Yesterday was a momentous day for animals living on farms in Michigan, where Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a bill into law that phases out veal crates, battery cages, and gestation crates on farms across the state!

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Michigan farmers have been given three years to phase out veal crates and 10 years to get rid of gestation crates and battery cages. This means that farmers will no longer be allowed to immobilize calves in crates that are so small that the animals can barely take a step in any direction. Pregnant pigs will no longer be forced to live in their own excrement in a space too small to turn around in, and hens will get a chance to stretch their wings.

The news comes just a day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill making it illegal to dock cows' tails in California, where gestation crates, veal crates, and battery cages were banned last year. Now that Michigan has become the seventh state to ban gestation crates, the fifth to ban veal crates, and the second to ban battery cages, we're hoping that laws improving conditions for animals on factory farms will continue to take the nation by storm.

Of course, the best way to prevent animal suffering is to adopt a vegan diet, stat.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

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This week, Kevin Skinner—an unemployed chicken catcher from Mayfield, Kentucky—sang and strummed his way to the top of America's Got Talent and walked away with a cool million dollars. Congratulations, Kevin!

Kevin's been given a new start on life. Wouldn't it endear him to millions of people if he were to extend that same second chance to those in need—say, to chickens who were abused on factory farms?

We're asking Kevin to donate part of his prize money to a farmed-animal sanctuary to help care for chickens abused by the meat and egg industries. Kevin has the opportunity to give chickens the chance to enjoy all the things that they were denied on factory farms, such as building nests, caring for their young, and enjoying the company of their flock.

We also sent him a congratulatory present, of course: a package of Boca Chik'n Patties. Delicious!

Posted by Amanda Schinke

Thank you Prolife Across America for your excellent billboard juxtaposition. We're always trying to remind folks that the squishy part of their Egg McMuffin is just a fried chicken embryo*. You've done future baby chicks everywhere a favor.

Still hungry for an Embryo McMuffin? Mmm … doubt it! We're definitely not lovin' it.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

*OK, not exactly an embryo because it's not fertilized, but "fried chicken period" ain't so appealing either!

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I travel a lot for work, and between going to meetings, catching flights, and trying to get to hotels at a reasonable hour, I'm always on the lookout for a quick bite to eat. Quiznos has saved me many a time with its delicious toasted veggie sandwiches—but I've been troubled by its animal welfare record.

Well, Quiznos has just taken its first major step. We've been working quietly with the company for about a year, talking about the importance of animal welfare reforms to improve the lives and deaths of the animals killed for its products. Now, Quiznos has officially moved forward. It will do the following:

• Begin phasing in the purchase of eggs from suppliers that don't cage their hens, starting with 5 percent by next year


• Begin phasing in the purchase of pig meat from suppliers that don't confine pregnant sows to barren, metal "gestation crates" (causing extreme physical and psychological trauma), starting with 15 percent by 2012


• Begin phasing in the purchase of turkeys killed using a less cruel slaughter method called "controlled atmosphere killing" (CAK), starting with 5 percent by the end of 2009


• Give purchasing preference to suppliers using these less cruel production methods, including chicken suppliers that switch to CAK

Quiznos has also removed the eggs entirely from three of its four cookies. (Unfortunately, they still aren't vegan, but this will still prevent thousands of hours of suffering for laying hens).

These reforms mark the first steps forward for Quiznos, and we wish those companies resisting change would at least make similar moves (come on Subway, what are you waiting for?). That said, not eating animals (or their eggs or milk) is still the best way to help them. So while it is terrific that pigs, chickens, and turkeys will now suffer less for some of Quiznos' products, I'll stick with those veggie subs.

Posted by Matt Prescott

You know how we always say that chickens are the most abused animals on the planet? Well, watch this horrific video and you'll see why. A new investigation by our friends at Mercy for Animals has once again exposed the cruelty behind the egg industry. Undercover footage taken at one of the largest egg farms in California documented that workers were swinging chickens around by their necks in a heartless attempt to kill them. Chickens were crammed into filthy wire battery cages so small that they could barely move. Left to suffer with untreated injuries, infections, and open wounds, the chickens were forced to live side-by-side with the decomposing bodies of their cagemates for weeks on end.

Every time animal advocates investigate egg factory farms, they expose horrific cruelty just like this. Fortunately, there are a couple of things that we can do about it. First of all, ditch the eggs from your diet (if you haven't done so already). If you don't buy eggs, no one has to suffer to make them, right? Secondly, you can help banish battery cages in California. This November, Californians will have the opportunity to pass Proposition 2, which would require that farmed animals be given enough room to stand up, turn around, lie down, and extend their limbs. If you live in California, please vote YES on Proposition 2 and encourage your friends and family members to do the same.

Even if you're not living in Cali, you can still help. Click here for more information about how you can support this historic ballot initiative.

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

You know what it's like—you get started with something, thinking you'll have just this one or do it just this once, and then you think, "One more wouldn't hurt, right?" And before you know it, it's all out of hand.

Of course, when I do it, I end up eating half a package of Newman-Os, not egging 400 people's houses and cars.

That's right—a couple in Pennsylvania have recently been charged with perpetrating an 18-month "egging spree" that resulted in $7,000 worth of damage.

This news article explains that the couple started egging because they "wanted to retaliate against friends for damages they said were inflicted upon them" but moved on to other targets to avoid suspicion.

Hate to break it to you (geddit?), but 400 targets might arouse a little suspicion, don't you think?

Now, the county's district attorney is urging the victims of the spree to come forward, saying, "We have an obligation under the law to seek to make them whole and to get restitution for them."

