FIRE KILLS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CHICKENS AT DEMLER BROTHERS EGG RANCH, SITE OF 2019 ANIMAL CRUELTY INVESTIGATION
Photo credit: Maggie Bellah
July 20, 2024 (Ramona) – A large barn fire broke out Thursday at Demler Brothers Egg Ranch, a factory egg farm in Ramona that confines approximately two million chickens and supplies eggs to Walmart, Smart & Final, and other chains. Tens of thousands of birds inside the impacted barn burned to death, and animal rights activists who went to the scene were told there were no plans to evacuate birds in the remaining barns, according to Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an international animal rights group which says Animal Services was not present at the scene. Demler Brothers Egg Ranch was previously investigated by the San Diego chapter of DxE in 2019, when the group’s investigators found tens of thousands of animals in extreme confinement inside the facility, injured birds languishing in trash bins, and corpses on the floor.
In 2022, the San Diego Water Board fined Demler Brothers Egg Ranch for noncompliance of its wastewater and stormwater discharges and in 2023 they found evidence of pollution in a nearby creek due to this noncompliance.
“It is heartbreaking to see this barn on fire knowing that there are living, breathing birds inside burning to death who never got to experience a life outside of a cramped cage,” said Maggie Bellah, an organizer for the DxE San Diego chapter. “These are animals who can feel pain just as much as I can; they do not deserve to be treated as an expendable product. No one deserves to burn to death, unable to escape the flames because they are imprisoned in a cage.”
Birds inhale oxygen more efficiently than humans and other mammals due to their bodies’ ability to essentially inhale and exhale at the same time. This makes them highly sensitive to pollutants in the air, therefore the smoke from the fire may affect the chickens in the surrounding barns.
Factory farm fires are a common occurrence. Over the last decade, nearly 7 million farmed animals were killed in barn fires across the country according to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), and just yesterday, millions of chickens burned to death in Marion County, Illinois. In 2023, 18,000 cows were killed in Texas in one of the deadliest fires involving cows on record.
“Animals are not prioritized in emergencies like this. Factory farms cram thousands or tens of thousands of animals into industrial sheds making emergency evacuation incredibly difficult,” said DxE Lead Organizer Almira Tanner. “We need to start treating these animals as the feeling beings we know they are, rather than as commodities that can be risked and sacrificed.”
Investigators with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) enter farms, slaughterhouses, and other facilities to document abuses and rescue sick and injured animals. DxE’s investigatory work has been featured in The New York Times, WIRED, and Vox. DxE activists have been subjected to FBI raids and felony prosecutions for their investigative work. In 2022, DxE activists won the first-ever acquittal in an open rescue case.
EGG RANCH BURNING IN RAMONA | East County Magazine July 19, 2024