151 ryan gosling in his latest animals right campaign has penned an open letter appealing directly to costcos ceo craig jelinek to supply their stores exclusively with cagefree eggs this comes on the heels of undercover video taken by the humane society of the united states and reported on by abc news nightline showing what the humane society called deplorable conditions inside chicken coops owned by hillandale farms one of the largest egg producers in the country and one of costcos biggest suppliers video footage revealed abhorrent cruelty including rows upon rows of birds confined in filthladen cages with the mummified corpses of their cagemateseating sleeping defecating and laying eggs on top of dead birds gosling wrote in his letter he goes on to criticize costco for their packaging and marketing of their eggs and challenges the retail giant to make a change it is appalling that costco has been selling these eggs with cartons featuring graphics of birds living out in a green pasture he wrote youre already eliminating cages for veal calves and pigs dont you feel that chickens also deserve the same mercy so many corporations are meeting public demand for more humane products and transparency in the food chain i sincerely hope that costco will set plans now to go completely cagefree for its eggs the hidden camera footage was shot by an undercover humane society investigator who worked as a day laborer at hillandale for three weeks from midapril to early may his mission was to gain access to one of the companys facilities near gettysburg pennsylvania and secretly film the conditions inside the chicken coops the video shows chickens living in tight quarters with very little room to move in their cages sometimes amongst dead chickens that appeared to have been there for long periods of time also evident in the video were swarms of flies and even a rodent all conditions that some experts say could potentially lead to salmonella issues watch investigation into hillandale farms one of uss largest egg producers hillandale farms responds to hidden camera footage showing decomposing chickens at pennsylvania egg farm david acheson an independent food safety consultant said that while the video is a snapshot in time and therefore doesnt provide the complete picture of the conditions at hillandale what is shown on the video does raise red flags when you see evidence that some of those carcasses from the dead birds had been there for what would appear many days if not weeks then that clearly raises concern he told nightline in a previous interview if i was a buyer of eggs from a facility and saw those conditions id think twice hillandale farms was linked to one of the biggest egg recalls in the united states in 2010 when a salmonella outbreak sickened an estimated 1900 people federal food safety officials traced the outbreak to several large egg farms including a hillandale facility in iowa jeff martin a hillandale manager at