Patty recently returned from a USA speaking engagement where she addressed the annual United Poultry Concerns (UPC) Forum in Virginia.

Thanks to Karen Davis, founder of United Poultry Concerns (UPC) for inviting me to give a talk at their annual forum in Virginia USA.. I think I’d rather do anything than fly in a plane but it was great to be part of this conference and to show recent footage our rescue team took inside a parent bird breeding factory for egg laying hens. I wrote about this rescue in an earlier blog, Tears and Loyalty, but to my knowledge undercover footage of this relatively unknown aspect of the egg industry hadn’t been shown before.

The footage was only approximately four minutes and it’s main impact is the voices of the birds - for once they can speak for themselves. The roosters crow continually while the hens scream non-stop; it appeared they had all gone mad.

The backs of the hens were red raw from constant mating. The roosters were packed tightly in the sheds with them, it is wall to wall exhausted birds, every single one bedraggled and miserable. But the roosters were still humping the hens and holding tightly to the backs of their necks with their beaks while doing so.

There is no respite or escape for either the hens or roosters for a solid twelve months. All eggs laid by the hens go into incubators to hatch and the female chicks (who mum and dad will never know much less even see) become battery hens, barnlaid hens or free range hens. Meanwhile, the male chicks are ground up alive in industrial blenders, or gassed in plastic bags because they don’t lay eggs.

Please click here to spend four minutes with these birds. The more of us who are with them, (even for just four minutes) the more informed and passionate we will be to help them.

And help is on the way! In the USA the vegan message is sprouting faster than grass in spring, Many of us by now will be aware that Oprah has signed on for a three week vegan diet. My family usually turn a deaf ear to my vegan urgings but now with the doyen of daytime TV stepping up to the plate, people are opening their eyes. Check out Oprah’s kind journey here http://www2.oprah.com/foodhome/food/cleanse/blog/blog_1.jhtml

And meanwhile Ellen, America’s other TV Wonderwoman had Skinny Bitch authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin on her show with some of their delicious vegan recipes. Have a look at the segment here: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2008/05/how_about_some_delicious_skinn.php

I visited my mother, two brothers and two sisters in the California desert after the conference. I was out of toothpaste not tested on animals so asked for the nearest health food store. WOW, when I followed my sister’s directions it was not a little corner shop but a mega-supermarket. Seriously, I stood in awe when I walked inside and could hardly move. Aisle after aisle of vegan choices… that’s plural - as in CHOICES! Tofurky, Boca Burgers, countless varieties and brands of tempeh, tofu, vegan mayo and salad dressings, frozen meals, pumpkin pies, vegan ice creams, pies and cakes, organic fruits and vegetables. We all know of course, that most of these items are ‘treats’ and the best vegan diet is eating plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, beans, grains and nuts while keeping processed foods to a minimum. Did I have fun! I filled the shopping cart and my mother’s freezer/fridge.

Melbourne is right up front with following this trend, just being voted the Vegan capital of Australia, and one of our Animal Liberation Youth leaders, Anikee is busy setting up a vegan grocery store in Brunswick (more on that when it opens!)

Not so much fun was to discover two dairy feedlots and rows of egg sheds a half hour drive from my mother’s place. It’s desert territory with beautiful mountains surrounding it, but the sprinklers were on growing the grasses/crops to feed the cows locked in barren lots and the hens locked inside dim sheds. The time is approaching on a global scale when we simply won’t be able to be so wasteful. The animals and starving people are eagerly waiting for this time to come - for them it’s a matter of life and death, for us it’s a food addiction.

And finally, hats off to the wonderful activists who were busy saving this little piglet from a horrible Melbourne piggery while I was shopping in the USA. Pig Rescue - April ‘08 (view more)

It’s exciting to announce that the proposed mega battery-hen factory farm in Tooradin has been rejected by the VCAT tribunal! This is an outstanding victory for the countless hens who would have suffered and died there, and for the township of Tooradin.

