement, along with calcium loss from being bred continually to lay eggs, will most likely cause your bones to become weak and brittle so they will be prone to fracture.

Your beak has been clipped, that is, about one-third of it has been cut off with a heated blade -- without anesthesia, of course -- so you are not able, no matter how stressed out and frustrated you are, to exercise your natural instinct to peck at your cagemates who are crowded in your cell with you. You probably are easily startled. You sometimes become frantic and thrash about in your cage.

You may come down with one or more of the diseases that affect your species living under such abominable conditions -- infectious bronchitis, leukosis, salmonella, egg peritonitis, or cage layer fatigue.

Under natural conditions, you might live as long as 15-20 years, but in this unnatural hellhole you will probably survive for only 1-1/2 to 2 years.

When I consider a news story like the one about AgriGeneral’s egg farms and the living conditions of its migrant workers, I am saddened, but I am really not surprised. In such an environment where the animals themselves are treated as if they are inanimate objects that can be exploited, abused and tortured every day of their short lives, it is no wonder that the human beings who work there are also being treated with with such indifference and lack of respect.

Sometimes it is really hard to know where to begin to undo all the damage, all the stupidity. But the first step, I think, is simply to tell it like it is. Speak out and let the world know what you know. That way others will learn, too. Ignorance is not bliss -- it is simply ignorance. Help educate, and then change is possible.

And, hey, maybe quit eating eggs? Spread the word.

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Kathy Gay is a vegan, and has been a member of Amnesty International for nearly 10 years, where she has worked on numerous campaigns. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a business analyst for a leading California bank.

Kathy's column, To All Living Things, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.