So-called "laying hens" were liberated from a rearing factory on the night of September 18th, 2003 by Maqi activists. The factory, in which young hens are caged until they are sexually mature, was mostly empty except for several hundred roosters and several dozens hens. The Maqi open rescue team saw numerous eggs lying around showing that the hens had started laying and must have only recently been taken to the "egg production factories", as neither the manure pits nor the cages had been cleaned. In garbage cans the activists found several corpses of baby birds who had died as a result of the poor conditions in the rearing factory. In one of the manure pits the activists found a hen who had somehow escaped her cage and fled there. She was weakened due to lack of water and would have slowly died of dehydration if the activists had not rescued her. The rescued hen has been taken to a sanctuary where she will be cared for until the natural end of her life. Several days later on the night of September 23, 2004 Maqi activists saved three more hens from the manure pits at the same rearing factory after all cages had been emptied. Click on any photo for larger version
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