You may remember months ago we told you Tamarix Poultry wanted to build five massive sheds, each holding 50,000 battery hens in cages four tiers high, and three sheds for rearing chicks with 17,000 babies in cages three tiers high. You can imagine how the residents of Tooradin felt, when they realised their quaint little seaside town was to play host to a putrid death camp plonked right on the main highway, next to a new housing estate and tourist highlights they were developing! The ‘Gateway to Gippsland’ was about to become the ‘Gateway to Gomorrah’!

The residents of this small town quickly lodged 42 objections. When ALV heard about it we told everyone who would listen, circulated it on our enews, set up a web page, made leaflets, drew up petitions and ran a stall at the local Tooradin market. Pretty soon the objections swelled to almost 600!

The local council unanimously rejected the application, and Tamarix Poultry Pty Ltd took the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). Outrageously, ALV was denied standing at the tribunal hearing as VCAT didn’t accept that animals and their interests were under their jurisdiction. VCAT refuses to take animal welfare concerns seriously, despite our constant objections that the Codes of Practice (that are supposed to prevent cruelty) are a complete joke and are only recommendations that subsequently allows the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (which is under their jurisdiction) to be ignored.

So it was up to the residents and local council to put the case forward. ALV attended the whole hearing and I felt exactly like a battery hen… that is I had to sit there and listen to the whole thing and not say one word! After three nail biting days of evidence from both sides, the Tribunal decided to visit the proposed site personally before handing down their decision. YIPPPEEE!!! it was a NO to yet another torture centre for the intelligent hens we all care so deeply about. I heard about the decision while still in the USA and I wonder if you all heard me yell with delight. I know the tears were streaming down my face.

Reading the transcript of VCAT’s decision is quite interesting. Most of the concerns raised, such as odour, noise, traffic and environmental damage were deemed inconclusive. It would seem the Tribunal was most swayed by the outpouring of objections from the local community. This shows just how important it is for people to participate when injustice arises, and that every signature, phone call, letter to the editor, protest, placard and pamphlet can have the power of life and death.
So thank you to everyone who took part, who fought the good fight, and saved millions of lives from abject misery. With you in solidarity until everyone is free.

Not all of these abused little birds have survived but the majority are now in good loving homes enjoying life. Seven tiny featherless bodies are dustbathing and sunbathing near me with great delight as I type this.

So why do we do what we do, going out in the middle of the night, crossing dark paddocks, sliding under electric fences or through barbed wire, jumping into ditches laying flat on our stomachs when cars pass by, hardly breathing if we hear strange noises? And when finally reaching the huge windowless sheds we quickly change into biosecure white uniforms, disinfect our footwear, slip on rubber gloves and a protective mouth mask to enter into the filthy, putrid and stinking world of the animals who are tortured for their flesh.

Why do we do this? To save as many lives as we can and to photograph and videotape the disgusting, cruel and unhealthy conditions to bring this universal horror to public attention so it can be STOPPED.

Our last rescue just five days ago brought tears to our eyes, one of our younger team members collapsed onto the floor alongside the tens of thousands of hens and roosters inside this shed and burst into tears. I don’t cry as much as I used to, but I also found myself down on the hard metal flooring sitting among the frail and featherless hens and young virile roosters who were repeatedly mating them and curled up in utter frustration and grief.

This night our team had planned to inspect some RSPCA approved barnlaid egg sheds (part of their Choose Wisely Campaign !?!) but upon arrival we discovered these sheds had been depopulated and were awaiting the next batch of victims. We’ve been inside these same sheds before and filmed the overcrowding, debeaking, cannibalism and torment.

As we stood in the cold night air at midnight near these empty sheds we could hear plaintive and eerie wailing noises followed by piercing screams in the distance. We followed our ears and several paddocks away we found two huge sheds both brightly lit in the middle of the night. Each shed was filled with exhausted, debeaked and debilitated hens suffering severe featherloss mixed together with young virile roosters. There were no cages, all the birds were tightly packed together on metal flooring. We saw a couple old battle scarred roosters limping about who had obviously missed the ‘old’ rooster cull. This is called ’spiking’ in the industry - where they kill the older male birds at around 50 weeks of age and replace them with young roosters to further boost the economic productivity of the already exhausted hens. Hens who are laying the eggs which after hatching will be the future battery hens, barnlaid hens and free range hens who lay the eggs people eat.

