Beak amputations

In nature, hens establish complex social hierarchies, or "pecking orders". Conflicts are typically fleeting and cause no injury, since the bird of lower rank can simply move away. In the cramped battery cages at Wegmans Egg Farm, however, hens can barely move at all. Normally harmless aggression can become life-threatening when hens peck at each other in such confined spaces.

Instead of providing the hens with space to move, however, Wegmans solves the problem by burning off the ends of the birds' beaks with a hot blade. No painkiller is used.

Wegmans spokespeople claim this process causes no lasting pain(1), but experts in avian anatomy know that a hen's beak is full of sensory nerve endings. Even poultry experts endorsed by Wegmans admit that this form of mutilation causes the hens both short and long-term pain.(2)

This photo was taken from video footage of an investigation of the Wegmans Egg Farm conducted by Compassionate Consumers in the summer of 2004.