The Humane Society of the United States, continuing a nationwide campaign, accused an egg producer in Wakefield of “shocking cruelty” to its laying hens.

The society said an undercover volunteer got a job and shot photos and video footage to document inhumane conditions at what it called a “factory farm” in Wakefield owned by Michael Foods, a publicly traded company headquartered in Minnetonka, Minn.

The egg producer supplies liquid eggs  under the Waldbaum name to some of the largest institutional food companies in the nation, including Pillsbury, Hellmann’s, Mrs. Smith’s, Ben and Jerry’s, Hostess and Kraft,  the Humane Society said.  

It also sells eggs in the shell to retailers, but most of its business is in food service.

In a statement, Michael Foods said it was investigating the matter,  “as we take the care and welfare of our hens very seriously.”

The society did not directly accuse Michael Foods of breaking any laws at the Wakefield operation but of violating United Egg Producers’ voluntary standards the society says are used by more than 80 percent of the U.S. egg industry. 

“Well, I’m not a legal expert, and the state of Nebraska exempts common agricultural practices, no matter how cruel and abusive they are,”  said Paul Shapiro, leader of the society’s Factory Farming Campaign. “It may be the case some practices are not common.”

For example, he said, the United Egg Producers standards allow 67 square inches per hen for a cage floor surface, but Michael Foods confines hens in less space than that. 

United Egg Producers could not be reached for comment.

At the behest of the Humane Society,  an unidentified person went to work at the Michael Foods egg farm last winter, where the employee documented conditions with a hidden video camera for a  couple of weeks,  Shapiro said.

He would not identify the volunteer he called a “whistle-blower.”

“The worker’s primary job was simply to remove dead hens from battery cages, wire enclosures so small that the hens cannot even spread their wings, and pulled out hundreds of corpses for eight hours every day,” the society said.

The employee videotaped live hens confined in cages with decomposing birds; hens caught in cage wires, unable to untangle themselves; sick and injured hens; and immobilized hens dying from dehydration and starvation, just inches away from food and water, according to the society.

Shapiro said Michael Food has 14 million chickens confined in similar circumstances at all its egg farms. 

Michael Foods said it chooses to use “environmentally controlled facilities” to ensure flock and egg quality, rather than a free range, to manage the birds diets, provide uniform temperatures, monitor the health of the birds, and protect them from predators or disease that might be caused by wild animals.

“Each hen house is staffed with experienced poultry husbandry maangers, and Michael Foods has veterinarians and a nutritionist on staff to ensure property health of the birds,” the company said and the birds' foot and water are checked multiple times each day.

This is the society’s first undercover investigation in what has been a year-and-a-half-long campaign to improve the conditions for egg-laying hens, Shapiro said.

The society praised grocery chains Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Natural Marketplace, which it said have eliminated their sales of “cage eggs”; companies such as AOL and Google, which it said are moving away from cage eggs in their employee cafeterias; and schools that have enacted policies to eliminate or decrease their use of eggs laid in cages.

The Humane Society of the United States describes itself as the nation’s largest animal protection organization with 9.5 million members and constituents.

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On the Web:   Details of the society’s project were posted on the society’s Web site, www.hsus.org.

http://www.michaelfoods.com/index.cfm

http://www.unitedegg.org/

Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or at dpiersol@journalstar.com