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Fowl Play – The Unconscionable Cruelty Behind Your Egg

by Jennie Richards · Published October 10, 2018 · Updated November 11, 2021

“No life should have to exist feeling nothing but pain and suffering.”

“At this moment, in America alone, there are over 250 million hens in battery cages. By boycotting eggs, you can spare hens over 8,000 hours of suffering per year.”

“The reality is about 97% of all the animals that are exploited, abused and killed, are the animals used for food. Yet these are the animals with the fewest advocates working on their behalf.”

This groundbreaking film by Mercy for Animals exposes the horrors and routine cruelty that egg-laying hens are subjected to in modern day egg production. Fowl Play takes viewers on an unforgettable journey behind the closed doors of some of the country’s largest egg production facilities, illustrating the heartbreaking plight of laying hens, through interviews with animal rescuers, undercover investigators, veterinarians and animal behaviorists. The award-winning documentary has earned rave reviews and top honors at over a dozen film festivals nationwide.

The film tells the inspiring stories of the kind and courageous people who are fighting to save the modern-day hen, who very well could be the most abused and exploited animal on Earth. But that could change for hens if each of us considers replacing eggs with egg substitutes and egg replacers, and would boycott buying and eating eggs, forever. Each of us holds to power to change a hen’s world – one meal at a time.

Farms investigated included:

Ohio Fresh Eggs, Animal-Care Certified Facility #328
Weaver Egg Farm in Ohio

Film Release: January 2009

Film Length: 52 Minutes

Awards

Best Documentary Short – Fallbrook Film Festival
Official Selection – Las Vegas International Film Festival
Official Selection – Chicago United Film Festival

Watch The Film

Watch the film

Visit the website

Quotes from the Film

Egg-Laying Hens and Welfare Issues

“We live in a society that makes it easy for us to remain woefully ignorant about the details of food production.”

“Consumers have a right to know where their food comes from, and the animals have the right to have their stories told.”

Fowl Play - The Unconscionable Cruelty Behind Your Egg

Cages and cages, row upon row of hens, in dark, dank, ammonia-fumed buildings. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“All this egg farming takes place behind closed doors, they don’t want you to see what is going on.”

“You don’t expect places like this can exist. No matter which way we looked, we saw nothing but caged animals.”

“We find hens just on the verge of death, we even watch them die in front of us. You know they are going to die in our hands.”

“This hen at Ohio Fresh Eggs, Animal-Care Certified Facility #328, was caught on a wire that had ripped her neck and all the skin off her neck, and she was hanging there for days.”

Blindness caused by hen breathing toxic ammonia fumes from the manure pits below them, they breathe these fumes 24/7. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“Many of these chickens are just standing on top of each other, it is so crowded for them.”

“Each one of these birds were given a cage no larger than a note-book size paper to live in their entire lives. Every natural behavior is crushed by living in these cages. They cannot do anything that is natural for them.”

“Often the birds rub off their feathers due to overcrowding and stress, making them very prone to infections and bruises.”

“Veterinary care for animals is considered an unacceptable expense.”

Sick hen, her tumor is caused by toxic ammonia fumes that they breathe 24/7 and cannot escape from, commonly causing tumors and upper-respiratory distress. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“She is exposed 24/7 to stinking ammonia waste that causes tumors, growths, suffocation, respiratory disease – and the noxious fumes makes them extremely sick. They can experience pain just like we do.”

“The hens cannot escape the constant physical assault of being crushed inside cages with multiple hens that crawl over each other to try to escape.”

“The “incredible edible egg” comes from the worst animal cruelty imaginable. Life is like Hell for these animals.”

Hens packed into cages, with no room to move, walking on top of each other – stressed, sick and dying. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“You know they are just going to die, they are so sick, very often hens just die in their cages. They are rotting and decomposing, and still with birds that are producing eggs for human consumption.”

“Below the hundreds of cages are enormous manure pits, where there are some birds who have escaped that are trapped in the manure pits, dying.”

“I wanted her to see that there was a kinder world, no life should have to exist feeling nothing but pain and suffering.”

“This case illustrated to me just how expendable these animals are to this industry. We found her in a trash can, she was waiting to die. She was on top of a can full of dead birds. I reached in and lifted her out, and took her to a veterinarian. And she is still alive today at Sunrise Sanctuary.’”

“No one really seemed to think about the farm animals, so that is why I opened a farm sanctuary.”

Hens stuffed cruelly into cages, with broken wings, sick, diseased, stressed, no room to move, living on top of each other. Dying. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“Chickens have feelings and thoughts just like we do. About 5 years ago, scientists identified chickens to have very complex brains and thinking. They retain all of the behaviors and the needs that their ancestors had.”

