Following graphic undercover footage obtained by MFA – showing workers throwing, kicking, dragging, and beating turkeys, as well as birds suffering from bloody open wounds and infections – the Hoke County Sheriff’s Department raided a Butterball factory farm facility in Shannon, North Carolina, early Thursday morning.

The undercover footage recorded at Butterballreveals:

• Workers violently kicking and stomping on birds, dragging them by their fragile wings and necks, and maliciously throwing turkeys onto the ground or into transport trucks in full view of company management;
• Employees bashing in the heads of live birds with metal bars, leaving many to slowly suffer and die from their injuries;
• Turkeys covered in flies, living in their own waste, unable to access food or water and suffering from severe feather loss and necrotic (dead) muscles and skin;
• Birds suffering from serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores, infections, rotting eyes, and broken bones; and
• Severely injured turkeys, unable to stand up or walk, left to die without any veterinary care, because treating sick or injured birds was too costly and time consuming, as the farm manager explained to MFA’s investigator.

After viewing the undercover video,veterinarian Dr. Debra Teachout said, “A culture of blatant and severe animalmistreatment has been allowed to flourish unchecked [at Butterball], and for that reason, this facility should be shut down immediately.”

As this investigation illustrates, the lives of turkeys in Butterball’s factory farms are brutal and filled with fear, violence and prolonged suffering. While wild turkeys are sleek, agile and able to fly, Butterball’s turkeys have been selectively bred to grow so large, so quickly, that many of them suffer from painful bone defects, hip joint lesions, crippling foot and leg deformities,and fatal heart attacks. Due to the company’s lack of meaningful animal welfare policies, training or procedures, Butterball subjects countless turkeys to immeasurable cruelty and neglect each year.

“Butterball is guilty of extreme animal abuse and should be held criminally accountable,” said MFA’s Executive Director Nathan Runkle. “Before ending up in restaurants and grocery stores, our investigation shows turkeys killed for Butterball are routinely crowded intofilthy warehouses, neglected to die from festering, bloody wounds, and thrown, kicked, and beaten by factory farm workers.”

To view the undercover video and see what you can do about it, visit ButterballAbuse.com.

One Vegas billboard features a sweet droppy-eared puppy and a bright-eyed perky piglet. The billboard asks, “Why love one but eat the other?” In another billboard, an adorable kitten and a chick are shown with the same question, “Why love one but eat the other?” The billboards also include Mercy For Animals’ vegetarian website, chooseveg.com and the Vegas Veg* website, vegasveg.com.

In March and April of 2010, nine billboards were located throughout the Las Vegas Valley and were viewed over 10 million times! Then in February 2011 the billboards made a reappearance for one month. And now, for a third time, these billboards are up across the Vegas Valley for four weeks.

The billboards will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people daily. Viewers are encouraged to eat less meat, go vegetarian, or go vegan. The billboards are a peaceful and effective method of saving animals’ lives, slowing climate change, and improving human health.

The billboards were not only less expensive the third time around but they were also more eco-friendly. That’s because there was no need to print out the billboards. That’s right, the original billboards from 2010 were kept in storage and were ready for re-use twice in 2011.

Let’s hope they’re still in good condition for use in 2012!

If you’re in the Vegas Valley this weekend, please join us for a day of fun, live entertainment, and delicious healthy food! You will be able to sample fabulous vegan food, enjoy great live entertainment, and meet health-conscious local vendors outside in the temporary festival marketplace. Make new friends and discover new options for a healthy body, mind, and spirit!

Pura Vida is located at 1236 Western Ave, Las Vegas, Nevada. Admission is free and all ages are welcome. Dogs are allowed in the outdoor areas. A scrumptious 3-course lunch menu is available for only $15. The group that funded the Vegas billboards, Vegas Veg, will have an information table with plenty of information about going vegan, including recipes. I hope to see you there!

For anyone unable to make it to Vegas this weekend, be sure to take a look at the Vegas Vegan Eating Guide for your next visit to Sin City. The restaurant list is available online here: http://www.vegasveg.com/food.html

Mimicking the style of the milk industry campaign, the anti-milk ad features an angry woman holding blood- splattered milk cartons, exclaiming, “PMS? No, I’m livid with the milk industry for abusing and killing cows. Most Cows in Dairy Production Are Painfully Mutilated, Intensively Confined, and Mercilessly Killed” and directing consumers to MilkIsCruel.com.  

The full-page ad is set to run in an upcoming issue of Ms. Magazine, the popular feminist journal that helped lead the charge to retire the misleading and offensive dairy industry ads.  

