Trappist monks’ egg factory under fire as cruel to chickens
Print Friendly VersionBy PATRICK O’NEILL
Armed with the words of Pope Benedict XVI, an animal rights group is calling on a South Carolina Trappist monastery to shut down its egg production facility because, the group claims, the monks mistreat the monastery’s 38,000 hens.
In a press release, the Norfolk, Va.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said the group’s undercover investigation of Mepkin Abbey’s egg production facility “revealed shocking cruelty to chickens.”
Calling the abbey’s facility “hell on earth” for chickens, PETA wrote: “Tens of thousands of hens at the monastery are painfully debeaked, crammed into tiny cages, and periodically starved.”
In a letter to Mepkin’s abbot, Fr. Stanislaus Gumula, PETA vice president Bruce Friedrich wrote: “As a fellow Catholic, I was saddened to learn that Mepkin Abbey is operating an egg factory farm.”
In a telephone interview with NCR, Gumula rebuffed PETA’s charges, denying any inhumane treatment of the chickens, and saying he sees no way to enter into a dialogue with Friedrich.
“[Friedrich] wants to throw his position down my throat,” Gumula said. “We treat our animals very humanely.”
Friedrich’s letter said the debeaking method, common to the vast majority of the nation’s egg producers, is painful and “enormously stressful” to the birds.
Debeaking, said Friedrich, is an industry term, and it does not involve chopping the entire beak off. It involves chopping the ends of their beaks off, which is why the debeaking may not be apparent in the photographs taken by the PETA source at Mepkin. According to poultry experts, he said, the pain is acute and chronic, lasting for more than a month.
Friedrich also said that Mepkin’s practice of placing up to four hens in cages that “are roughly 12 inches by 18 inches” is unnatural to the animals. “This means that the animals never breathe fresh air, feel the sun on their backs, build nests, raise their young, or do anything else that God designed them to do,” he wrote.
Friedrich bolstered his protest of Mepkin practices with a quote from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to a German reporter: “Animals, too, are God’s creatures. … Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”
Friedrich said PETA confirmed its allegations after they followed up a complaint by sending an undercover staff member to Mepkin, ostensibly as a retreatant, who secretly recorded the egg operations as well as conversations he had with monks involved with the abbey’s egg production.
Gumula said Feb. 20 that he was unaware of the undercover investigation, which Friedrich said was slated to be announced at a Feb. 22 press conference near Mepkin. Photos and video from PETA’s undercover investigation are on the group’s Web site at getactive.peta.org/campaign/mepkin.
Friedrich defended PETA’s undercover tactics: “Documenting a crime sometimes requires undercover police officers, and documenting this horrible and nonstop cruelty to 38,000 animals required our undercover investigation. There’s nothing unethical about using undercover cameras to expose hypocrisy and cruelty to animals. The treatment of these hens is grotesquely unethical; using a camera to expose it is our moral obligation.”
In his letter, copied to Trappist Abbot Generals Dom Bernardo Olivera and Dom Mauro Esteva, Friedrich wrote, “Your cruel treatment of these poor animals, by the tens of thousands, would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims. But chickens are intelligent animals who suffer and feel pain, just like dogs and cats do.”
Friedrich said, “Chickens understand sophisticated intellectual concepts, learn from watching each other, demonstrate self-control, worry about the future, and even have cultural knowledge that is passed from generation to generation.”
He asked that the abby “please shut down this operation forever” once the current population of hens dies. “It is an ugly stain on your otherwise blessed community. Instead of raising funds for your abbey by abusing animals, please consider solely making foodstuffs that don’t involve animals”
Gumula said the abbey about 30 years ago gave up on its “free-range” practice, which allowed the hens to move about on the floor, saying the hens are “in much better conditions now.”
Under the free-range system, the hens “were susceptible to rodents, to snakes and all kinds of disease and bacteria,” Gumula said. “The situation they are in now is not that way.”
Gumula said Mepkin’s hens are “not on top of each other. The droppings go into a pit that we flush out daily. We’re following all the guidelines of the United Egg Producers for the humane treatment of chicken that’s based on a group of scientists that were not beholden to the egg industry.”
Gumula said the egg production operation accounts for about 60 percent of the abbey’s annual earned income. The facility produces approximately 9 million eggs annually, which are delivered to local customers in the Charleston, S.C., area, bringing in about $140,000 a year to Mepkin.
