Small Farms are Not the Solution to Animal Suffering in Meat, Dairy and Egg Production
Egg Production Articles from All-Creatures.org

FROM Peace Ridge Sanctuary
Facebook posting, February 2022

The parallels of suffering in both environments are similar, the fate of these animals is the same, and whatever small improvements there may be from one setting to the next is overshadowed by the fact that what we do to animals we want to use for food is not only inherently unkind, but it is unnecessary.

rescued Hen

This time last year we received the call from a local "free-range, small, family farmer" here in Maine looking to place the "spent" hens in his flock because they were "not worth feeding any longer, but were all too skinny too be worth the effort to slaughter for dog food."

Deciding to offload the hens was an act of convenience, not one of compassion, but we're grateful regardless, because that call was the difference between life and death for Vivienne (pictured here) and 39 other hens.

While the farmer assured us they were "very healthy" (despite being so frail) before dropping them off, as is almost always the case when we take in farmed animals being used for production, everyone arrived in terrible condition.

These poor birds were tattered, missing large patches of feathers, emaciated, dehydrated, covered in lice, full of parasites, and anemic. Several had severe pneumonia requiring injectable antibiotics and over a month of nebulizer treatments multiple times a day. Everyone needed to be treated for internal and external parasites and put on a re-feeding program. Though they were only two years old, many already had reproductive cancer.

Vivienne's flock was unique because it was a comprised of hens from multiple situations were they could be acquired for free or for very cheap (something we often see here in Maine) and had chickens from "small, family farms" and big factory farms - these birds were severely debeaked, some to the point that it is hard to eat normally. All had spent their last months on the same "free-range" farm. All arrived sick. There is no way to selectively breed animals to lay 20-30 times the number of eggs they naturally would and have them be healthy.

This case illustrates one of the reasons we don't differentiate between small farming and factory farming and advocate for veganism.

Although factory farming is overwhelmingly bad for a number of reasons, the idea that small farms are the solution to animal suffering in meat, dairy, and egg production is also very much misguided and untrue. The parallels of suffering in both environments are similar, the fate of these animals is the same, and whatever small improvements there may be from one setting to the next is overshadowed by the fact that what we do to animals we want to use for food is not only inherently unkind, but it is unnecessary.


Return to Egg Production Articles
Read more at Meat and Dairy Articles