Update: PETA has filed a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets under the state's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) seeking records relating to Adirondack Farms, LLC—the subject of last year's undercover PETA investigation that revealed routine abuse and neglect of cows (see below for details).

© Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Despite these abuses, the department certified Adirondack under its Cattle Health Assurance Program, which is meant to protect the health and welfare of cows on dairy farms. Records relating to a farm's participation in this program are supposed to be open to the general public under FOIL, but the department has improperly denied PETA access to many of these records. Since this information is of vital interest to anyone who wants to see farmed animals treated with the respect and care that they deserve, PETA was left with no choice but to sue to obtain the withheld records.

Originally posted on April 11, 2012:

The dairy farm manager who repeatedly electro-shocked a cow in the face and brushed off the fact that his workers hit cows with poles and canes by saying that they sometimes "get carried away" is still employed as a manager at the farm—a month after PETA notified the farm's owners of the cruelty and released video evidence of the abuse.

More Cruelty Caught on Video

The same manager at Adirondack Farms, LLC, in Peru, New York, was recorded jabbing a downed cow in the ribs with a screwdriver and dragging her behind a skid steer. He cursed at her—calling her a "dumb b***h" and asking how the "f**k" she was unable to stand. You may remember that this man stated that when a cow's uterus prolapses during calving, workers simply "put [the uterus] back in and hope she lives … long enough for the beef truck to come get her."

Farm Silent on Ending Abuse

Before we went public with the video footage that we gathered during our undercover investigation, we asked the farm's owners to take immediate disciplinary action, including termination, against the employees who were documented abusing animals. We gave the owners a detailed list of men and explained what they did. We followed up. Four weeks later, the owners remain silent. Even after eye-opening news reports on the case, neither Adirondack Farms nor Agri-Mark, the company that it supplies with milk, has announced taking a single meaningful step to improve their animal welfare standards. And that this manager is still on the job at the farm suggests that it's cruel business as usual there and beyond in the dairy industry.

What You Can Do

•  Urge Agri-Mark CEO Dr. Richard Stammer  to implement PETA's recommendations immediately to end the most egregious abuses of cows on cooperative members' farms.  
• Send a polite e-mail to Jon Rulfs, an owner of Adirondack Farms, LLC, asking him to discipline and/or terminate the employees PETA documented hitting, whipping, shocking, jabbing, dragging, and neglecting his cows.
• For calcium without the cruelty, check out PETA's list of delicious dairy replacements. 

Update: The bank claimed ownership of the bankrupt couple's property and wanted to sell the cows to slaughter. But the original whistleblower stepped in and saved the cows' lives, this time tenaciously pursuing a deal with the bank to allow her to assume all responsibility for the animals' care. Now the cows will live out their days in peace and safety, never to be harmed for milk or meat. The cows' original owners still face cruelty-to-animals charges. 

Originally posted on March 6th:

Many people are still laboring under the illusion that animals are somehow treated better on farms that label their products "organic," but a recent cruelty case that PETA was involved with shows that animals on organic farms often fare no better than those on non-organic farms.

A whistleblower alerted PETA to a dairy farm where hundreds of cows were starving and two or three were dying every week. The whistleblower had tried to get the owners of the farm to feed the cows, but the owners were bankrupt, and with no money to feed the animals, they had simply left them to die.

This cow was too weak to stand.

We contacted local law-enforcement officials and, with the help of the district attorney, got state veterinarians to go out to the farm. The vets confirmed that this was indeed a case of cruelty and neglect, and police arrested the owners and charged them with cruelty to animals. The owners were later released on the grounds that they had to do whatever it took to care for the cows or they would face felony charges. Some people in the community have donated food, and the owners are juggling their finances to make food for the cows a priority. PETA has confirmed that the cows' health is improving.

While these animals are doing better, across the country, cows are still suffering on organic dairy farms. Often crowded into cramped sheds or onto mud-filled lots, cows are repeatedly impregnated and have their babies taken away so that people can drink the milk that nature intended for calves. Don't let your friends and family be fooled—"organic" does not mean "humane."

