Endless Suffering: The Cruel Reality of Chicken Production at Foster Farms

During our latest investigation, an undercover investigator worked with a Foster Farms chicken catching crew in California. The footage reveals widespread cruelty and filthy, inhumane conditions. Workers were seen handling multiple animals at once, often during grueling overnight shifts lasting up to 18 hours, cramming as many birds as possible into trucks with no concern for their well-being. Foster Farms' operations prioritize volume and profit over the suffering and death of the animals. We have submitted the video footage and accompanying legal analysis to the Fresno County District Attorney's office, urging them to file criminal animal cruelty charges against those responsible, including Foster Farms as a corporation.
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Holden Farms: The Problem With Pork

Our most recently released undercover investigation at Holden Farms in Utica, Minnesota, which breeds pigs to supply pork to some of the largest pork companies in the U.S., shows repeated and routine abuse and neglect, including numerous instances of methods and practices inflicting suffering on countless animals. We believe that Holden Farms has violated multiple state laws and have asked law enforcement officials to prosecute for cruelty and neglect.

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Investigation of Tyson Grower Reveals Mass, Systemic Cruelty

From August to November of 2022, an Animal Outlook investigator worked undercover at Jannat Farm in Virginia, a facility contracted by Tyson Foods to raise chickens for meat, documenting a flock of 150,000 birds from the time they were small chicks until they were sent to slaughter. The investigator obtained footage not only of pervasive, systemic cruelty, but also evidence that Tyson knew about cruel conditions and practices at the facility.
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Cold-Blooded Cruelty at Live Markets

Animal Outlook’s latest investigation reveals inhumane practices at live markets across the San Francisco Bay Area. While visiting these markets, our investigators documented animals being kept in crowded tanks and cages, fish being bludgeoned, turtles being killed by decapitation, and live animals being placed into plastic bags prolonging their suffering.

 

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Newly Uncovered Footage Reveals Cruel Truth About Ventilation Shutdown

Animal Outlook recently obtained public records—including research protocols, photographs and approximately 10 hours of video footage—from experiments conducted by researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in 2016. The researchers sought and received funding from the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, an industry trade group, to study the effects of a mass-killing method called Ventilation Shutdown (VSD) on chickens.

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Animal Transport: Torture Hidden in Plain Sight

Animal Outlook’s newest investigation documents the transport of pigs by truck more than 1,200 miles over more than 30 hours with no stops for the pigs to eat, drink and rest. Temperatures on the journey were as high as 91 degrees, and investigators documented pigs screaming at night while they were crammed together in the trailer. 

 

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Dairy: The Life of a Cow, From Birth to Slaughter

Real-life undercover footage of the dairy industry shows the truth about animal agriculture In this video -- the first in what Animal Outlook will release as a series spotlighting different aspects of animal agriculture -- viewers meet Winnie, a cow farmed for dairy, and learn the truth about the short, often painful lives of the millions of cows in the dairy industry.

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New Exposé of Case Farms, One of the Top 15 Chicken Producers in the U.S., Reveals the Gruesome, Devastating Truth About the Chicken Industry

In 2021, a brave Animal Outlook investigator took a hidden camera inside a North Carolina chicken hatchery owned by Case Farms that processes more than 200,000 chicks daily. Our investigation reveals the torment these fragile chicks experience and the devastating impact of viewing animals as food products.

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Caught on Camera: Cow, Unable to Stand, Suffers Through Multiple Head Traumas; Blatant Food Safety Violations Also Alleged

Undercover footage obtained by an Animal Outlook investigator at Bravo Packing, which slaughters cows to produce Performance Dog Diet dog food and slaughters horses to produce exotic animal food, shows a non-ambulatory or “downed” cow being delivered to and cruelly slaughtered at Bravo in a protracted episode that we believe violated both federal and state law.

The video depicts workers inflicting a horrifying sequence of cruelty upon the helpless cow and slaughtering her for pet food in filthy, unsanitary conditions.

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Live Markets, Factory Farms & Pandemics: Closer Than You Might Think

A brave Animal Outlook investigator takes you inside the little-known world of live markets in the U.S., exploring the link between animal agriculture and pandemics and gathering damning hidden camera footage inside several Southern California live markets.

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Dairy: Dead on Arrival

After two years undercover, Animal Outlook investigator Erin Wing now reveals her identity, stepping out of the shadows to shine a light on the stomach-churning horrors she witnessed at Dick Van Dam Dairy, a factory farm in Southern California.

