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From fluffy newborn chicks ground alive on their first day of life, to 18 month old hens brutally killed at the slaughterhouse, the reality of the Australian egg industry is far from the image of happy, healthy chickens who grace the packaging we see stacked on shelves in the supermarkets.
Battery Cages (2014)
Hens in battery cages, barn-laid systems, and many free range systems spend their lives in artificially lit surroundings designed to maximise laying activity, with insufficient room to act on natural instincts like preening, nesting, foraging and dust bathing.
Exposed by Aussie Farms in May 2014, Henholme is a large battery hen (caged egg) facility near Newcastle NSW. In approximately half of the sheds, the cages reach 8 tiers high. The majority of birds were found with major feather loss and clear signs of malnutrition.
Chick Maceration (2016)
All egg systems are faced with a universal 'problem' when it comes to the hatching of chicks raised for egg laying. Since only female chickens lay eggs, male chicks who have no commercial value to the egg industry are routinely gassed or 'macerated' (ground up alive). As a result, every year some 12 million male chicks are killed in the first day of their lives as waste products of the Australian egg industry.
In June 2016, Aussie Farms founder Chris Delforce hid inside the maceration room overnight at the country's largest hatchery for the egg-laying industry, capturing with a handheld camera the shredding of newborn male chicks. The following month, this Australian-first footage was released publicly in collaboration with Animal Liberation NSW. Shortly afterwards, in an action organised by Aussie Farms, around 100 activists from across the country converged on the facility in Huntly, Victoria, with 21 entering the hatchery by surprise and halting operations for two hours in an effort to draw further public attention to the inherent cruelty of the egg industry. Over 150 male chicks - some just seconds from being killed - were rescued and are now living out their lives, happily and healthily, with experienced carers.
Hens Burnt Alive (2021)
On the night of November 9, 2021, Farm Transparency Project received a tipoff about a shed that had caught fire at an intensive egg farm in Carisbrook, Victoria, earlier that day. The farm, owned by Kinross, produces "cage-free", "barn-laid" eggs in an "aviary" system, with up to 45,000 hens in each shed.
The eggs from this facility are marketed as "cage-free", but the reality is that each aisle of this massive shed functions as one large cage. These birds were trapped with nowhere to go.
Our investigators were equipped to rescue any survivors they might have come across, but there were none. Every single one of the hens here, around 45,000, were horrifically burned alive. Their sheer terror and pain as the fire ripped through the shed is unimaginable.
Initially, the owner claimed there were 24,000 hens killed in the fire. He later admitted there were 45,312.
'Spent' Hen slaughter (2024)
At E.T Chicken Processing hundreds of chickens are killed each week in a run-down slaughterhouse surrounded by disused chicken sheds. In November 2024, a team of investigators installed hidden cameras to document this slaughter.
The slaughterhouse kills both 5-7 week old broiler chickens, bred for meat, and 18 month old layer hens, whose egg production has begun to slow.
The footage shows crates of already dead chickens being thrown into the bin, and birds being roughly handled by workers. Chickens will frantically flap while being sent into the kill room, with many managing to escape before being recaptured by workers. Some chickens were shown to remain conscious after stunning, meaning that they are still conscious when their throats are slit.
Just like all animals, these chickens fight for their lives. They do not want to die.
View all 72 videos for this campaign in the video gallery
Cruelty and abuse are inherent to the animal slaughter industry, including meat, dairy, eggs, fur, wool and leather. Much of this cruelty is legal, due to exemptions in animal welfare legislation that specifically permit acts of cruelty towards farmed animals, that would be illegal if performed on dogs or cats.
The only way to truly stop cruelty to farmed animals is to stop eating them. Take the pledge today to leave animals off your plate and live vegan - be part of a growing movement towards a kinder, more sustainable world, and take a stand against industries that harm and exploit animals.
Friday 12 Nov 2021 by
The cause of fire which killed between 20,000 and 45,000 chickens at a poultry farm has been blamed by the owners on an electrical fault.
Tuesday 16 Nov 2021 by
Thousands of chickens were burned alive after a huge fire broke out on Tuesday at an intensive egg farm in Victoria in Australia. Up to 45,000 chickens were in the shed when it went up in flames. None of them survived the blaze.
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