Consumers “are getting a much cleaner, wholesome product than what we were able to do when we had floor chickens,” Gumula said.
Gumula said PETA has an inflexible position.
“It’s a one way street,” he said.
Gumula said Mepkin’s egg operation is “not a blight, and we’re not treating them inhumanely, and for [Friedrich] to say that, I’m sorry, it’s not based on reality.
“I’m not saying that he has to agree to the exact way that we do it, but for him to accuse us of doing things inhumanely; well we’re not. That’s all I can say. We’re going to differ, and I can understand certain sensitivities. But we’re doing what we feel is best for the chickens themselves and for the consumer that’s going to be eating the eggs.”
North Carolina State University philosophy professor emeritus Tom Regan, an animal rights author and activist, compared the egg producers’ definition of humane to a famous exchange in Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, between Alice and Humpty Dumpty. “Words mean what I decide they mean, neither more nor less,” Regan said, quoting Humpty Dumpty.
“Humane is a word that actually has an established meaning, and if you look it up, you’ll find that it means to treat with kindness, mercy, consideration, compassion -- very positive ways of treating another being,” Regan said. “You debeak an animal; you put an animal in a cage, it can’t turn around, it can’t dust bath, it has no access to fresh air, every natural instinct is frustrated except they’re being fed 24 hours a day, and you call that humane. That is merciful, kind, considerate, compassionate? I don’t think so. … They’re making up the meanings of words. What they’re saying is not what they’re doing.”
[Patrick O’Neill is a freelance writer living in Raleigh, N.C.]
My interpretation of God's
My interpretation of God's Word (as in the Bible) is that we are to care for and use the Garden that was given to us. Once Adam and Eve had fallen they had no choice but to begin destroying the gift to survive. How we, their heirs, use it is pretty much a matter of free will. I choose not to harm anything purposely, but I am not vegan and do eat meat, eggs, etc. I wish I didn't, but my will power is not as good as I would like it to be, therefore a good roast beef sandwich is still unbearably hard for me to pass up. I go out of my way not to deliberately torture God's creatures, however, and try to buy organics and farm-raised eggs, meat and dairy products whenever I can afford to (single Moms don't always have that option). Whenever I see a mistreated animal (or human) I pray that God forgives us for the sins we commit against His gift. I've taught my daughter this, and that she should never willingly or knowingly participate in the misery of any living thing. I can't imagine Jesus debeaking a chicken or harming any animal, even though it is a 'lesser' creature. There are some things that you have to feel in your heart, and if the monks of Mepkin Abbey feel no remorse about the way the chickens are treated, then they will have to face that issue and their complacence when they face their Maker... and the chickens'.
Margie12
Several of the comments
Several of the comments above make me wince. Arguing that Christ wasn't vegan is superfluous. He also didn't address slavery. He was heir to the Jewish tradition that taught "A righteous man regards the life of his animal but the mercy of the wicked is cruel." It always amazes when when the issue of mercy for animals comes up Catholics, even of the "liberal" stripe, can be just as hard-nosed as the most fervent Republican capitalist. And people representing Pax Christi yet.
We shouldn't have embarrassed the Abbot, huh? Perhaps we shouldn't have embarrassed the Bishops who hid the exploitation of children by some of their clergy, either.
This Catholic is with Bruce Friedrich, Colman McCarthy, John Dear and and any other person of good will who recognizes that all of creation, every bit of it, belongs to God and we are supposed to be caretakers, not tyrants.
As a vegan living a happy and healthy life without eggs I've fired of my letter to the Abbot telling him that I am scandalized that a monastery would so follow the ways of the world.
I am somewhat surprised that
I am somewhat surprised that Catholic people can be so dismissive of animal rights. I am a Catholic myself and have known Catholics to be caring and compassionate people. When I see posts where people act like it must be a joke to even mention animal welfare makes me reconsider how compassionate Catholics are.
Ask yourself a simple question. Would I be okay with if it was dogs or cats that were kept in tiny cramped cages, their noses cut off, intentionally distressed so that they would produce a product. Then when there were of no more use being shipped off to slaughter. Would that be okay with you?
Now ask yourself what's the difference between your dog or cat and a chicken. They are both animals, they are both God's creatures, with feelings and thoughts. Chickens have been shown to be intelligent animals and any one who watches them can see that they can think and reason just like a dog. Why draw the line at cats and dogs? Why don't we just eat/use them as a food source as well?
