Attention Hawaii Residents: Urgent Action Needed to Help Hens
If you live in Hawaii, please reach out to your state elected official today and ask them to support this important legislation to help animals.
The Hawaii state legislature is considering legislation to improve the lives of hens in the egg industry. SB 346 / HB 358 would implement critical minimum standards for housing these sensitive, emotionally complex animals. Specifically, the bill would prohibit the extreme overcrowding that is currently common in the egg industry, outlaw the use of cruel cages, and ensure that eggs sold in Hawaii come from operations that meet these modest standards, no matter where they are produced.
Most eggs currently sold in Hawaii come from industrial factory farms that confine hens in extraordinarily small spaces, often in barren wire cages. A hen confined in such a manner suffers from extreme pain, psychological stress from overcrowding, and even feather-pecking and cannibalism by other hens. The practice of confining these animals in such abysmal conditions is motivated by profit, not animal welfare.
Hens raised in battery cages (i.e., the vast majority of hens in the egg industry presently) live their entire lives in a space no larger than the surface of an iPad. They’re unable to engage in any natural behaviors like flapping their wings, walking, perching, dust bathing, or laying eggs in nest boxes. The physical and psychological torment caused by these conditions is obvious to anyone, and animal welfare experts agree.
Hawaii SB 346 / HB 358 is an opportunity to improve the lives of millions of birds! If you live in Hawaii, please reach out to your state elected official today using the form above and ask them to support this important legislation to help animals.
If you’d like to learn more about why cages of any size are so problematic, check out Animal Equality’s recent investigation of a major egg producer that is using so-called “enriched” colony cages.
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