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The Life of a Chicken

Challenge yourself to bear witness to the short, tragic life of a chicken in the broiler farming industry. This unique video includes never-before-seen undercover footage of “organic” and “free range” chicken factory farms as well as undercover footage from conventional broiler chicken factories. Take a first-hand look at the too-short life of a chicken farmed for food from birth to death -- roughly 45 days, far shorter than a chicken’s natural life span of 5-10 years.

The truth is, widespread suffering and neglect are standard in the industry -- even “organic” and “free-range” farmed birds suffer tremendously. Has animal agriculture kept you in the dark, or do you really know what happens behind chicken farming’s closed doors?

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Aquaculture: A Sea of Suffering

Animal Outlook's newest investigation is the first-ever undercover exposé of salmon aquaculture in the U.S. Our investigator worked inside Cooke Aquaculture in Bingham, Maine, exposing senseless violence against these sentient animals at an industrial Atlantic salmon hatchery supplying Martha Stewart’s new True North Seafood line.

This groundbreaking video takes you beneath the surface of the factory farming of fish, revealing putrid conditions breeding disease and parasites as well as widespread cruelty to fish intensively crowded in barren tanks.

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Nestle's Nightmare: The Hard-to-Swallow Truth

Working inside Martin Farms, a Pennsylvania dairy factory farm, our investigator documented senseless and violent abuse of mother cows and their defenseless calves. This is some of the worst abuse we’ve ever documented, and yet it also shows practices representative of what life is like for animals on a typical dairy farm.

In this case, the investigator followed a truck from this factory farm to an ice cream facility, owned by the world’s largest dairy company: Nestlé, the maker of ice cream brands including Dreyer’s, Edy’s and Häagen-Dazs.

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Amick Farms: High-Speed Chicken Slaughterhouse

Powerful new investigative footage by Animal Outlook exposes heartbreaking cruelty to birds inside a Maryland slaughterhouse — one of 24 chicken plants allowed by the USDA to operate at dangerously fast kill line speeds.

In 2018, an investigator worked inside this Hurlock, Maryland high-speed facility that kills up to 175 birds each minute. That’s as many as over one million birds every week.

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Heartbreaking Aftermath of Hurricane Florence

Animal Outlook investigators were on the ground — and in the air — in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence. Among the devastating flooding, they have documented the toll of this deadly storm on the environment, surrounding residential areas, and on animals.

It is a severe toll that’s been multiplied by factory farms, where manure lagoons have spilled tons of untreated waste into waterways and enveloped local communities.

What our investigators found is heartbreaking.

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Tyson: A Tradition of Torture Exposed - Again

New heart-wrenching undercover footage by Animal Outlook exposes shocking abuse of birds at a Virginia factory farm supplying Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest chicken producer.

For several weeks, an investigator worked inside Atlantic Farm, a Temperanceville, Virginia facility with more than 225,000 birds crammed inside filthy warehouses. The gut-wrenching video reveals egregious acts of violence as well as the painful hidden horrors chickens are forced to ensure as a result of genetic manipulation for obesity and unnaturally rapid growth.

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Behind Big Dairy's Closed Doors

In a heartbreaking undercover video, Animal Outlook reveals violent abuse of gentle mother cows at Mason Dixon Farms, a massive dairy factory farm in Pennsylvania with more than 2,500 animals.

Mason Dixon supplies some of the biggest names in dairy, including Dairy Farmers of America and Land O’Lakes.

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Horror at Superior Farms: Lamb Slaughter Exposed

In an eye-opening investigation, Animal Outlook offers the first behind-the-scenes look inside a US lamb slaughterhouse. This gut-wrenching undercover footage reveals egregious animal cruelty and alarming food labeling practices at Superior Farms—the largest lamb producer in the US and a supplier of the nation’s top two grocers, Walmart and Kroger.

Filmed by an undercover investigator working for Superior Farms at the largest lamb slaughter plant in the country located in Dixon, California, the graphic video captures the violent and bloody death that these young, gentle animals are forced to endure.

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Tyson Exposed: A Tradition of Torture

A shocking undercover video reveals egregious acts of violence and abuse at Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest chicken producer, that prompted the company to immediately end the cruel practice of “boning.” Tyson also fired 10 employees, stated it was “disgusted and outraged by what’s shown in this video” and acknowledged that “we must do more to stop this inexcusable behavior.”

Filmed by an Animal Outlook investigator who worked inside several Tyson facilities throughout Virginia, the footage offers a shocking, never-before-seen look behind the closed doors of chicken breeding factory farms, known as “broiler breeder” farms. This is where America’s chicken dinner begins.

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Hormel: USDA-Approved High Speed Slaughter Hell

In 2015, an Animal Outlook investigator worked inside Quality Pork Processors (QPP), a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse in Minnesota that exclusively supplies to Hormel, the makers of SPAM.

