Nebraska Egg Factory Farms’ Practice of Grinding Unwanted Hens to Death Ends

November 2010

A whistleblower told PETA that TWJ Farms, a series of egg factory farms in Nebraska, had killed hundreds of thousands of hens by placing them in an industrial machine and grinding them up—while still alive—and planned to dump 70,000 more hens into the machine that month. TWJ CEO Joe Claybaugh confirmed the regular grinding deaths in news reports. According to a witness, many of the birds were maimed or mutilated during the process and suffered in agony for hours—or even overnight—before they died.

PETA’s urgent plea asking local and state law enforcement officials to intervene led to the Nebraska State Patrol confirming that the company would not grind up the chickens as planned and would comply with industry standards for killing its chickens going forward.