Spring 2015 Poultry Press NEXT
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The End of Hens: Inside a “Spent Hen” Slaughterhouse
Butterfield Spent Fowl Slaughter Plant in Minnesota

What this new undercover video investigation released in January by The Humane Society of the United States shows is what happens to millions of egg-laying hens in the U.S. In or out of cages, this is how they die unless they get sent to a live poultry market or are gassed to death. Please don’t be fooled by “organic,” “cage-free” and other labels. Young hens whose profit-making days are over are trucked to “spent fowl” plants just like in this video. Or they are stuffed into metal containers, sealed dumpsters or killing carts to be hosed to death painfully with ice-cold carbon dioxide. Hens used for egg production are killed horrifically no matter what lies egg cartons and companies like Whole Foods and other retailers tell people.

Because spent fowl plants are few and far between, hens travel hundred even thousands of miles in battery cages to their final destination. All the while their bodies are forming and pushing out eggs so that, in addition to no food or water or space in the transport cages and being trucked nearly naked of feathers in all kinds of weather, they are covered in egg slime. Throughout the world, egg-laying hens are treated just like in this video, which includes hens being paralyzed with electricity and scalded to death.

spent hen slaughterhouse
Photo by HSUS
Butterfield Spent Hen Slaughter Plant in Minnesota.
Spring 2015 Poultry Press NEXT