Here's some welcome news: Despite the barrage of deceptive dairy industry propaganda, sales of cow's milk—already in free fall—have plummeted in the U.S. It seems that more and more consumers are getting the message that dairy foods are as bad for our health as they are for the well-being of cows. 

To make sure the downward trend continues, PETA is re-releasing its series of popular ads parodying the industry's "Got Milk?" campaign. Check them out:

1. On dairy factory farms, male calves are of no use in milk production, so they are often taken away from their mothers when they are as young as 1 day old to be chained up in tiny stalls for weeks—terrified and desperate for their mothers—and fed an inadequate milk substitute to make them miserably anemic in order to produce the pale flesh most desired for veal.

2. Female cows don't fare much better: After having their sensitive horn tissue cut or burned away, most are forced into a vicious cycle of nearly continuous pregnancy, only to have calf after calf taken away so that the milk they produce to nourish their young can be consumed by humans instead. And, of course, once they stop producing enough milk to be profitable, they are sent off to slaughter. 

3. Cow's milk is intended for, well, baby cows, not baby humans, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's not good for our kids, raising their risk for a variety of childhood complaints. 

4. Adolescence is hard enough without dealing with blemishes. Take it from Woody Harrelson—to lose the pimples, lose the milk.

5. It's not just kids who have to worry about milk mucking up their health—men have good reason to dump dairy products, too.

6. Ugh. Would you drink a glass of water to which even one drop of pus from a cow's infected udders had been added? No? Then why drink cow's milk?

What You Can Do

Steer clear (no cow pun intended) of cow's milk and other dangerous dairy products. And since all foods from animals result from suffering, the only way to be truly cruelty-free is to go vegan. 

Update 2:

Following a successful stint at the Kansas State Fair—during which people were able to watch video footage of factory farms—PETA has voluntarily dismissed its free-speech lawsuit against the fair. Many fairgoers were pleased to receive the free vegan and vegetarian recipes. Most tellingly, the majority of the farmers who watched PETA's footage admitted that they couldn't pledge that their own animals weren't being slaughtered in the same violent and haphazard ways. 

While maintaining that the fair's requirement to screen the video inside a tent constitutes a content-based restriction in violation of free-speech rights, PETA is pleased with the final outcome. In fact, publicity over the fair's censorship may well have driven more traffic to the booth, allowing PETA to reach an even wider range of Kansans with information about the cruelty of factory farming and slaughter!

Update: After Kansas State Fair officials failed to respond to letters asking them to remove restrictions forcing PETA to shield video footage showing animal slaughter from fairgoers who pass by its booth, we filed a federal lawsuit to stop the fair from violating our right to free speech. PETA also submitted a motion asking the court to block the restrictions imposed on our booth for this year's fair, which starts September 7.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas and Western Missouri is representing PETA for free, along with Kansas City law firm Copilevitz & Canter. As Doug Bonney, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, put it, "I've never seen anything like this—this is a classic content-based restriction on what the speaker can say, which I think is unconstitutional."

We'll keep you posted!

Originally posted August 16:

Turns out that Iowa's not the only state that objects to the idea of fair visitors learning the ugly truth about how meat is made. After the Kansas State Fair sent a letter insisting that PETA could have a booth only if any pictures or videos "that depict animal slaughter, animal harvest, hide removal, or show or depict live animals being decapitated, dismembered or butchered" be shielded from view unless people specifically choose to view them, our legal team fired back a reply demanding that the decision be reversed because it violates PETA's constitutional right to free speech.

Here's the deal: The state has established the fair as a public forum, and the right to free speech requires that there be no content-based censorship in a public forum. Consider, too, that fair officials don't appear to be making the same demand of other exhibitors, meaning that it's only PETA's content that they're trying to squelch. Plus, fairgoers deserve to know how much the animals who were raised and killed for their cheeseburgers and chili dogs suffered—though I guess that last point isn't actually a legal issue.