How can you draw a line at any animal? Why not eat a horse,dolphins and monkeys as well? You may say because they are smarter animals. Pigs have been shown to be one of the smartest animals, but they are slaughtered by the millions so you can eat a hotdog. Chickens are just as deserving of consideration as dogs and cats.
I think that we can at least expect the monks to let the animals be free range. Someone talked about the animals sacrificing their lives for us, the least people can do is pay the extra 2 cents an egg so that they can live a decent life while providing you with eggs.
Marie R. posted something about how the monk's chickens were happier then pet chickens. How ridiculous? Would you be happier if you were crammed in a cage with 3 other people or free to roam where you wanted. I'm sure the chickens if given the choice would walk into the cage, close the door themselves, and remain their until they were sent to slaughter. Get real!
CWD I am pro-life. Not that, that has anything to do with this. Although if you are pro-life as I assume you are, then don't all God's creatures deserve a chance at a decent life instead of a life of slavery?
Kelidie you may be the worst, because you call yourself an animal lover. You are NOT an animal lover! You are a cat and dog lover. You have somehow rationalized that cats and dogs are above other animals. They are not. Don't give me that junk about saving a person over an animal. I would save the person too as would most animal activists. We have no problem drawing a line between humans and animals. It's just that we think that all animals should be treated better then just a commodity.
You also babbled on about how some pregnant women need a cheap protein source and without eggs they would not have it. What about a can of beans? There are lots of different kinds of beans and they are all cheap. Buy a generic can of black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, etc. and they are good to go. No need for eggs.
The bottom line is that you can't distinguish between animals so you really shouldn't be eating or abusing any of God's creatures.
I suspect that if I were a
I suspect that if I were a chicken, it would not bother me to be in a cage with three other chickens.
As a human being I am adapted to living under a wide variety of conditions. I can live outdoors or indoors. I can live in a dorm room with several other students. I can live in a large apartment building in a relatively small apartment. I can live in a big, luxurious house. I really prefer to live out of the range of predators. I like having my family members close to me. I like a clean, heated and cooled space. I like getting three meals a day. I do not like to be sick.
As domesticable creatures chickens are capable of thriving in a variety of conditions also. I see no reason to assume that they would prefer one set of conditions over another just because some people consider the more natural setting more appropriate to nonhumans. Whatever we may think of the level of their suffering, we can take comfort in the fact that their lives are mercifully short and have meaning.
Besides all that I really like to eat eggs and chicken meat, and I do not particularly care to socialize with chickens despite the fact that they may be smarter than I believe they are. Whenever I eat chicken in any form, I am always duly grateful and humbled by the fact that a chicken gave its life so that I could live. I do not mean that facetiously.
I am an animal lover. Over
I am an animal lover. Over the years we have rescued numerous cats and dogs and brought them into our home. Right now I have two dogs both of which were shelter rescues--- I love them--- they are my companions yet I have no problem understanding the fact that they are animals and not equal in dignity to human beings. If I ever found myself in a situation where I had to choose between saving the life of one of my dogs or that of a human being---even a complete stranger--- I would do what was necessary to save the person even if it cost my beloved pet's life. My dogs are not made in the image and likeness of God--- the stanger is. PETA puts animals and their "needs" on the same level with the needs of human beings---and in some cases over that of human beings. This is immoral.
Someone made a comment about this "cruelty" just so that we could have "slightly cheaper eggs". First of all it is a giant leap to assume chickens are capable of suffering under the conditions listed. It is wrong to anthromorphize chickens and assume that since those conditions would be cruel to a thinking, reasoning human being born with free will that chickens would suffer like humans in that situation. Chickens like most animals have three basic instinctual "needs". They are a food source, reproducing, and protection from predators. These are the main "stressors" in the chicken's life and in their current situation all three are met--- it would seem to me then that the chickens would be pretty stress free---despite being in cages. Besides a chicken that has never lived outside of a cage wouldn't know the difference.
Secondly, having worked as a public health nurse I know that eggs are valuable and inexpensive source of protein. I often disucussed with mothers how to use eggs in different ways to boost their children's protein intake. What may be a bit more expensive for you and me may take this reliable source of protein out of the grasp of many poor mothers and their children who rely on it.
I'd be very interested to
I'd be very interested to know if these PETA folks are pro-abortion. If this monastery was close by I would happily purchase eggs there to support the monks.
