“1/27/2010, 1:27am EST”
Mercy For Animals investigation exposes Willett Dairy farm practices. →
Describing conditions at Willett Dairy in Locke, NY:
“A worker restrains the calves and ties their mouths shut with rope, then burns off the newly budding horns with a hot iron. The calves struggle but, bound and gagged, there is not much that they can do. The worker sticks his fingers in their eyes as he restrains them. They make gurgling noises, kick, and several fall over. Some calves choke up what appeared to be vomit from the pain.
“The worker then docks the tails using a tool that is mainly used to castrate bulls. He attaches it to the calves’ tails and turns it until the ends of the tails tear off, after which he cauterizes the exposed vertebrae. The animals receive no anesthesia, and are clearly in extreme pain.”
The investigator says he saw dozens of calves with fresh, bloody wounds where their horns had been burned off. “My supervisor told me that this was his favorite job. ‘(We) burn ‘em… It’s this little iron… and you put it on the little nubs on their head and it kills it off. It’s like, ’sssssss.’ I used to love doing that.’
“’The cows don’t like it?’ I asked.
“‘Would you?’ he replied. ‘Oh fuck, it’s gotta be fucking very painful…. Oh yeah, I used to love that shit… blood and smoke all over the place. YEAH! Hamburger.’”
“During one particularly slow day,” writes the investigator, “my supervisor entertained himself by punching cows in the head. Additionally, he told me stories about prior instances in which he had battered the animals. Last year, he broke his hand by punching a cow in the eye. Another time, he ripped his hand open when he punched a cow in the nose and caught her tooth. He claims that he once clubbed a bull with a 2×4 ‘like Babe Ruth,’ and then repeatedly kicked him in the testicles while he was down. He also said that he locked a cow’s head in a gate and cracked her over the head with a wrench, dropping her to the floor. He thinks he got arthritis from punching cows.”
Not surprisingly, Lyndon Odell, Willet’s CEO, defends his mega-farm’s practices. After viewing the video, he said, “They picked out a few isolated incidents and they’re trying to portray them as something that is malicious on our part, that we don’t do a good job with our animals.” He added that he would fire any employee who abused one of the farm’s cows. “We have a history of firing people who have mistreated animals because that is not where we belong.”
Hmmm, I wonder if the employee referred to here has been fired as a result of this investigation? And gosh, I wonder what must constitute “mistreatment” if the routine cutting off of tails and horns doesn’t count? If there is a hell, it cannot possibly burn hot enough for those who work in the animal industry.
Meanwhile, local law enforcement doesn’t give a shit. The article goes on to discuss how the local DA’s office in NY, the ASPCA, and the local SPCA have turned a blind eye to the 40-page brief filed by Mercy For Animals against Willett for breaking even the weak laws that are in place to protect farm animals from such abuse.
If you have the funds to spare, please consider donating to Mercy For Animals so that they may continue to speak up for those most in need. And please, do not ignore your own part in this evil. Giving up dairy products, not to mention other animal products, has never been easier. (See links in the side bar for more information.)
Never leave home without it.
