‘Debeaked Chicken’ to ‘Peck’ Walmart Over Filthy, Cruel Egg Supplier
Company Urged to Reconsider Ties to Egg Factory Farm After Release of Shocking PETA Investigative Video
For Immediate Release:
August 3, 2020
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
On Tuesday, a “debeaked chicken” will lead PETA supporters in a spirited protest outside a local Walmart store to urge the company to reconsider its relationship with supplier Trillium Farm Holdings, whose eggs Walmart sells under its Great Value brand. The protest comes after a PETA undercover investigation of one of Trillium’s farms in Ohio revealed widespread, severe abuse of laying hens. Protesters will hold signs proclaiming, “Hens Crammed in With Rotting Corpses” and “Gassed. Decapitated. Left for Dead,” and showing images from the investigation.
When: Tuesday, August 4, 12 noon
Where: Walmart, 1450 Monterey Road (at the intersection with E. Alma Avenue), San Jose
The investigation showed hundreds of dead hens, many of whom were left to decompose alongside the survivors in small, cramped cages. In one incident, PETA’s investigator found a severely injured bird still alive in a trash bin. A supervisor had clumsily attempted but failed to kill the hen then let her languish for two more days before another worker finally killed her. Yet another worker was seen pulling a live hen’s head off. Birds had no place to stand, sit, or lie down except on the bare wire flooring of the cages, and many were missing feathers, often the result of stress-induced self-mutilation or fighting, as each bird had less than a square foot of space.
“Chickens are curious individuals who have distinct personalities, but most importantly, they feel pain and fear just as intensely as any human does,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling on Walmart to reconsider ties with this supplier and asking kind people to choose vegan foods that no animal suffered for.”
In late June, workers at the Ohio farm killed more than 100,000 unwanted “spent” hens, yanking them from their cages and stuffing and slamming them by the dozens into metal boxes, in which they were smothered and gassed with carbon dioxide.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
