Are cages to blame for egg recall?

[Renew Deal]

Pretty good video and great that this is being discussed.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/08/20/jvm.egg.recall.cages.hln

[XemaSab]

1. Yes

n/t

[PDJane]

2. Yes, they are.

The way we raise livestock is criminal.

[glowing]

3. Well it depends on the type of cage you are speaking of.

Its a fenced in area with a chicken coop for nesting, then that is a type of cage, but a healthier scenario for laying eggs.. Also, the eggs are not supposed to be washed down. Take them out, put them in a container.. bacteria is protected from the egg shell barrier in a natural way.. washing the outside, can allow bacteria to pass thru the shell and membrane into the egg. If raw/ runny, then you can get sick.

[pipoman]

4. Having raised chickens and ran a commercial kitchen

many eggs from local farms come out of the nest with feces on them, probably even most. Salmonella is transmitted through feces contamination. The transference of salmonella through the shell doesn't occur from rinsing with water. From my understanding, it occurs through the cross contamination of the shell with the contents when the egg is cracked. The risk can be minimized by cracking eggs on a flat surface rather than the edge of the pan or bowl which can push the shell into the egg.

That said, housing conditions can effect contamination I am sure.

[glowing]

7. that would depend on the health of ur chicken

in a clean hen house, there is minimal faces on eggs and as I understand, there is a natural protection from the hen when rinsed off leaves the egg vulnerable.

[pipoman]

8. I've picked hundreds of dozens

of eggs from our hen house and no mater how clean your hen house, eggs have shit on them pretty regularly. There is really no alternative to washing them, when they have big pieces or smears of fecal material on the shell.

[glowing]

10. Perhaps I'm mis-remembering industrial process; rather than backyard chicken coop?

[Panaconda]

5. Industrial agricultural

leads to polluted birds.

[pipoman]

6. Are these cages used during egg production?

Or are they used for transporting chickens? I mean they certainly appear inhumane, but the question is do these type cages actually contribute to salmonella on eggs? I can't see that these cages are coming into contact with the eggs.

[flvegan]

9. Google "battery cage" and you'll have your answers.

I've never seen such abhorrent treatment of animals as I have on a battery egg farm.

[TheMadMonk]

11. Cages are a part of the whole process which at the fams in question...

...have been compromised from feed bins to "farm gate" in the direction of lower $costs at any other price.

A clean cage opperation might still fail dismally vs animal husbandy best practices, but produce perfectly safe eggs.

[quaker bill]

12. 75 billion eggs

are apparently consumed in the US annually. Most of them come from industrial farms. Yet this particular problem is unusual. Apparently like oil drilling and coal mining, the process can be managed in a safe manner, but there are managers that take short cuts, when they do, bad things happen.

Having loads of the same chicken breed living in very close quarters means that a disease or infection will spread very rapidly. This is just like any monoculture ag operation. Having large numbers of the same tomato or wheat strain growing together also makes rapid disease spread a large problem.

That said 75 billion eggs is alot of eggs, hand collected cage free eggs from small flocks probably will not get this job done.