Hillandale Farms, the Pennsylvania-based egg supplier and operator of a Turner facility that made headlines as part of an undercover operation alleging animal cruelty, says that it will be making the transition to a cage-free system its Ohio and Connecticut egg facilities, but a similar move in Maine seems unlikely.
The Bangor Daily News reported that Hillandale officials said the transition is in response to consumer demand for eggs produced by cage-free chickens, and not to the allegations of animal cruelty at the Turner facility, which Hillandale operates and leases from Jack DeCoster.
“Any expansion at any Hillandale facilities must be cage-free,” Hillandale spokesperson Melanie Wilt told the BDN. “But because we lease the facility [in Maine] we don’t have the full ability to make those changes there now.”
Those changes, Wilt told the BDN, include the construction of new, and the conversion of old, buildings into cage-free housing.
Photo: Flickr/ Ernie
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