Update: Iowa’s general assembly adjourned for the year on Thursday without voting on HF 589, essentially killing the “ag gag” bill.

New video footage shot during an undercover investigation on an Iowa pig factory farm should be enough to make anyone who isn't profiting from the abuse of pigs swear off pork chops.
 

The footage shot by Mercy for Animals shows similar abuses to those documented by PETA during investigations at pig farms in North Carolina and Iowa in 2007 and 2008. Workers are seen kicking piglets and hurling them across the room. The piglets have their tails cut off and testicles ripped out by hand, without being given any painkillers, and some piglets later die from herniated intestines.

As is standard practice on factory farms, mother pigs are crammed into stalls so small that they cannot even turn around. Constant pregnancies leave the sows so weak and exhausted that they often suffer from prolapsed uteruses.

A proposed "ag gag" ("gag" is appropriate, if you've seen the footage) bill in Iowa would make taking a photograph of or filming on a farm illegal, which would effectively keep anyone still eating meat from seeing what happens to pigs, chickens, and other animals every day of their lousy lives. PETA Vice President Dan Mathews has held news conferences in Iowa showing PETA's photos and video from Iowa farms, and his news conference in New York helped defeat a similar bill there. If you live in Iowa, please take a moment to urge your state senators to oppose HF 589.  
 

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

PETA is launching a new initiative calling for basic animal welfare standards for cows on dairy farms on the heels of disturbing new undercover footage of dairy factory farms. The video footage from Mercy for Animals shows baby calves as they are beaten with pickaxes and hammers and have their budding horns burned out of their skulls without being given any pain relief. A PETA undercover investigation into a Land O'Lakes supplier found similar abuse.
 

 
PETA is asking pizza and ice cream chains, grocery stores, and other dairy vendors to commit to buying only from farms that adhere to these minimal standards of animal care:

• Keeping facilities clean and providing flooring, foot care, and bedding
• Immediately euthanizing "downed" cows who can no longer walk
• Ending de-horning and tail-docking, cruel procedures in which cows have a portion of their tails cut off and their horns cut out of their skulls
• Banning the use of bovine growth hormone, which contributes to lameness and a painful inflammation of the udder known as "mastitis" and which has been banned in Europe and Canada
• Providing group housing for female calves, without tethering

These standards would dramatically reduce the suffering of cows and their calves on dairy factory farms. You can help them, too, by always choosing one of the many available nondairy options. 
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

New undercover footage from our friends at Mercy for Animals shows how fish in a Texas slaughterhouse meet their end. The investigator documented workers using knives to slice off fins and pliers to peel away strips of skin from fully-conscious, struggling animals. 

According to the USDA, the amount of farm-raised catfish—like those at Catfish Corner—processed in the U.S. in October 2010 alone was 40.5 million pounds. 

Other sea animals endure similarly horrific slaughter that makes medieval torture methods look tame: crabs have their legs ripped off their bodies, one by one, while they are still alive.

Please be sure to share this video with anyone who still eats fish. Fish aren't swimming vegetables—they are living, sentient beings who feel pain, pleasure. Fish, like all animals, deserve nothing less than the most basic, common-sense protections from cruelty.

More than a quarter of a billion eggs—a quarter of a billion!—have reportedly been recalled because of an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people in at least three states. A nationwide recall of 13 brands sold by an Iowa egg factory farm has launched a multi-agency investigation that is only expected to grow in scope and scale.

It's heartbreaking to imagine how many hens lived and died in misery to lay and lose their now rejected eggs, when you consider that a hen has to endure 22 hours of confinement in a crowded battery cage to produce just one egg. Our friends at Mercy for Animals recently released undercover video footage from a California egg factory farm exposing row after multi-stacked row of chickens who live in filthy cages in which they can barely move, injured and sick birds who never see a veterinarian, and birds who are violently grabbed and thrown by their wings, necks, and legs:

The easiest way to steer clear of diarrhea, cramps, and a possible trip to the emergency room is to avoid eggs altogether. There are loads of ways to avoid eating chicken embryos—check out all these alternatives.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Sometimes I consider myself a hardened PETA veteran. With each new investigation I force myself to watch, I convince myself that that I've seen the worst abuses that animals are subjected to. But then something like this new video, which was shot by an undercover worker at an Ohio dairy factory farm, hits my desk, and I am again moved to tears by the way people exploit and abuse animals:

In the video, which was recorded over the past few weeks by Mercy For Animals, workers at Conklin Dairy Farms are seen beating cows with crowbars and stabbing them with pitchforks. One worker wires a cow's nose to a metal bar and then repeatedly beats the cow with another bar as she bleeds.

