What are conditions like in Australia? Are there national welfare laws protecting animals from certain abuses?
Factory farms are hellholes worldwide. I’ve been inside them on four continents and they are all the same, exactly like KFC’s or McDonald’s—if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I include barn-laid [cage-free] and so-called free-range farm alternatives in this as well. Some of the worst conditions I’ve ever seen were in RSPCA approved barn-laid sheds: the hens were badly debeaked, overcrowded, aggressive birds were cannibalizing sick birds and no one was there to help them. And let’s face it—all the animals die prematurely and not lovingly held in someone’s arms. Free-range eggs are also not what people think. There is currently a huge scandal here in Australia. On July 27 the Sydney Morning Herald reported: “As many as 200,000 factory-farmed eggs are being passed off as free-range each day, in a widespread egg substitution racket, swindling the consumer of about $13 million annually… The allegations of egg fraud came after an analysis of data provided by the Australian Bureau of
