Sunrise Farms
Distressed and defeathered hens crowded together at a Sunrise factory egg farm near Santa Rosa, Sonoma County.
At Sunrise Farms, most birds never get to see a sunrise. This corporation operates seven different factory farm across Sonoma County, one of which confines over 500,000 hens.
These hens have been genetically manipulated to lay an unnatural amount of eggs in order to maximize profit, leading to a host of painful health conditions including organ prolapses, osteoporosis, and reproductive cancer.
Once they no longer produce enough eggs to be considered economically beneficial, the entire flock is “depopulated.” This usually occurs around 1.5-2 years old even though chickens can live to be over a decade. Mike Weber, the owner of Sunrise Farms, testified under oath that birds at his facilities are never depopulated using “cervical dislocation” (breaking their necks by hand), despite undercover footage from a Sunrise Farms facility showing workers using cervical dislocation to kill many birds.
Crowding this many animals together provides the perfect breeding ground for diseases to develop and spread. In 2023, Sunrise Farms experienced a massive avian flu outbreak. In response, the company chose to use “ventilation shutdown” to kill all the birds at their impacted facilities. Ventilation shutdown is widely known one of the most inhumane methods of depopulation and involves sealing off air vents and pumping in hot air and steam in order to essentially roast animals alive.
Avian flu outbreaks like the one at Sunrise Farms creates opportunities for these viruses to mutate. This strain has already jumped to cows and humans. Factory farms are bad for public health and they could very well cause the next pandemic.