These findings are similar to what PETA revealed when we went undercover at a Land O'Lakes supplier in Pennsylvania. Over the course of several months, PETA's investigation documented that cows who had trouble standing were kicked and electro-shocked. One cow's gangrenous, infected teat ruptured while she was being milked by a machine. Another cow collapsed in a deep pool of liquid manure and was left to languish there for hours as the urine and manure covered her body and coated her eyes, nose, and mouth.

The next time someone asks you, "What's wrong with eating dairy products?" tell them, "Everything!" and then show them these videos.

Please take a minute to share this investigation via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. Then let your friends and family know that the best way to help prevent cows from suffering these abuses is to go vegan. If you haven't already taken that leap, check out these cruelty-free alternatives to dairy foods to get started.

Update: A man who police believe to be one of the dairy farm workers who was recorded on video beating cows with crowbars and poking them with pitchforks was charged yesterday with 12 counts of cruelty to animals!

Billy Joe Gregg Jr., 25, was jailed in Mechanicsburg and was to be arraigned on Thursday. Each cruelty-to-animals charge he faces carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $750 fine.

Written by Shawna Flavell

Today, Mercy for Animals (MFA) released a new undercover investigation into New York's largest dairy factory farm, Willet Dairy. The footage that the group's investigator captured is strikingly similar to what we uncovered less than six months ago at a Land O'Lakes dairy farm and provides even more evidence that animals who are exploited for their milk suffer through sickening amounts of cruelty and neglect.

After watching this video, animal welfare experts and veterinarians have denounced the treatment of cows revealed in MFA's investigation, which include the following:

• Cows were living in extremely crowded sheds on manure-coated concrete floors and suffered from bloody open wounds, swollen joints, prolapsed uteruses, and pus-filled infections.
• "Downed" cows languished for weeks before dying or being killed.
• Workers beat, kicked, and electric-shocked cows and calves.
• A worker restrained calves by shoving his fingers into the babies' eyes as their horns were burned off. These same calves also suffered through painful tail-docking. Both mutilations are done without any anesthetic.
• Workers dragged newborn calves by their legs away from their distressed mothers.

The truth about milk can be hard to swallow, but people owe it to themselves—and animals—to see what really goes on in the dairy industry. Tonight, ABC World News and Nightline will air footage from the MFA investigation as well as our Land O'Lakes investigation. Help us expose the dairy industry's "fairy tale" for what it really is—an unhappily-ever-after existence for cows and calves, from the moment they're born until they are slaughtered—by telling as many people as you can via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter to tune in to what is sure to be a heart-wrenching exposé.

Written by Karin Bennett

When I was 16 years old, I was invited to a picnic. When I arrived, I was shocked to realize that I'd actually been invited to a pig roast—big difference. The sight of a whole charred pig turning on a spit with an apple stuck in his mouth was all I needed to convince myself that I'd never eat pork, i.e. pig, again.

The pig was already dead, and I knew nothing about his journey from his mother's womb to the fire pit. I didn't need to—after all, I called myself an "animal lover," so it was a simple, logical decision. If I wouldn't eat my dog, I wasn't going to eat a pig.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that pigs and other animals on factory farms routinely endure horrific abuses, millions of people continue to happily chow down on hot dogs and ham. Today, Fox News offers food for thought—the Web site is featuring exclusive undercover video footage taken by Mercy for Animals at Country View Family Farms, one of Pennsylvania's largest pork producers and a Hatfield Quality Meat supplier.