It was clear that the hens were being repeatedly mated with no escape, their backs were red raw. The hens are ISA laying hens. The shed was extremely overcrowded, the birds had little room to move, and the thousands upon thousands of birds had only hard metal flooring to stand on and their claws were sore and damaged. You can see the photos we took below, but these won’t let you hear their chilling screams and wails. The conditions were so appalling and distressing for these feeble birds that it reduced rescue team members to tears. But our loyalty to these suffering animals will NEVER EVER be reduced. We are there for them and will do whatever it takes to help them.

You can help. Please forward this blog to your family and friends so they know who they are eating and that there’s a better way, so we can all live healthy and fulfilling lives!
For a vegan world, Patty

A bald rescued hen at her new sanctuary

Sitting on a friendly lap

For Animal Equality - a new journal by Patty Mark

Introducing a new blog by ALV founder Patty Mark - a journal advocating vegan abolition, Openrescue and grassroots action for animals.

ALV rescued 46 broiler chickens in January on three separate openrescues while continuing to document the ongoing, illegal and horrific conditions these animals suffer.

THIS MONTH:

• Time Bomb Ticking - two more rescues at Parkhurst Farm
• Broiler Breeder Parent Bird Openrescue - why Free Range is cruel too
• Tooradin Battery Hen Proposal - the jury is out

The Jury is Still Out

Sheez…Tamarix Poultry Pty Ltd. want to build a mega battery egg factory right smack on the South Gippsland Highway on Tooradin’s doorstep! Not only don’t they care about the suffering of the hens but they obviously have no hesitations plopping their stinky business literally on a local township by the sea. Well the locals are rightly up in arms and ALV is right there with them in trying to do all we can to stop this horror from going ahead.

The small township quickly gathered 42 objections and numerous signatures on petitions against the proposal. When ALV found out about this we widely circulated news of it and the objections swelled to 361 (thanks to all of you who so quickly acted on this - well done guys!!) And then in December at the monthly Tooradin market concerned locals and ALV had a stall where a further 207 objections were quickly signed up - mostly by local residents - swelling the total number of objections to 568 and counting!

The local Casey Council voted unanimously against the proposal after the then mayor, Colin Butler spoke passionately for his motion not to allow this planning permit to be approved. So off it was to VCAT (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal), for a three day hearing (Jan 21-23) after the applicant, Tamarix Poultry appealed the decision (and the failure of the Council to make it ‘in time’). ALV was refused standing by the Vice President of VCAT to participate in this hearing (more on this in a later post!), but we still attended as public observers and had to sit still and not say a word…. hhhhmmmmmmmmm that was so hard, I truly felt like I wanted to put a piece of black tape over my mouth the whole time I sat there. Or better put, I felt like a battery hen where they had no voice at all, even though it was ALL about them.

But the local residents (who had standing) and the solicitor for the Casey Council did a great job in putting their case forward against the application. The two Members hearing the matter said after hearing all the evidence they will visit the site and reserved their decision. This is expected to be handed down in the next two weeks. You will be notified of the result on this blog FOR SURE… as there is no way we can allow yet another animal torture concentration camp be built in our community. You can start writing letters to the papers now, Click here for background information and while you’re at it, please sign up for the ALV writers group. Carmen does an excellent job circulating items that need your fingers pumping on the keyboard. together for the hens!

Further Parent Bird, Broiler Breeder Investigation and Rescue

Ok, I’m talking about parent birds and what you are seeing here in these rescue photos are chicks - so what’s up? These debeaked little babies are just beginning life, but there will be absolutely nothing for them to live for. Unlike their future offspring, who will live only a few weeks or months before they are eaten, these ‘parent birds’ will spend the next 18 months inside this shed. The conditions will deteriorate, their droppings will never be collected but allowed to pile up and up and will eventually resemble a hardened moonscape with crests and valleys of compacted pooh. The stench will be overwhelming, the air will be putrid, they will never ever feel sunshine or breathe fresh air. They will be crammed together and the hens will be repeatedly mated by the roosters until their backs are red, raw and very sore. They will only be fed every other day or their growth weight would prohibit successful mating and reproduction. They will always be hungry.

