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A worker ran over this ferret with a cart and left him to die.
PETA went undercover at Triple F Farms, Inc. (Triple F), a Bradford County, Pa.-based massive ferret-breeding mill whose animals are sold to laboratories around the world, including those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and to pet stores across the U.S., including Petland. PETA's investigation revealed that thousands of ferrets are being kept confined to crowded, filthy, stifling barns, where they suffer from chronic neglect and die on a daily basis.
PETA immediately shared its findings with the CDC, which has—in the last five years—signed contracts worth more than $1.5 million with Triple F for live ferrets used in experiments. Despite this and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) citation of Triple F for repeatedly violating federal law, the CDC has just signed a contract worth $16,750 with this cruel mill for ferrets. We need your help now to end this suffering once and for all.
PETA found that ferrets were kept grouped in small cages with dangerous wire floors, deprived of any opportunity to engage in natural behavior such as burrowing or hiding, and often deprived of food and water. Newborn, young, and adult animals were systematically denied veterinary care, even for painful, life-threatening injuries and conditions. Imagine suffering the neglect that these thousands of ferrets experience every single day. Speak up for these ferrets today by taking action below.
Triple F's owners, supervisors, and workers left ferrets with bleeding rectal prolapses, gaping wounds, infected feet, herniated organs, painful mammary gland infections, and ruptured and bleeding eyes to suffer and die without adequate veterinary care.
The investigator's repeated requests for care and speedy euthanasia to relieve suffering were met with blank stares, shoulder shrugs, and general indifference, as the investigator was instructed to "just leave" ferrets as they were. Many ferrets died slow, painful deaths.
Hundreds of newborn and young ferrets fell through the gaps in the wire cage bottoms 3 feet to the waste-covered concrete floors below, where they were left to writhe and cry. They often died of dehydration or starvation within sight of their mothers and siblings. Triple F forbade its workers—including PETA's investigator—to pick up the dying newborns. These young ferrets are vulnerable and need their mothers. How would you feel if your baby were slowly dying within your sight and you could do nothing about it?
Workers ran over, maimed, and killed young ferrets on the floor with carts. Other live ferrets were stepped on and buried in feces. PETA's investigator also saw ferrets thrown into the trash—and into the facility's incinerator—while still alive. Help prevent other ferrets from being cold-heartedly discarded as "trash" by taking action now.
Triple F did not have a staff veterinarian to examine and treat the 6,000 or more ferrets it keeps confined to its sheds on any given day. Despite claims on Triple F's website that the facility was visited weekly by a veterinarian, PETA's investigator never saw a veterinarian or a veterinary technician at Triple F in nearly four months of working there.
Triple F separates ferrets from their mothers at just 5 weeks of age. Lay employees worked in a dusty "surgery room" and used unsterilized instruments—including dull needles and razor blades—over and over to cut organs and anal sacs from ferrets who were not anesthetized properly and "woke up" and cried out. Read more about PETA's findings here.
The USDA has corroborated PETA's findings, citing Triple F for a dozen violations of the Animal Welfare Act and fining it more than $16,000. The U.S. Department of Labor found 38 further violations of federal law at Triple F, which agreed to pay more than $28,000 to settle the matter.
Please take a moment to urge Jeffrey Napier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Acquisition Services, to investigate why the CDC continues to funnel taxpayer dollars into Triple F even though he knows that the company has been cited repeatedly by federal officials for violating the law and that it has had to agree to pay more than $44,000 because of it.