What You Can Do

Looking for an effective, unmistakable way to express your disgust at the way animals are abused on factory farms and in slaughterhouses? Go vegan!

Did Anne Hathaway purposefully schedule her wedding just before World Farm Animals Day? It's possible, since the committed animal advocate celebrated her nuptials with a vegan feast. To commemorate both World Farm Animals Day and Anne's big day, PETA is sponsoring a steer named Peter, who resides at The Cow Sanctuary in New Jersey, in Anne's name.

© StarMaxInc.com

Peter was just a calf when PETA investigated the filthy Pennsylvania dairy factory farm that he was living on. Cows on dairy farms must be repeatedly impregnated in order for them to produce milk, and their female calves are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers. But dairy farmers consider male calves to be useless byproducts and typically sell them for veal. That would likely have been Peter's fate, but after our investigation, we got cruelty charges brought against the farm and were able to purchase Peter and another male calf, Jerry, and send them to the serene Cow Sanctuary.

Right photo: © Kencredible

The calves were in terrible shape. Peter had pinkeye and ringworm and was infested with lice. After being confined to a pen in which he was drowning in urine and feces, his legs were so weak that he couldn't stand.

It took a lot of veterinary care and a lot more love, but Peter recovered and blossomed into an outgoing, confident steer. From the beginning, he looked out for Jerry, who was left disabled from the calves' ordeal. Peter is very affectionate, and he eagerly awaits his daily chin scratches.

What better day than World Farm Animals Day to recognize Anne Hathaway, a woman whose kind diet spares countless animals and inspires others to follow in her footsteps?

It's also the perfect day to protest cruelty on factory farms by going vegan. Order your free vegetarian/vegan starter kit here!

Chick-fil-A, the house of the homophobic waffle fries, wants homosexual people just to accept not having equal rights and chickens just to accept having their throats slashed and being scalded to death. 

But a flock of protesters crashed Chick-fil-A's Appreciation Day to show that they don't appreciate the fast-food chain's efforts to keep people in the closet and chickens in the factory farm shed:

The protesters made their voices heard loud and clear: All living beings deserve respect. 

We've all seen the awesome YouTube videos of cows who were being lovey-dovey with dogs, cats, and all sorts of other animals. So it's not surprising that a cow joined her chicken buddy at the opening of a Chick-fil-A food truck to ask people to be chicken champions and not eat either of them:

On Cow Appreciation Day, we think the sensitive bovines' real message would be, "Luv Mor Chikins."

On Dairy Day in Albany—when dairy industry representatives flood the New York capitol—State Sen. Tony Avella, a friend to animals and member of the Agriculture Committee, joined PETA in calling on Agri-Mark, Inc., maker of Cabot and McCadam cheeses, to end animal abuse on its suppliers' farms.

Cow Care Inaction

Three months have passed since PETA alerted Agri-Mark to the cruelty to cows documented during PETA's undercover investigation at one of Agri-Mark's suppliers, Adirondack Farms, LLC, and asked the company to require all cooperative members to implement basic and reasonable reforms that would prevent such cruelty from continuing and improve cows' lives.

Nearly 60,000 supporters have joined PETA's call so far, but Agri-Mark remains silent and apparently hasn't done a thing. Indeed, one manager who jabbed a downed cow in the ribs with a screwdriver and used a skid steer to drag her approximately 25 feet and electro-shocked another cow on the face repeatedly was left working in a supervisory capacity at the facility!

Cruelty in Every Cup

The dairy industry flacks—including those pimping McCadam cheese, made just down the road from Adirondack Farms—were hoping to celebrate Dairy Day by cozying up to lawmakers but were instead reminded of the cruelty of their dirty business as Sen. Avella displayed video footage from PETA's investigation. The exposé showed cows who were jabbed with poles and a calf who thrashed in agony while her horn buds and surrounding tissue were burned off without pain relief as smoke rose from her flesh.