Once the chicks you see in these photos reach sexual maturity, at around 5 months of age, they will start to lay eggs. Their eggs will be collected everyday and put into commercial incubators for hatching. The brooding hens will never be allowed to sit on their eggs or nurse their young. Check out my earlier post: The Forgotten Victims to see what I’m talking about. When the ALV rescue team returned to this same shed on January 1 this year we found that all the ‘old’ birds in these photos (totally exhausted and depleted at only 18 months old, yet in the wild a hen can live to ten years) are now dead and used for fertilizer. In their place was the next ‘batch’ of victims.

We rescued 13 chicks on January 1 and three of these were euthanased by a vet, the others were rehabilitated and found good loving homes. The babies produced by those chicks we had to leave behind will soon fill the broiler chicken sheds like Parkhurst Farms (see my post: Time Bomb Ticking) and free range farms too! The suffering isn’t just in factory farming but in free-range farming too. Don’t be fooled to think that ‘free-range’ chicken is made without cruelty… the parents of free range birds suffer endlessly, and the same birds featured in these images also supply many free-range suppliers with chicks.

We will be going back again and again to rescue any sick and frail birds we find and to continue to document the pathetic and cruel life we force upon these intelligent birds. You can help by showing your family and friends where their food is coming from and together we can open the doors of animal farming. Thanks for your help and special thanks to every member of every rescue team worldwide!

Rescue Images: 1st January 2008

More rescues at Parkhurst Farm

ALV supporters are aware of the longstanding undercover investigations at Parkhurst Farm in Little River, twenty minutes west of Melbourne, where ‘broiler’ chickens are raised for their flesh. Eight sheds hold a total of 320,000 chicks - five times a year. 40,000 birds are crammed per shed for eight weeks after which time these babies weigh more than an adult laying hen and are sent off to slaughter - they still have blue eyes and chirp. 1.6 million babies ‘live’ and die every year at this one chicken factory farm alone. The birds are selectively bred for rapid growth and routinely fed antibiotics (not hormones) which act as a growth promotant and helps to keep them alive in the putrid conditions.

Between January 2004 and March 2005 our rescue team conducted 17 undercover openrescues at this animal factory removing a total of 219 sick and dying birds for veterinary care and rehabilitation. Video footage, photographs, veterinary statements and a written report clearly documenting the ongoing cruel and illegal conditions were presented to the Wyndham City Council, the Police and the RSPCA. NOTHING whatsoever was done to help these animals.

It is now four years since ALV began this Parkhurst Farm investigation and 6,400,000 chicks have suffered and died during this time… Our team again visited Parkhurst Farm on January 12 and 14, a couple weeks ago. Everything was exactly the same… it was filthy, putrid, stinking, hot, and rotting bodies littered the floor. Frail chicks were unable to access food or water, we found chicks in their death throes and filmed chicks pecking and roosting on corpses oozing pus. We were surrounded by the sick and dead and carried out as many as we could - a total of 33 chicks on the two visits. Only eight of these babies have survived. The vet euthanased the rest due to their appalling condition, and then told me he would never be eating chicken again!

I don’t think people have a clue who they are eating when they put chicken inside their mouth. Anyone who eats chicken is chewing pitiful baby birds who are sickly and can hardly walk or support their abnormal weight. I’ve seen enough of these chicks in enough sheds and nursed enough rescued ones to know exactly what I am talking about.

It’s a time bomb ticking, not only for each and every one of the BILLIONS of ‘broiler’ chicks globally who die every year but also for our environment that is groaning under the weight of supplying food and water for such large numbers of animals and of course - for human health.

Bird flu epidemic in India has seen culling teams in Bangladesh / West Bengal working around the clock to slaughter over 2.5 million chickens. The official human death toll from bird flu in Indonesia reached 100 over the weekend, and Vietnam recorded its first human bird flu death. Another outbreak of the disease has occurred amoungst poultry in China (western Xinjiang region) and recently it was announced that Tibet has an outbreak of bird flu amoungst poultry causing over 1000 birds to die from the H5N1 strain of the virus, while more than 13,000 others have been culled in a bid to stop the spread of the disease.