Isn't the point here whether
Isn't the point here whether these chickens have suffered unnessarily cruel living conditions just so we can have slightly cheaper eggs? There is nothing "natural" about a battery egg production facility. Eggs were not produced this way during my parents' time and before. Shouldn't we be grateful to these animals for what they give us? I would have thought that the posters to a Catholic forum would be more concerned with mercy and kindness than they appear to be.
Chickens kept in small cages
Chickens kept in small cages without access to sun, wind, sky, soil, grass, choice of food, fresh food; David Hicks and others kept without charge for five years in solitary in cages at Guantanamo, slowly going mad. Both are examples of cruelty justified by principles which the captors seem sincerely to believe in. That does not make the captivity humane.
Justifying caged hens by reference to the regulations is not adequate, since the regulations are made with profit in mind above all else. If the well-being of the chooks were paramount, cages would not be used. I would like Fr Gumula to reflect on his statement that the hens are treated humanely, in the light of all we know about hens, their intelligence, their preferences and their ways of living when given the choice.
At our place nine hens and two roosters wander around the yard each day, lie with wings spread to the early morning sun, sit under the orange trees when it is hot, dust bathe together, scratch the earth, drink from the pond. Each day they make many choices: which companions to sit with or dust bathe with; which grasses to eat; which pile of leaves to scratch; how high to sit on the perch at night. I am always amazed to see the hens walk past tussock grass day after day, until finally the seeds are ripe, and only then do they neatly run their beaks along the stalk, stripping the seeds as they go. We know each chook by name, and I can tell you the favourite food of each one. Canny likes peanuts, Chloe ripe Solanum nigrum berries, Eugenia loves apple seeds, Millie often walks behind me clucking until I give her some Kale, Tabitha likes to jump on top of a bin to get her exclusive share of corn seeds.
Our chooks vary in age from four months to ten years. The ten-year old still lays the occasional egg, but mostly she lives a quiet and dignified life.
In Australia, and I assume in USA also, caged birds are usually hybrids, bred for heavy egg production. They lay like mad for a year and then are shipped off for mass slaughter. This makes somewhat questionable the claim that birds in sheds are "safer" from predators etc. Safe, that is, until the humans decide to kill them.
As for the "consumers" - what effect does it have on people to eat cruelty?
"If the well-being of the
"If the well-being of the chooks were paramount..."
Actually, the well-being of humans is paramount. A sense of purpose is more important to humans than is a stress-free, pain-free life, so, since we are anthropomorphizing farm animals, why not assume the same for chickens? Perhaps, these pet chickens are "happier" than the Trappist chickens, but perhaps not. It seems just as possible that the pet chickens are making the best of their circumstances and biding their time while bringing pleasure to someone's household, whereas the Trappist chickens are making a noble sacrifice to provide for the health and well-being of many families. Certainly, if their lifestyle were so unsuitable to their natures, then they would not lay eggs and would give other evidence of distress.
First, Christ was not a
First, Christ was not a vegan.
Second, why would a group trying to help chickens also try to embarrass a Catholic Abbot instead of first bringing its concerns to the Abbot behind closed doors. That is what polite people do before developing a website to encourage the public to complain about an issue.
Catholicism is about communion which means community including Christ.
My first impulse after reading this article was to have chicken for dinner in solidarity with the Mepkin trappists.
The trappists are part of the Benedictine family which is pure Catholicism at its best - their roots go back to the desert fathers, holy Benedict, the pure part of our Church. When you enter a Benedictine (OSB or OCSO) abbey, you feel the unique atmosphere. They don't get involved in politics or haggling over secular issues in public - they focus on Christ via the Liturgy of the Hours and Lectio Divina.
This article is sad really..
I did have to laugh. I was
I did have to laugh. I was reading something about the Essenes, the religious group that Jesus is thought by some scholars to have been from, and one of the things the article said about the Essenes is that they were vegan. Just thought you'd enjoy.
"[Chickens]...demonstrate
"[Chickens]...demonstrate self-control, worry about the future, and even have cultural knowledge that is passed from generation to generation".
Actually, chickens are domesticated animals that serve as a food source for humans. They would not even exist if it were not for this purpose. To look at them as we would our children and to treat them with that much consideration would be truly odd. It might be wise to consider that there are humans in this world who live in conditions that might make them willing to change places with these Trappist chickens.
