Feathers fly through the air as dozens of chickens cluster together, stepping on the corpses of their former cellmates in tiny multistory cages. Some are even eating their dead neighbors.
It’s not the beginning of a horror movie, but a reality at one of the Ukrainian egg farms in Kyiv Oblast. The farm is allegedly owned by the Ovostar company, Ukraine’s second largest egg producer.
On March 5, the Open Cages nonprofit published the footage, which was filmed by a former factory worker, as part of its investigation into Ukraine, a country on the list of the world’s top 10 egg exporters.
“We saw how awful the production on this farm is and how birds are suffering there,” said Lisa Severina, spokesperson at Open Cages Ukraine. “People who are buying eggs simply don’t know about it.”
Ovostar denies that it is their factory in the videos. However, in an attempt to prove that it was exactly this company in the footage, the whistleblower also sent Open Cages audio recordings of his conversations with the company’s managers and attached internal documents that reported on the number of birds that die daily. These documents show the name of a related company.
In the European Union, so-called battery cages with no proper conditions for hens have been banned since 2012. But such cages are still legal in Ukraine, which was able to produce over 16 billion eggs last year, of which nearly 30% were exported.
“For some reasons, Ukraine doesn’t put a ban on such production conditions,” said Severina.
Opinions differ
Poor conditions for hens at egg farms are hardly a rarity in Ukraine, a place where consumer purchasing power is low and concepts like free-range and organic production are uncommon.
“This is a classic situation for any egg producer in Ukraine, which uses a battery type of cage,” said Severina. Her organization estimates that only 0.5% of Ukrainian farms produce eggs with free-range hens.
Open Cages operates thanks to grants from the Open Wing Alliance and Open Philanthropy Project, as well as other donations. It is part of an international initiative and currently operates in nine European countries.
But not everyone believes that factory conditions are bad — or that Open Cages is operating with honest motives.
Sergiy Karpenko, head of the Union of Poultry Breeders of Ukraine, says Ovostar has good factories. He believes Open Cages staged the video to undermine the company’s exports to the European Union.
“I personally was inside the farms of this company, and what I saw there is ideal for Ukraine,” said Karpenko. “And I believe it’s ideal even for some European farms.”
Ovostar denies that the video is in any way connected to its production. According to the company, egg production is organized in compliance with national and European industry standards. A large proportion of the bird houses equipped with improved cages, which allows to export its products to EU countries.
“We will protect our reputation in court,” Ovostar told the Kyiv Post in an official statement, implying that it will sue the animal advocacy organization if it harms their reputation.
Hidden investigation
Open Cages began its investigation in late November 2019, when a former farm worker agreed to show the nonprofit what was going on inside the factory by filming it.
The worker, who remains anonymous out of fear that he will be fired from another egg company, said Ovostar’s farm has outdated equipment and terrible conditions for hens. He also personally suffered from the working conditions there, he said in Open Cages’ video.
After working 25 days in a row, 12 hours a day, the former farm worker earned only $280 – or $1 an hour, he said. This is why he decided to expose the farm’s internal practices.
“I wanted to show the true price of cage eggs,” the worker’s voiceover says in the video posted by Open Cages.
Ovostar ignored the Kyiv Post’s request for comment on working conditions for personnel.
Legislative trap
In 2018, Ukraine signed EU directives on conditions for farm animals, including hens, which oblige egg producers to eliminate battery cages in favor of more comfortable ones: so-called enriched cages, which are required in the European countries.
According to the EU directive, every Ukrainian egg producer has to switch to this hen-friendly system by 2026.
But the document has not yet been signed by the Ukrainian government. Experts believe it is being stalled by the country’s economy ministry.
“The more Ukraine delays the signing of the directives, the smaller the transition period will be,” said Severina. “And animals still have to stay in terrible conditions.”
However, there is a chance that the process will soon escape its impasse.
According to industry lobbyist Karpenko, many Ukrainian companies are already gradually switching to enriched cages.
“I think that the order will be signed and adopted by the end of this year,” he said.
Price issue
Each hen in a battery cage produces an average of 300 eggs per year, twice as many as free-range birds. This is one of the reasons why Ukrainian eggs produced on farms with battery cages are so cheap.
In supermarkets, a 10-egg pack costs less than $1. By comparison, a six-egg pack costs 2 euros in France.
After fully switching to enriched cages and free-range production, the average price may skyrocket, Karpenko says.
In the future, he believes the affordability of such eggs could be a problem for Ukraine, the poorest nation in Europe.
“It is a big and open question whether people in Ukraine are ready to buy such expensive eggs,” Karpenko said.
At the same time, because hens are laying so many eggs in Ukraine, their life is short.
“That’s why chickens are getting sick more often and dying much earlier,” Open Cages’ Severina said. “Or when the hen stops producing so many eggs, the birds are simply sent to the slaughter house.”
