Wake Up to ‘Cage-Free’ Egg Scam, Say Animal Protectionists in Boston

Governor Guts Animal Welfare Bill; PETA Issues Roadside Message

For Immediate Release:
January 5, 2022

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

“Don’t buy it. Go vegan.” That’s the message PETA is planning to place in cities across Massachusetts, showing that “cage-free” farms cram chickens so tightly together that they can’t stretch a wing. The billboard follows Gov. Charlie Baker’s recent pun-filled announcement that he has kowtowed to industry interests with a rollback of the overwhelmingly voter-approved S 2603—a bill that would have slightly increased minimum space requirements for hens but will now leave them with just 1 square foot of floor space each, an area no bigger than the inside of a microwave oven in which to spend their entire lives.

“The will of the people of Massachusetts has been quashed, and the hens who lay eggs that are sold in stores are now condemned to life in 1 square foot of space, surrounded by thousands of others, as if they were widgets, not birds,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges the kind people of Boston to vote with their grocery money, reject Gov. Baker’s corporate kowtowing, and leave eggs on the supermarket shelf.”

PETA notes that there is no such thing as “humane” eggs and that each vegan saves nearly 200 animals every year. In 2019, the group released damning video footage of a packed chicken shed at a “cage-free” farm called Hilliker’s Ranch Fresh Eggs, Inc.—which its owner had touted as “Chicken Disneyland.” PETA’s eyewitness reported that the shed smelled strongly of waste and that frustrated hens cried out endlessly. The birds had no escape from the noise or odor.

The billboard will also go up in Springfield, and Worcester.  

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.