What You Can Do

Please help Sen. Avella and PETA make sure that Agri-Mark gets the message to implement PETA's recommendations to end the most egregious abuses of cows on its cooperative members' farms immediately.

With the discovery of mad cow disease in a cow from a California dairy farm and in potentially more cows as the U.S. Department of Agriculture searches for her former herdmates, PETA presents the top 10 reasons why cows are so darn mad:

1. How Many Kids and Counting?
   Unless you're Michelle Duggar, you probably have no inclination to crank out one baby after another. Neither do cows used for their milk, but they are kept almost constantly pregnant so that they will continue to produce more milk.
2. Crying Over Stolen Milk
   Mother cows know the meaning of "mother's love" too, and they often wail, sometimes for days, when their babies are taken away so that people can steal the milk that nature intended for their calves.
3. A Scene Out of a Saw Movie
   Farmers use one of several "Jigsaw"-inspired instruments—such as guillotine dehorners, caustic chemicals, searing-hot irons, and saws—to remove cows' horns and calves' sensitive horn tissue.



A barbaric device known as a "keystone" or "guillotine" dehorner

4. Castration Without So Much as an Aspirin
   Guys, you wouldn't like it. Male calves don't either.
5. Baby Bullies
   Veal is supposedly "tender" flesh, but there is nothing tender about how it is produced. Male calves, who are useless to the dairy industry because they don't produce milk, are often forced to live alone inside frighteningly tiny, dark crates for months, kept virtually immobilized so that their muscles can't develop, and deprived of sufficient iron, leaving their flesh the desired pale color.
6. A Bunch of Bull Crap
   Forcing cows to stand ankle-deep in feces on filthy lots is … you know the appropriate word.
7. Debbie Downer
   Downed cows are no longer allowed into the food supply, but what happens to them is a serious downer. They are sometimes simply left to die from their illness or injuries or from dehydration.
8. There's no D.A.R.E. Program for Cows
   Farmers genetically manipulate and sometimes drug cows in order to force them to produce up to four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would for their calves.
9. The Road Trip From Hell
   Anyone who has ever been crammed shoulder to shoulder in a coupe for an extended road trip knows how miserable it is, and that's even with bathroom breaks, food, water, and temperature controls. And while the trip may end at an annoying relative's house, at least it doesn't end at the slaughterhouse.
10. This Is the Thanks They Get
    After years of birthin' babies and pumping out thousands of gallons of milk, do cows used for their milk get a comfy retirement? Heck, no! They get sent to slaughter, where, in the words of one slaughterhouse worker, they "die piece by piece." A longtime slaughterhouse worker said he frequently cut the legs off completely conscious cows who blinked and made noises as their bodies were hacked apart.

Don't Get Mad—Get Vegan. Grab a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit and make for fewer mad cows in the world.

After happening upon a case of mad cow disease at a California rendering plant during its testing of less than 0.5 percent of cows, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now searching for the infected animal's offspring, where her mother ended up, and her mother's other offspring, as all of them could potentially be infected, too. If an infected cow is slaughtered, the tainted meat could cause a degenerative brain disorder known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in anyone who ingests it. The disease, which is always fatal, causes sponge-like holes in the brain.

Also of concern in this case is the fact that milk from the infected cow may have been sold for human consumption. The USDA claims that vCJD cannot be contracted by consuming the milk of infected animals, but as a Mother Jones article points out, the sheep form of the disease, scrapie, has indeed been shown to pass from mother to offspring through milk.

Groks | cc by 2.0

The Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, posits that because the number of cows the USDA tests is so low—less than half of 1 percent of the nearly 34 million slaughtered annually—many cases could be and likely are going undetected. Jean Halloran, Consumers Union director of food policy initiatives, stated:

If the lack of adequate testing makes you think the USDA may be playing Russian roulette with our health, consider that we do the same thing every time we bite into a piece of meat that increases our risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and strokes. And then order a slew of free vegetarian/vegan starter kits for the people you love who still eat meat.