If you are South African and eat eggs, you should know that 26 million laying hens in South Africa end their lives like this. These hens are at the Philippi cull depot near Cape Town but there are cull depots just like this all around the country. Compassion in World Farming (South Africa),which commissioned this video, believes that the extremely inhumane treatment of these chickens, constantly witnesses by children growing up in these disadvantaged environments, directly contributes to desensitization, anti-social behaviour, and violence later in their lives. As a consumer, you can lobby the CEO of the South African Poultlry Association, Kevin Lovell (kevin@sapoultry.co.za) and ask for the practice to be stopped.

Boy calves are surplus to the dairy industry because they will never produce milk. They are sold into poverty relief schemes where, deprived of their mothers' milk, many die a lingering death because poor people give them watery porridge to drink, not knowing that a calf's stomach is unable to absorb this form of nutrition.

South Africa's pregnant pigs are trapped in metal cages that prevent any movement forwards, backwards or sideways -- not just for a day, or a week, or a month. But, for life! Video edited 6 July 2015

26 million laying hens are confined in battery cages in South Africa. In a battery cage, hens have an allotted space allowance of 450sq cm per hen (less than an A4 sheet of paper), with five hens crammed into each cage. This cruel system of extreme confinement which defies four of the five Freedoms for Animals, was officially banned in the UK and Europe as from January 2012 and consumers the world over are calling for similar bans in their countries. Woolworths banned battery eggs in all its stores nationwide in 2004 but no other supermarket chain in South Africa is willing even to phase-out battery eggs from their stores. The 26 million hens in battery cages in South Africa live and die without ever having seen the sun, soil or even a blade of grass.

A dairy cow's fall in the back of a truck in the Overberg last week, puts focus yet again on the dire need in South Africa for traceability from farm to fork

Trust. When Free State farmer De Wet Coetzee calls, they come. This herd feeds on grass 365 days a year. They move to fresh veld every day. They never experience the trauma of enforced weaning of their calves, of being plunged into dips, or the misery of feedlots. Growth hormones, antibiotics, and concentrated food are unknown to them.

How chicks are 'altered' to fit them for a life of egg production in battery cages (footage taken in Cape Town)

We take her milk with a sense of entitlement -- and discard her calf... In South Africa, some 600 000 dairy cows produce around 3-billion litres of milk for our consumption annually. But now, at last, Compassion in World Farming (South Africa) has found a helping hand in dairy veterinarian Dr Nico Schutte. In a meeting with Compassion on 5 February 2012, Dr Schutte, as representative for the Milk Producers' Organistion (MPO), agreed that the fate of boy calves needs urgent attention. He explained that calves are born without any antibodies at all which means they have no resistance to disease. "That is why it is crucial that the calves receive 2 litres of colostrum within the first six hours of life. Collecting colostrum from the older cows in the herd, provides the best antibodies for the calves because older cows will have been exposed to more diseases than younger cows and therefore have more antibodies to pass on to the calves through colostrum." Said Dr Schutte: "A fault in the system is that calves can fall into the hands of people who know too little about calf rearing. The MPO, together with the Institute for Dairy Technology could expand courses in calf-rearing. This would mean that people intending to buy calves would first have to present certified proof that they have attended a calf-rearing course. I am willing to take this further and slowly, slowly let's make it happen."

Compassion in World Farming's - Louise van der Merwe will be talking at EthicsXchange on 5 November 2013 at The Fugard Theatre. She will be speaking on "Getting a better deal for farmed animals". For more details or to book now, visit www.ethicsxchange.co.za See this video for a taste of her presentation on the impact of industrialised farming on the animals -- and on ourselves - and the way forward...