What the world needs now is an end to animal agriculture; we can live so much better without it and they can live.

Rescue Images: January 12th 2008

Rescue Images: January 14th 2008

Openrescue Number 3 in Broiler Breeding Sheds

ALV’s Openrescue team, headed by members of our newly launched Animal Liberation Youth group (ALY) inspected the broiler breeding parent factory farm near Melbourne for the third time on October 4, 2007.

We rescued a further ten ill and debilitated birds, nine hens and one rooster. Two of the hens were euthanased by the vet due to their crippling and poor condition. The rooster was in chronic pain and put on antibiotics and we have to soak his feet daily to loosen and remove the rock hard feaces which are compacted and embedded in the flesh on both his feet. Both his claws were swollen, red and infected.

There were thousands of hens and roosters inside this putrid shed, most of the hens had red raw backs and underbellies with feathers missing from their backs and from around the back of their heads. Roosters often hold on to the back of the hen’s neck with their beaks when mating.

The floor in this shed was appalling, with over twelve months of compacted and hardened faeces built up into ridges and valleys like a barren moonscape. The air was filled with dirt and feather dust and the smell was overwhelming. We found dead bodies rotting inside the shed and fresh faeces smeared on some of the birds. They have been inside this shed for a year and are very debilitated and exhausted and will soon all be killed and processed for blood and bone, stock cubes or pet food.

These birds are the parent birds of broiler chickens, birds who are raised for their flesh. The fertilized eggs of the broiler breeding parent birds are removed daily from the shed and put into incubators for hatching. They never see their offspring who are whisked away once hatched to be ‘grown’ in huge industrial broiler production sheds for 6-8 weeks. The chicks are ‘harvested’ after 8 weeks when they are already the size of adult chickens but still babies with blue eyes and chirping. Many are too weak to hold the abnormal weight gain promoted by selective breeding and routine antibiotics in their feed which acts as a growth promotant. The parent birds (those pictured in our slide presentation) are only fed every other day to prohibit high weight gains so they are still able to breed. They are continually hungry, frustrated, abused and suffering.

You can help stop this. Adopt a vegan lifestyle and never buy chicken meat again, and encourage all your family and friends to do the same.

ALV’s Openrescue team, headed by members of our newly launched Animal Liberation Youth group (ALY) inspected the broiler breeding parent factory farm near Melbourne for the third time on October 4, 2007.

We rescued a further ten ill and debilitated birds, nine hens and one rooster. Two of the hens were euthanased by the vet due to their crippling and poor condition. The rooster was in chronic pain and put on antibiotics and we have to soak his feet daily to loosen and remove the rock hard feaces which are compacted and embedded in the flesh on both his feet. Both his claws were swollen, red and infected.

There were thousands of hens and roosters inside this putrid shed, most of the hens had red raw backs and underbellies with feathers missing from their backs and from around the back of their heads. Roosters often hold on to the back of the hen’s neck with their beaks when mating.

The floor in this shed was appalling, with over twelve months of compacted and hardened faeces built up into ridges and valleys like a barren moonscape. The air was filled with dirt and feather dust and the smell was overwhelming. We found dead bodies rotting inside the shed and fresh faeces smeared on some of the birds. They have been inside this shed for a year and are very debilitated and exhausted and will soon all be killed and processed for blood and bone, stock cubes or pet food.

These birds are the parent birds of broiler chickens, birds who are raised for their flesh. The fertilized eggs of the broiler breeding parent birds are removed daily from the shed and put into incubators for hatching. They never see their offspring who are whisked away once hatched to be ‘grown’ in huge industrial broiler production sheds for 6-8 weeks. The chicks are ‘harvested’ after 8 weeks when they are already the size of adult chickens but still babies with blue eyes and chirping. Many are too weak to hold the abnormal weight gain promoted by selective breeding and routine antibiotics in their feed which acts as a growth promotant. The parent birds (those pictured in our slide presentation) are only fed every other day to prohibit high weight gains so they are still able to breed. They are continually hungry, frustrated, abused and suffering.

You can help stop this. Adopt a vegan lifestyle and never buy chicken meat again, and encourage all your family and friends to do the same.