Furthermore, though the PETA people are aware of chicken culture—otherwise known as pecking order—they appear to be unaware that in the chicken cultural tradition the clipped beak is considered a sign of nobility.
Just as the path of a human to his or her destiny—the spiritual union with God—is filled with suffering and pain, so too is the path of the chicken to its destiny. That destiny is to provide and be wholesome food for humans.
When a chicken is reduced to living in the kind of primitive conditions that PETA advocates, it is deprived of the opportunity to fulfill its destiny to the fullest. It is not the attentive care of monks, but the efforts of PETA that are cruel, both to chickens and humans.
Re: "Actually, chickens are
Re: "Actually, chickens are domesticated animals that serve as a food source for human. They would not even exist if it were not for this purpose."
While it is true that the vast majority of hens used in developed countries are specially bred, the original Jungle Fowl still exists in some countries of the world, and, although perhaps more lively in behaviour, it seems to be much the same bird as the human-bred modern chicken.
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer
Pax Christi Naples
Agriculture is a way of life that hardly any Americans know anything about in 2007. We've become a nation of city-slickers (and fat cats). PETA vice president Bruce Friedrich's remarks about Mepkin monks' mistreatment of birds is disinformation and motivated by a my-pet-bird model, maybe the model of William's "Red Wheelbarrow," not by a farmer's model.
Showing the male chicks being wrapped in a plastic bag is disturbing when the whole practice of breeding and keeping of domestic birds and animals of all kinds is deselected and ignored. The dairy industry, the pork and beef industry, fish farms--all non-vegan sources of food likewise select and save the females while disposing of the males. Pet breeding is likewise not "merciful, kind, considerate, and compassionate." "Wrong" colors of feathers or fur or “wrong” body size are also routinely selected and disposed of by pet breeders. I am certain that Mepkin monks do not intentionally inflict pain, torture, or unreasonable imprisonment on their chickens. Wish I could say the same for our Marines' treatment of "suspected terrorists." I think the secret filming and snitching by a retreatant is part of an egregious anti-Catholic stance many people have lately found to be very comfortable taking, Friedrich's self-righteous claims notwithstanding. The monks at Mepkin are far more merciful, kind, considerate, and compassionate than most of us.
I keep three pet chickens, a few rabbits, a tame squirrel (with many wild neighbors) many birds that are not chickens. When I sit on my various benches while taking the chickens for their almost daily romp in the yard, these creatures all join me, eat from my hands, sit on my shoulders and my lap: I'm the picture of St. Francis. Except I don't keep dogs and cats, and I do look askance at my neighbors who paint their pets' toenails and carry them about in cars. But I kill poisonous snakes, shoot the rabid daytime raccoons and sick opossums, poison the rats, and watch with admiration the hawks when they take my mourning doves. And, except on days like Ash Wednesday, I eat steak, chicken, eggs, fish, and stone crabs when I can afford them. And I was a vegan for 15 years.
I do not call for the monks to shut down or change their egg production. In fact, I wish I lived close enough to regularly purchase their chicken manure for my garden compost heaps--not to mention taking a week's retreat once per year. I cannot find a chicken farm anywhere near here! And the Conyers, GA monastery is 615 miles away and Mepkin 633 miles away.
Seriously? When I see
Seriously? When I see breaking news come across my email, I expect words of wisdom from Cardinal George or O'Malley or the Pope.. Chickens at a Trappist monastery. Does this story have some sort of hidden Lent message?
I have to say I'm appalled
I have to say I'm appalled at all the Jesus-related arguments regarding these chickens. First, maybe Jesus was not a vegan. Maybe he was. I have yet to see any evidence either way. We do know he enjoyed many vegan foods like wine and bread, and whatever he dipped it in. He also fed people fish. So what? There is no connection between Jesus being or not being vegan and the cruelty of the egg industry. But if you want a Jesus argument, did he not cause a huge scene (enough to create grounds for his arrest) by going through the temple and freeing all the caged animals for the sacrifice? All the while shouting about how God doesn't want his creatures "sacrificed" to him, they should be allowed to live? I think that is a much more powerful illustration than what he did or didn't eat. Besides, any animals would have been humanely raised, unlike animals today, so really the only problem with eating the animal would be that he would've killed it; other than that it had a happy enough life with the shepherd or farmer.
The way I see it, where God has put the breath of life, it is not for me to take. What God has created is not mine to harm. That's all I need to know to justify my actions. Any more words than that and you're only fooling yourself.