Cows produce milk for the same reason humans do, to nourish their young. In the dairy industry, cows are forcibly impregnated in what the industry refers to as a “rape rack” and then kept in a constant cycle of pregnancy and lactation. So that all of their milk can be sold for profit, baby calves are ripped from their mothers’ sides when they are only a few days old. “Surplus” calves, including almost all of the males, are shipped to slaughter or sold for veal production. Calves raised for veal are usually fed an artificial, iron-deficient milk replacement formula designed to induce borderline anemia and pale-colored flesh. Many calves are also chained by the necks in narrow wooden crates, unable to turn around or lie down comfortably for the duration of their short, miserable lives.  

The constant cycle of pregnancy, birth and often artificially elevated milk production takes a huge toll on the cows’ bodies and most are considered  “spent” at six years of age, when they are shipped to slaughter for low-grade hamburger meat. Cows would normally live 20-25 years. Worn out by the cruelties endured in milk production, many cows, called “downers,” are too sick or injured to walk to the kill floor. Workers often use forklifts and chains to push or drag these helpless animals to their deaths, tearing ligaments and breaking bones along the way.  

“The extreme violence and abuse cows and calves face at the hands of the milk industry is truly unconscionable. Conscientious consumers can get more than enough calcium and other nutrients from healthy, vegetarian foods without all of the saturated fat, animal cruelty and dishonest marketing from the dairy industry.”  

~ Mercy For Animals’ Executive Director Nathan Runkle

For more information, visit www.MilkIsCruel.com.

MFA explains:

Upon reviewing the undercover footage, world-renowned animal behaviorist Dr. Jonathan Balcombe denounced the facility, stating that “this video depicts scenes of unbearable suffering and inexcusable neglect. … This farm should be closed down at once.”

Share the information by going here http://www.mercyforanimals.org/pigabuse/ and choosing “share on facebook.”

Just as how Smokey the Bear reminds us that “Only you can prevent forest fires” MFA reminds consumers that they can “prevent needless suffering of farmed animals by adopting a healthy and humane vegan diet.” Learn more about transitioning to a plant-based diet at http://chooseveg.com/

The billboard features a puppy and a piglet, and asks the question, “Why love one but eat the other?”. It then suggests: “Choose vegetarian” and directs observers to the CCVN website and to Mercy For Animals.

The billboard is in a prime location just north of the city, on highway 101, one of the busiest highways in the country.

CCVN’s  billboard will remain up until July 10, reaching thousands of drivers every day.

Mark Middleton of Animal Visuals has created yet another fantastic web resource. His newest project is a map and list of factory farm investigations.

He describes the project:

“The map [...] locates factory farms that animal protection groups have exposed through undercover investigations. Among the findings of these investigations are animals living in filthy conditions, animals intensively confined for their entire lives, animals mutilated without painkillers, sick and suffering animals left to languish for extended periods, violations of animal welfare and food safety regulations, and egregious criminal acts of animal torture. Viewed individually, the actions shown might be dismissed as isolated incidents. Taken together, however, they reveal a pattern of disregard for animal welfare and routine cruelty-to-animals throughout animal agriculture. They also reveal that many legal, standard agricultural procedures are unconscionably cruel and cause prolonged suffering for animals. Many standard practices in animal agriculture must change, and new laws are needed in order to enforce basic standards of welfare for animals. There are currently no federal laws protecting the welfare of animals on farms.”

Emphasis added.

Take a look at the map and list of videos here: http://www.animalvisuals.org/investigations

Also, a similar list exists at the Vegan Outreach website: http://www.veganoutreach.org/video/. Vegan Outreach introduces the list as follows:

“Text and pictures can’t begin to describe the overcrowding and confinement, the stench, the racket, the extremes of heat and cold, the attacks and even cannibalism, the hunger and starvation, the disease…the horror of every day of their lives. Some of these videos do a somewhat better job, but still fail to convey the reality.”

If ever you need compelling evidence of the animal neglect and abuse that occurs on factory farms, please look to these lists. Share widely!

And for doubters, please go investigate the farms yourself. See it first-hand with your own eyes. You have a right to know the truth.

Reason number 22 is:

Because No One Should Have to Kill for a Living

The nature of slaughtering animals, day in and day out, requires workers to suppress their empathy or ven “develop a sadistic sense of reality,” as one former slaughterhouse worker puts it.

This is an extremely dangerous mindset that can have serious consequences both inside and outside of the slaughterhouse. A recent sociological study found that counties that have slaughterhouses consistently have higher rates of violent crime, such as murder and rape, even when compared with demographically similar counties.

“The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. If you work in the stick pit [where the hogs are killed] for any period of time, you develop an attitude that lets you kill things but doesn’t let you care.”
- Former hog slaughterhouse worker

Emphasis added.

So how about it? Why not give other people the chance to live without having to kill? Let people care. Choose vegan.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IkwE8tHBAs