Caged in

The metal cage barely offered enough room for its student prisoners to stand, and the early afternoon was already saturated with springtime heat, mirroring the intensity of what they were learning.

There was no cause for alarm, because they entered willingly, able to leave whenever they liked.

But that’s more than can be said for the chickens that spend their entire lives in comparable conditions.

Grace Amico, Animal Place’s “brave the cage” outreach coordinator, explained the significance of the experience to Jamie Cabrera, 21, and her friend Andrew Cobian, 18, as the three stuffed themselves into the cage. The nonprofit, based in Grass Valley, has rescued neglected and abused farm animals since 1989, and visited Chico State earlier this week to share the harsh realities of factory farming with students and encourage them to change their diets.

Most chickens spend about two years in such confines, Amico told Cabrera and Cobian, after which they are killed as their egg production declines (male chicks are killed once their sex is determined). When the hens are raised this way, they become stressed, she continued, which often translates into aggressive pecking behavior and even cannibalism. Rather than provide more space, farmers typically “debeak” the animals, a process in which a chicken’s sensitive beak is clipped or burned, to curb this behavior.

“All this cruelty happens when people are treating animals as commodities … when really, they are living, breathing beings,” Amico told the CN&R later.

The cage definitely made an impression on Cabrera, who was inside for less than a minute and said she felt “squashed and couldn’t breathe.” As a child, Cabrera raised chickens with her family. “Thinking of putting them in a tiny place breaks my heart,” she said.

Because factory farming results in the slaughter of 10 billion animals each year in the U.S., Animal Place promotes a vegan lifestyle, according to its website. In addition to outreach, the organization’s 600-acre sanctuary in Grass Valley provides refuge for 300 animals from farms, slaughterhouses, research facilities and neglect/cruelty cases. There, it offers farm tours, cooking classes and workshops, along with volunteer and internship opportunities.

Animal Place’s visit Monday (April 23) was punctuated by Farm Sanctuary’s recent announcement that it’s closing its 300-acre Orland facility. That farm-animal rescue organization is planning to shepherd the 246 animals that live there to its other sanctuaries after 25 years in the North State.

President and co-founder Gene Baur said rescuing animals remains an important part of what the organization does, but it is shifting its focus to advocacy, education and demonstrating real solutions to the global food crisis in urban areas. Orland is beautiful, but remote, which provided challenges, Baur said by phone from Farm Sanctuary’s headquarters in Watkins Glen, N.Y. He added that he is glad the sanctuary movement has taken off globally and there are other sanctuaries in Northern California that will continue to rescue animals and provide hands-on education.

Animal activism is also manifesting itself this year in the form of a new California ballot initiative. It builds upon momentum gained with the state’s Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (Proposition 2), which, as of 2015, prohibits confinement that doesn’t allow certain farm animals to turn around, lie down, stand up or extend their limbs.

Many California egg producers have kept their cages, however, reducing how many birds are in each cage to give them slightly more space, the Humane Society of the United States wrote in a press release. The organization, along with a coalition of animal protection, veterinary and food safety groups, has been collecting signatures for an initiative for the November ballot that would require all eggs produced and sold in California to come from cage-free birds that have at least 1 square foot of space each by 2022.

Policy changes like these do come with a price, according to a Purdue University study, which revealed that Prop. 2 affected egg production and pricing. California produced more than 5 billion eggs every year from 2008 to 2013, but that number dropped to less than 3.5 billion by 2016, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. By fall 2016, egg prices were about 9 percent higher.

The Humane Society cites economic analyses from the egg industry, however, that argue it will cost about a penny or two more per egg to go cage-free. More than 250 major retailers, including McDonald’s, Safeway, Costco and Walmart, have already made pledges to only use eggs from cage-free chickens, which will be phased in over a number of years.

An alternative to supporting factory farms is to buy eggs from local farmers who can attest to their animals’ treatment, or even to raise your own hens, though Amico and Baur both advocate for veganism.

Baur said it’s his hope that a vegan lifestyle will become more mainstream for the health of people, animals and the planet. He’s been encouraged by the development of alternatives like almond milk and “meatless meat,” which weren’t available when he became vegan in 1985 (a year before Farm Sanctuary was founded).

“Cage-free systems are less horrible, but they’re still pretty horrible. The hens are debeaked and overcrowded, and then, when they’re no longer useful, they’re killed,” he said. “Ultimately the hens and animals are seen as commodities, as production units, not as fellow earthlings, not as companions who deserve our respect and compassion.”