In November 2004, Mercy For Animals investigators went behind the closed doors of Ohio Fresh Eggs, formerly Buckeye Egg Farm, in Croton, Ohio and emerged with shocking video and photographs that revealed the typical conditions inside a battery cage facility.

MFA investigators discovered:

• Hens with broken, damaged, and feces-covered feathers packed into battery cages so small they cannot spread their wings.
• Hens whose beaks had been painfully seared off with a hot blade.
• Hens suffering from bloody open wounds and untreated growths and infections.
• Hens who had become immobilized without access to water when their wings, head, neck, or feathers became trapped in the wire of the cage.
• Corpses left to rot in cages with birds still producing eggs for human consumption.
• A hen with the skin of her neck pierced by a piece of sharp wire on the top of her cage. The hen's skin is shown slowly ripping off as the other hens jostle against her.
• A live hen in a trash can, left to die among carcasses.

The cruel conditions uncovered at Ohio Fresh Eggs are, sadly, all too common. Over a dozen undercover investigations at egg farms in Ohio, Maryland, Minnesota, and New Jersey have all uncovered similar abuses. These facilities are not "bad apples", but rather they represent accepted practices within the egg industry.

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