Egg-Laying Hens’ Production

“The Red Jungle Fowl breed laid about 25 eggs per year, but humans began breeding these animals for maximum egg production, and by the 1940s the industry had created a bird that could lay 100 eggs per year. But the industry wasn’t satisfied with that, so now the industry has created a bird that can lay 260 eggs per year. 10 times the number of eggs that is normal.”

“Hens are constantly depleting their calcium due to producing far too many eggs – so they have broken bones and osteoporosis and cannot even stand up.”

Injured hen, untreated, caught on a wire. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“Male chicks are discarded immediately after hatching from hens. A day after hatching, the chicks are “sexed” and the male chicks are tossed in large garbage cans, then are macerated and ground up alive. Or let them pile up in a bin and let them suffocate. It’s so horribly inhumane, is so thoughtless, so horrific. Only the females are allowed to live.”

“The females go off to be raised in sheds that intensively confine them. Birds resort to pecking each other out of frustration. So the industry combats this problem, not by giving them more space which is what they need, but by removing and severing the bird’s beak. They will use a hot blade to sear off the bird’s beak. The beak is an extremely sensitive organ on the bird’s body, and the degree of pain from this injury is extraordinary and overwhelming. It’s akin to cutting off your fingertips. The beak is the most important organ for foraging. When you have mutilated the end of the beak, you have essentially rendered the animal incapable, but it hurts them so badly, they cannot eat any longer and starve to death.”

Extremely painful debeaking with a sharp knife, done on every single hen, which causes them horrific pain 24/7, unable to eat without suffering. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“In modern egg production, these birds are sent to slaughter when they are no longer producing eggs, they are thrown into crates and shipped to slaughterhouses. They go through the same cruel shackling, stunning and through slicing as birds raised for meat face.”

Hen left to die – caught below her cage. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“But now more and more, because these birds are so abused, so battered, so frail – they are simply disposed of. Or hens are ripped out of carts – and they are gassed to death. Dying by CO2 is suffocating. They overcrowd these gassing chambers, so many birds don’t even die. They are suffocating but surviving.”

“I have learned to appreciate chickens as individuals. Chickens are amazing. They have their own personalities.”

Hen with painful impacted egg, she has produced far too many eggs for her physically exhausted, depleted body at only months old (Chickens live to 15 years). Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“At this moment, in America alone, there are over 250 million hens in battery cages. By boycotting eggs, you can spare hens over 8,000 hours of suffering per year.”

Cage-Free Eggs

“The image could not be further from the truth. I’m an investigator, I have worked at cage-free sheds. They are just wing to wing shoved together in massive crowding. When birds are sick or injured, they are ignored or they are killed on the spot. I have never seen any veterinary care given. It is exactly the same as caged birds. Males are still killed at birth. They are all still de-beaked. Still forced into crowding. I could never have eggs from either cage-free or caged facilities.”

Free range chicken farm. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

“The animal agriculture and food industries view these animals not as living, feeling, sentient beings, but as disposable commodities to be consumed, not to be respected.”

“When a lot of people are cruel to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and once sums of money are at stake, it will be defended to the last.”

Chickens Raised for Meat

“Meat chickens are bred for rapid growth, and today they are bred to grow so fast and so big, that their skeletons have difficulty supporting their weight.”

“We need to stop eating meat, milk and eggs. We owe it to animals to eliminate animal products from our diet.”

“It’s not hard at all to replace eggs, some people use soy yogurt, or applesauce or bananas.”

“Any rational human being who saw how these animals are treated, they would not ever eat them again.”

“We have power as individuals to change the life of animals.”

“If you eat eggs, you are supporting egregious animal cruelty.”

Newborn male baby chicks thown away into garbage trash cans to die and suffocate to death – millions of male baby chicks are macerated, suffocated and trashed every day. Photo Credit: Fowl Play

What You Can Do

Go Vegan – You can find free information and recipes at ChooseVeg.com
Stop Eating Eggs – All commercial eggs are cruel to egg-laying hens, whether cage-free or battery-caged eggs, they are both deeply cruel and inhumane to hens and male chicks who are slaughtered at birth.
Use an Egg Substitute – There are many excellent egg alternatives or substitutes. Some alternatives to eggs include tofu, applesauce, and bananas. Visit out list of egg substitutes.
VOTE for Humane Legislators!
Support State Legislation – that will end the use of cruel confinement systems for hens.
Call Your Politicians – Ask them to get involved and support animal welfare laws, and keep track of their voting record.
Spread the Word! Share on social media about the cruel, inhumane conditions and animal welfare horrors that egg-laying hens are subjected to. Tell others about the plight of battery caged egg-laying hens and the horrors of factory farming.
Learn More About Factory Farms – And the cruelty of industrial animal agriculture. See why it is such a significant threat to animals, the environment, natural ecosystems, habitats and wildlife, our communities and human health.