Hens left to starve at Mountain Pride Farms

Back in 2018, hens at a free range egg farm in Lakesland were being starved and dehydrated to death. They were so desperate for food and water that they were wandering onto the road and being hit by cars.

The RSPCA told us their inspectors were in the shed negotiating with the farmer to release the hens to us. We had a huge list of homes ready and waiting. When the inspectors' body cam footage came out in court, we saw they had been encouraging the farmer to 'get rid' of the hens instead, and urging him to book a slaughter truck. When we realised they weren't going to help, we tried to rescue the girls ourselves. Rather than dealing with the cruelty, the police tackled us to the ground while we were holding injured hens. We still managed to save 22 girls. You can read the full story here: https://henrescue.org/lakesland-hens/

One of those girls was Kim. She was so cheeky and confident. She'd been badly de-beaked, and her little tongue would flick out like a lizard's. She was always up in everyone's business. After everything she'd been through, and how close she came to death, she just loved being around people.

I've been thinking about Kim a lot this week, because it's happening again.

Footage has just come out from Mountain Pride Farms, an egg farm on the Central Coast. The video that was provided to Animal Liberation NSW, shows layers and layers of bones and feathers, fresh bodies on top of them, and living hens in amongst them, starving, with no water anywhere. Some hens are stuck under the floor. Hens don't die like this overnight. This has clearly gone on for a very long time.

If you Google Mountain Pride Eggs, the business describes itself as "possibly the world's best eggs." The shops that stock the eggs seem to buy the hype.

Under Animal Liberation NSW's post, someone commented: "Last December several of us were involved in getting this place looked at by several organisations, so glad they're making headway." This person seems happy that the authorities had taken action. Animal Liberation had to reply that no, the authorities hadn't done anything. This was undercover, anonymous footage.

We learnt a lot from Lakesland. We learnt that we can't rely on the authorities to protect farmed animals. Back in 2018, after the open rescue attempt I gave evidence to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into animal cruelty laws. Director Isy and I also attended a round table at parliament house about setting up an Independent Office of Animal Protection, so that cruelty would be investigated by someone other than the RSPCA. The government rejected every single one of the inquiry's recommendations. And here we are, 8 years later, with hens still being let down by the RSPCA, police, councils and everyone else who had the authority to protect them.

I feel sick at this footage, and I'm so angry. It seems that to the RSPCA these girls are not worth the effort. To me every one of them is an individual, just like Kim.

What's also really upset me is how few people have seen this video. The Lakesland footage was seen by thousands and thousands of people. This footage has had about 52 reactions on Facebook at the time of writing. This is because Meta seems to hold back videos like this. I only really use Facebook to search for netting and enclosure materials on Marketplace these days, and it's full of puppies for sale and animals being treated like products. Meta says posting animals is against the rules, but if I report a post it stays up every time. Yet footage like this hardly gets shown to anyone. So I'm telling you directly.

If you can, please do these four things:

1. Watch the footage on facebook or Instagram, share it and leave a comment so more people see it: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1ES7ja36YH/

2. Make a complaint to the RSPCA NSW and ask why these hens were left to suffer for so long: https://www.rspcansw.org.au/report-cruelty

3. Support Animal Liberation's call for stronger animal cruelty laws in NSW: https://www.al.org.au/poctaa-bill-amendments

4. Report Mountain Pride Farms to the NSW Food Authority, who license egg farms: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/report-food-complaint Even if people don't care a jot about the poor hens, surely they will care about the fact these 'ethical' eggs are laid amongst rotting bodies.

Thank you for reading this. I know it's hard. It feels like the people responsible for this and the people who had the power to stop it, but did nothing, must be a totally different species than us. An alien or robotic kind that knows no compassion.

But then I think of people like you, who care enough to read something this hard, and people like Valerie, and I'm reminded how much kindness there still is.

Valerie, has just given us a huge amount of second-hand bird netting. It's wildlife safe, and it's such a godsend. We've spent so much on enclosures and netting lately that we didn't have the funds for more, so this will keep the girls and roosters safe and protected. Thank you so much, Valerie.

Love Catherine x

P.S, I do have some fun stories to share with you soon, but I felt this just couldn't wait. We need to get behind this campaign so that those responsible are properly investigated and held to account, and so the RSPCA and other authorities can't simply shrug off the mass starvation and dehydration of these hens, as they have done to other animals in need.

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