The video shows a slew of horrors, including workers as they hurl baby pigs and slam them into transport carts, pick piglets up by their ears and tails, cut off the animals' tails with pliers, and rip off their testicles with their bare hands without any painkillers. (The sound of screaming piglets in the video made my skin crawl.) Their squealing mothers are shown scrambling to escape workers who slam spiked mallets into the animals' sides. Many pigs bear sores from their constant confinement—one mother pig suffered an excruciating prolapsed rectum for at least 13 days before she was killed.

Folks, this video is tough to view (I had to pause it three times), but as caring people, we owe it to ourselves and the animals it shows to watch it and then pass it on to others—along with a link to GoVeg.com. You can share the video and the link via e-mail, via a link on your Facebook page, and via "tweets." Anyone you know who still needs convincing that animals suffer on factory farms won't question it after they've watched this footage.

Written by Karin Bennett

As a PETA blogger, I know that male chicks in the egg industry are simply discarded and killed—but knowing about it didn't make watching it any easier.

This new footage from an undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals shows workers at an Iowa hatchery killing 150,000 newborn male chicks every single day.

Chicks born at hatcheries are sent off to slaughter the very day they take their first breath. The only lives these babies know is one in which they are sorted and handled like pieces of garbage. Workers grab them by their wings, toss them onto conveyor belts, and throw them down a chute to spend their final moments in a grinding machine—in which they are ground up while they are still alive.

All this is standard procedure, widely accepted at commercial hatcheries and within the bounds of animal welfare laws. The egg industry considers male chicks to be useless because they don't lay eggs and can't be raised profitably for meat. Their sisters are not exactly lucky to remain alive.

For anyone who thinks that eating eggs doesn't kill animals, millions of male chicks each year are born in hatcheries and promptly thrown into the blades of giant garbage disposals.

Egg-free recipes, anyone?

Written by Heather Drennan

Anyone out there know of a gadget that makes rotten retailers stop selling live frogs and snails in tiny prisons? Anyone?

Didn't think so. That's why we're calling on you to drop whatever you're doing right now and tell gadget magnate Brookstone to stop selling Frog-O-Spheres ASAP!

Despite complaint after complaint, Brookstone—a company that apparently has a heart of stone—is continuing to "package" frogs and snails together in pitiful plastic prisons and sell them to customers who don't have a clue about how to take care of these extremely delicate animals.

A distraught Brookstone employee has sent us undercover photos and horrifying details confirming that frogs and snails are sold with little regard for who will care for them:

The whistleblower went on to describe how animals are forced to languish and suffer on Brookstone's shelves without any veterinary care:

But, hey, no worries—if Kermit dies before his 30-day warranty is up, Brookstone will replace him for free! So long as you have your receipt, just flush and replace.

Let Brookstone know that these frogs aren't just a drop in the bucket. Please take action now!

Written by Amy Elizabeth

You know how we always say that chickens are the most abused animals on the planet? Well, watch this horrific video and you'll see why. A new investigation by our friends at Mercy for Animals has once again exposed the cruelty behind the egg industry. Undercover footage taken at one of the largest egg farms in California documented that workers were swinging chickens around by their necks in a heartless attempt to kill them. Chickens were crammed into filthy wire battery cages so small that they could barely move. Left to suffer with untreated injuries, infections, and open wounds, the chickens were forced to live side-by-side with the decomposing bodies of their cagemates for weeks on end.

Every time animal advocates investigate egg factory farms, they expose horrific cruelty just like this. Fortunately, there are a couple of things that we can do about it. First of all, ditch the eggs from your diet (if you haven't done so already). If you don't buy eggs, no one has to suffer to make them, right? Secondly, you can help banish battery cages in California. This November, Californians will have the opportunity to pass Proposition 2, which would require that farmed animals be given enough room to stand up, turn around, lie down, and extend their limbs. If you live in California, please vote YES on Proposition 2 and encourage your friends and family members to do the same.

Even if you're not living in Cali, you can still help. Click here for more information about how you can support this historic ballot initiative.

Written by Amy Elizabeth