Tennessee: Tyson Foods Slammed AGAIN By Mercy For Animals' Hidden-Camera Video Exposing Sickening Animal Abuse

Let me preface this article by saying I eat meat, eggs, etc. I eat a lot of chicken. I don't know what the solution is... when more than 8 BILLION chickens are slaughtered each year just in the United States alone, how can anyone possibly get the government to crack down on these producers and companies? Maybe the answer is that we, as individuals, make small changes in our daily lives -- pay more for true 'free range' eggs and chicken and simply eat them less often. I just bought a big package of boneless chicken breasts yesterday and, after watching this video, want to cry. Why can't we simply treat the animals we're going to eat humanely before killing them??

TENNESSEE -- Mercy For Animals exposes horrific animal cruelty and neglect at Tyson Foods in a new video, available today at www.TysonTorturesAnimals.com.

The video shows thousands of baby birds bred to grow so fast they became crippled under their own weight, workers carelessly kicking, clubbing, and throwing chickens, and thousands of severely sick and injured animals left to suffer without proper veterinary care or access to food and water.

 

These chickens should be called Franken-chickens. This chicken
is still alive and can be seen breathing and blinking in the video.

Mercy For Animals is calling on Tyson to swiftly adopt meaningful animal welfare policies to end many of the worst forms of animal abuse in its supply chain. Tyson Foods is the largest poultry producer in the world.

Most of the video was shot within the past few weeks at a Tyson contract farm in Lewisburg, Tennessee, but it also includes footage from multiple Mercy For Animals investigations within the past year at Tyson factory farms and slaughterhouses across the country.

 

These birds are alive and seen breathing and blinking in the video

The disturbing video—part of a major campaign to convince Tyson executives to end the company's cruelest practices—reveals widespread animal abuse and suffering, including the following:

• Workers violently clubbing animals to death, breaking their necks, and leaving severely sick and injured animals to die without food or water
• Baby birds carelessly thrown to the ground from transport crates suffering broken bones and other severe injuries
• Chickens bred to grow so fast they became crippled under their own weight and frequently died from heart attacks and organ failure
• Hundreds of thousands of birds crammed into filthy, windowless sheds forced to live in their own waste and toxic ammonia fumes

 

Mercy For Animals is calling on Tyson Foods to implement meaningful animal welfare requirements for all of its company-owned and contract farms and slaughterhouses, including providing birds with more space, clean litter, access to natural light, and environmental enrichments, and replacing live-shackle slaughter methods with less cruel systems that eliminate the horrific suffering caused by dumping, shackling, shocking, and slitting the throats of conscious animals.

 

This woman asks, "You don't work for PETA do you?" right before
she slams this metal pole onto a chicken and hooks it. You then
see that there is a giant nail attached to the end of the pole. She then
uses the hook to toss the chicken - WHICH IS STILL ALIVE -
into a bucket. She then slams the pole onto another poor bird.

"Tyson Foods is literally torturing chickens to death," said Nathan Runkle, president of Mercy For Animals. "They are crammed into filthy, windowless sheds; thrown, kicked, and brutalized by careless workers; and bred to grow so fast they suffer from painful leg deformities and heart attacks.

 

 

"This is sickening animal abuse no company with morals should support. Tyson Foods has not only the power, but also the ethical responsibility to end the worst forms of animal cruelty in its supply chain."

To view the undercover video, visit www.TysonTorturesAnimals.com.

(PR Newswire - May 25, 2016)

Judge orders the state of Idaho to cover lawyer’s fees in ‘ag-gag’ case

IDAHO -- A federal judge has ordered Idaho to pay roughly a quarter million dollars in legal fees to the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other groups who successfully sued the state over what they called the “ag-gag” law.

Idaho lawmakers passed the law making it a crime to surreptitiously videotape agriculture operations in 2014 after the state’s $2.5 billion dairy industry complained that videos of cows being tortured and abused at a southern Idaho dairy unfairly hurt their businesses.

  

 

The Animal Legal Defense Fund sued the state, and in 2015 a federal court invalidated the law after finding that it violated the First Amendment.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered the state to pay the winning side roughly $250,000 to cover their attorney fees and costs.

 

(BC Democrat - May 19, 2016)

New Mexico: Chaves Co. dairy workers charged after undercover cow abuse video

NEW MEXICO -- Four dairy workers have been charged with animal cruelty in connection to an animal activist group's undercover video showing the abuse of cows  at Winchester Dairy in Chaves County last fall.

According to court documents, Cesar Morales-Iniguez and Stephen Toublefield are each facing three counts, Luis Urbie Lira is facing two counts and Jesus Espinoza is charged with one count of animal cruelty.

"Mercy for Animals," the group behind the video, says an undercover investigator filmed workers punching, kicking, whipping and even shocking cows' genitals. The group also filmed workers dragging cows with tractors.

Mercy for Animals said the Winchester Dairy cows were denied veterinary care.

The dairy fired all employees and identified the alleged offenders in the video to law enforcement, according to the Associated Press.

Winchester Dairy produces milk for Leprino Foods, the world's largest producer of mozzarella cheese and a supplier to major pizza chains like Pizza Hut and Domino's.

Last Monday, Leprino Foods announced a new animal welfare policy for its dairy suppliers.

By Dec. 31, 2016, all suppliers must keep a safe and sanitary environment, provide pain relief during disbudding/dehorning and give appropriate veterinary care to animals.

(KOB 4 Albuquerque - Apr 30, 2015)