Sure, the people who had to wash their cars and hose down their driveways deserve "restitution." But let's take this further: What is washing your car compared to being crammed into battery cages and having your beak cut off with a hot wire?

When you think about it that way, aren't the hens the number one victims here?

We think that all the victims of this crime deserve restitution. For this reason, we've written a letter to the DA with a logical suggestion: It takes up to 34 hours for a hen to produce a single egg, and during that time, she isn't watching TV—she's crammed into a cage that doesn't allow her to take a step or stretch one wing, and she has to balance on wire and do her business on the backs of other birds. If the DA has an "obligation" to "get restitution" for the victims of this crime, wouldn't justice best be served by sentencing the perpetrators to 34 hours of community service in a vegan soup kitchen or doing bird rescues for each egg wasted? We think so!

Check out our letter to the DA:

Horrible as it is to watch, this video should be mandatory viewing for anyone who still believes that the egg industry treats chickens humanely. The investigation, conducted by our friends at Mercy for Animals, shows workers at one of the largest egg companies in the U.S. mercilessly abusing chickens who spend their entire lives crammed into filthy cages so small that they can barely move. If this upsets you, there are two things you can do to help. First, you can contact one of the companies that refuses to set humane standards for their suppliers even though the kind of abuse documented here is endemic to the egg industry. But the best thing you can do to help is also the easiest. If you don’t buy eggs, no one has to suffer to make them. Check out this recipe for tofu scramble to get you started.

If you’ve been following this story over the past few days, you’ll know that Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina that runs an egg factory farm to cover its costs, has announced that it will be phasing out its egg production and switching to a new industry following a PETA investigation and subsequent pressure on the monks from our offices. And if you’ve been following my posts on the topic, you’ll know that a number of South Carolina residents who are familiar with the monastery have commented to say that they’re unhappy about this decision, claiming that it was unfair of us to go after the monks because they are decent men who do a lot of good in the community.

The way I see it, however, is that holy men—who should be setting an example for the people who look to them for guidance—need to be particularly accountable for cruel or unethical actions. While we have come to expect that CEOs of large corporations are going to be primarily concerned with their bottom line (and thus less immediately receptive to our concerns about their practices), in a case like this one—where good people have gone astray and are ignoring or failing to understand the fact that they are inflicting terrible suffering—it is all the more important that they be brought up short and asked to consider the damage they’re doing. Being a monk doesn’t mean that you should get off scott free when you’re caught doing something unethical—on the contrary, it means you should be held to a higher standard.

Anyone who has seen our investigation should know that the practices these monks were engaging in (such as confining chickens in cages so small that they had no room to move and denying sick animals veterinary care), as well as the practices that they were directly supporting (their suppliers slice off chicks’ beaks with a hot blade and grind up unwanted male chicks in a macerator), are cruel in the extreme, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all you really need to know about this case. This factory farm needed to be shut down whether it was run by money-grubbing fat cats or honorable but misguided holy men. Fortunately for us, and for the chickens, it was the latter.

For a more eloquent statement of these ideas, you can read the letter that PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich wrote to the Abbey when this investigation first broke here.

We've just heard the news that the monks at Mepkin Abbey have decided to phase out their egg-production business over the next year and a half following pressure from PETA, including protests of the monastery that are going on today. According to the Associated Press, Mepkin's Father Stan Gumula said late last night that the focus on the monks' practices as a result of PETA's investigation has been too much of a distraction, and that they will be looking for a new industry to help meet their expenses.

PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich points out that South Carolina had the 6th highest peanut production among U.S. states last year (quite how he knows such things, I have no idea), and recommends that the monks go into the booming business of peanut butter packaging, where they can pack the peanuts as tight as they like without any fear of our getting on their case about it. In fact, we might be their first customers. My own vote is more traditional—there's nothing quite like a good Trappist Ale.

Whatever they end up deciding, this is nothing short of a Christmas miracle for the chickens who have suffered for so long at Mepkin Abbey, and we commend the monks for their compassionate decision.

Other viewing options

Tomorrow afternoon, PETA members will be demonstrating against the horrific cruelty involved in factory-farm egg production at, of all places, a Trappist Monastery. The perpetrators in question are a group of supposedly peace-loving monks who run an operation at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina that crams 20,000 chickens into tiny wire “battery cages” so small that they barely have room to move. Although Mepkin’s monks don’t grind the male chicks up in macerators themselves—egg farms don’t have any need for male chicks, for obvious reasons—their suppliers do, and this little deal with the devil doesn’t reflect particularly well on them either. In the spirit of Christmas (which is getting ominously close), now’s a really good time for these monks to think about a new way of participating in what they call "the caring cultivation of the Earth and its creatures" that doesn’t involve torturing defenseless animals. I’ll post pictures of the demonstration tomorrow—the protestors will be stationed outside the stores in Charleston and Columbia that sell Mepkin’s eggs—but in the meantime, you can watch footage from our investigation into Mepkin Abbey below.

Other Viewing Options

Total winner, this one. With Easter coming up, a lot of people have eggs on the brain, especially in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, where, according to RXPG News, "Christians across the state consume eggs lavishly after the Sunday Easter mass." Before I go on, I do want to take the opportunity to write that one more time, just in case it never comes up again. Thiruvananthapuram! OK, now that we've got that out of our systems, here's a picture from PETA India's amazing demonstration to draw attention to the fact that chickens used for their eggs are among the most abused animals on the planet. The picture is from a protest that took place this morning. In Thiruvananthapuram.