Broken egg in shed

Farm Pride supplies free range and cage free eggs to major supermarkets under their own brand and is also a supplier for Coles brand free range eggs. Their Bears Lagoon farm supplies free range eggs from a system described by The Age as 'intensive free-range farming.'

In these sheds tens of thousands of birds struggle for space in filthy sheds. Hens showed evidence of reproductive illnesses and feather pecking, including missing feathers from their wings and necks. One chicken was filmed with a twisted, deformed leg, while others showed clear signs of being bullied by being pecked by other chickens.

On this farm investigators entered an empty shed where hens had been 'depopulated,' to be taken to slaughter. Two chickens had been left behind and were found huddled in the empty stacks, missing almost all of the feathers from their backs and necks. In another shed hens were found to be laying jelly-like, soft shelled eggs, an indication of nutrition deficiencies and stress. Hens would fight to eat these eggs, a valuable source of calcium in their otherwise deprived diets.