This shocking footage offers a disturbing, close-up view of the suffering endured by pigs as they are pushed, prodded and dragged to their death.

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Foster Farms Exposed: A Nightmare for Baby Birds

Video uncovered abuse to day-old turkeys at a hatchery owned by Foster Farms, the company that was slated to provide the 2015 Presidential Turkey – Act now!

In early 2015, an Animal Outlook investigator documented shocking horrors forced upon baby birds—from painful mutilations to being ground up alive - inside a Foster Farms turkey hatchery in Fresno, California.

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Mountaire Facility Animal Abuse Investigation

Amid pending North Carolina ag-gag bill, Animal Outlook uncovers horrific abuse to birds at Mountaire Farms chicken slaughterhouse. 

With an “Ag-Gag” bill aimed at suppressing agribusiness whistleblowing now making its way through the North Carolina legislature, Animal Outlook released a powerful new undercover video exposing abuse to birds inside Mountaire Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse in Robeson County, NC.

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Pilgrim's Shame: Chickens Buried Alive

In early 2014, an Animal Outlook investigator wore a hidden camera while working behind the closed doors of a North Carolina chicken factory that supplies Pilgrim’s Corp. (formerly known as Pilgrim’s Pride) — the second-largest chicken producer in the world.

Each year in the US, more than 8 billion chickens are raised and killed for their meat, and countless more suffer and die before even reaching the slaughterhouse. Few people have seen the daily miseries these baby birds are forced to endure — until now.

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Central Valley Meat Shut Down Again by USDA – This Time for Unsanitary Conditions

An undercover video, filmed by an Animal Outlook investigator, exposes rampant animal abuse and suffering inside Central Valley Meat Co. (CVM), a slaughterhouse in Hanford, California. CVM is a major supplier to the USDA’s National School Lunch Program and other federal food initiatives.

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Cal-Cruz Hatcheries Closes Down

Using a hidden camera, an investigator documented shocking abuses forced upon newly-hatched chicks and ducklings while employed at Cal-Cruz Hatcheries in 2009.

The video evidence was immediately turned over to the Santa Cruz County Animal Services Authority and the District Attorney’s Office. In response, a follow-up investigation conducted by humane law enforcement not only corroborated our evidence of abuse and neglect but also resulted in the impoundment of 88 ducklings.

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Cruelty to Baby Birds inside “Humane” Bell & Evans Hatchery

In 2013, an Animal Outlook investigator worked inside a chicken hatchery owned by Bell & Evans, a company that prides itself for its so-called “humane animal welfare.”

Our undercover video, however, exposes the harsh realities forced upon these baby birds on their very first day of life as they emerge from their shells, destined to be raised for their meat.

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Quanah Cattle Company: Shocking Abuse to Calves

Victory: We’re very pleased to announce that the unfounded charge against our courageous investigator Taylor Radig has been dropped!  On Jan. 10, 2014, the Weld County District Attorney’s office filed a motion to dismiss the charge, noting that “the charges can’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Read more about the bogus charge and read Taylor’s message of heartfelt gratitude.

Criminal Cruelty Cases: The video footage showing hideous abuse of newborn calves that Taylor provided to authorities also led to criminal animal cruelty charges against three people who were caught by Animal Outlook's camera abusing these very young and fragile animals.

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Iowa Investigation: Hawkeye Sow Centers (Hormel Supplier)

While employed at Hawkeye Sow Centers (HSC), a pig breeding factory farm in Leland, Iowa, an Animal Outlook investigator wore an undercover camera to document the day-to-day miseries forced upon thousands of female pigs—who are intensively confined in tiny crates where they can’t even turn around—and their piglets, who endure painful mutilations without any relief.

Iowa is the largest pork-producing state in the U.S. and, in 2012, animal agribusiness passed an “ag-gag” bill in the state to make whistleblowing exposés on factory farms, like this investigation, illegal. Our video sheds light on standard practices that the industry is desperately trying to hide. Read more about this ag-gag bill, which was signed into law by Iowa Governor Branstad in early March 2012.

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Cruel & Filthy Conditions inside Hargin, Inc. – a MN Turkey Breeding Factory Farm

Undercover Video Shows Cruel & Filthy Conditions inside Hargin, Inc. – a MN Turkey Breeding Factory Farm.

 In 2013, an Animal Outlook undercover investigator worked inside Hargin, Inc., a turkey breeding factory farm in Pope County, Minnesota, the top turkey-producing state in the US. At Hargin, an estimated 25,000 female turkeys are locked inside massive sheds, forced to live in cruel and filthy conditions.

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