Sept. 2, 2010 – U.S. egg producers can only hope that consumers are content with reading, watching or listening to news about the recall of eggs from two Iowa farms and don't access the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) inspection report. As bad as the news has been – almost 1,500 people sick from eating eggs, filthy barns, flies and eight feet of manure, rodents etc. etc. – the inspection reports are worse.
Let's begin with the first line of the first page of observations: "Layer 3 -House I ~ approximately 2x6 inch wood board was observed on the ground with approximately 8 frogs living underneath."
Frogs makes the whole thing sound like a biblical plague.
In another barn a wild bird was found flying around and non-chicken feathers were also found.
Chicken manure in the manure pits below the egg laying operation was observed to be approximately 4 feet high to 8 feet high. The manure pits were overflowing and "the outside access doors to the manure pits at these locations had been pushed out by the weight of the manure, leaving open access to wildlife or domesticated animals."
The buildings were in poor repair with gaps around doors, in siding, in floors and elsewhere.
Manure was seen seeping through the concrete foundations of numerous barns.
Employees did not wear or change protective clothing when going from barn to barn.
Live mice were seen in 11 barns. The barns were thick with live and dead flies and live and dead maggots were also found.
The observations by the FDA's inspectors go on for seven pages.
The inspections of the Iowa barns were the first by FDA inspectors under rules implemented this summer. The agency plans to inspect every large egg farm in the U.S. in coming months. Consumers and U.S. producers can only hope the conditions on the farms inspected this week are an odious exception.
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