Very Disturbing Content: Animal Cruelty at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio (followed by Rx Antidote)

WARNING: This video shows terrible treatment of cows and calves -- it is hard to watch.



Using hidden cameras, the group Mercy for Animals (MFA) filmed this footage at the Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio, over a period of four weeks in April and May 2010. Should the video be pulled from YouTube, it is available on the group's website.

Conklin Dairy workers were documented inflicting the following examples of extreme cruelty and abuse to the cow and calves under their care:

Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears

Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach

Kicking "downed" cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck – abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm's owner

Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars – some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head

Twisting cows' tails until the bones snapped

Punching cows' udders

Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death

Mercy For Animals submitted their findings to the Marysville, Ohio City Prosecutor's Office in hopes that criminal charges will be filed against these employees involved in "the ongoing pattern of abuse."

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Here's a recent summary of events from L.A. Unleashed: All things animal in Southern California and beyond:

Ohio dairy farmworker charged with animal cruelty after advocacy group releases undercover video
May 27, 2010 1:01 pm
-- Lindsay Barnett, blogger

Following Illinois-based animal advocacy group Mercy for Animals' release of undercover video it says documents numerous instances of animal abuse at an Ohio dairy farm, a farm worker has been charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty.

Billy Joe Gregg Jr., 25, was fired from his job at Conklin Dairy Farms Inc. on Wednesday and arrested later the same day. He was arraigned Thursday and remains jailed following his court appearance. A judge set his bond at $100,000. He is due back in court in June, at which time he will enter a plea.

An investigation into the alleged cruelty at the Plain City farm, including viewing of about 20 hours of footage provided by Mercy for Animals, is ongoing and may result in additional charges, the local sheriff's department told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Mercy for Animals video (which is available for viewing on the group's website, but is not for the faint of heart) depicts a calf being thrown to the ground before a worker stomps on its head and adult cows being beaten with crowbars, poked sharply with pitchforks and punched in the udders, among other things. The group says the video was shot between April 28 and May 23.

Each animal cruelty charge against Gregg could carry a penalty of 90 days in jail and a $750 fine. Chief Deputy Tom Morgan told the Associated Press that the video seems to show three to four workers participating in acts of alleged animal cruelty and "we have to identify who all is involved."

In a statement released Wednesday, the Conklin dairy company insisted that it did not condone cruelty to its cows, adding that it has "launched [an] internal investigation into this matter and will be conducting interviews with everyone on our farm who works with our animals."

In a further statement Thursday, it again condemned the acts caught on Mercy for Animals' video, but added that the footage is missing context that would demonstrate that its facility is operated in a responsible way, according to the Associated Press.

One of the men shown in the video appears to be farm owner Gary Conklin himself, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The Dispatch also noted that the farm had been inspected three times in the last year. Though the inspections were intended simply to gauge the facility's cleanliness, Ohio Department of Agriculture spokesperson Cindy Kalis said that telltale signs of animal abuse would have been noted during the inspections. None were found, she said.

The farm's statements condemning animal cruelty rang hollow for at least one animal advocate, Farm Sanctuary co-founder and president Gene Baur, who released his own statement Wednesday. In it, he commented that the Conklin company "asserts that its farm operates according to high standards, but the video shows that they operate by a different set of standards than most Americans. The cruelty and violent behavior that is now common on farms where animals are seen as commodities is outside the boundaries of acceptable conduct in our society."

Mercy for Animals released a similarly grisly video depicting unwanted live chicks being thrown into a grinder at an Iowa chicken facility last year. At that time, the group's executive director, Nathan Runkle, argued that laws mandating the humane treatment of farm animals should be addressed on a federal level rather than being regulated by individual states, which it largely is at present.

With the release of the recent dairy farm video footage, Runkle reiterated his support for tougher regulations relating to farm animal treatment, saying in a statement that "stronger and stricter state and federal laws to prevent and discourage farmers from abusing and beating animals" are required.

Even before news broke of the cruelty investigation at the Conklin facility, farm-animal welfare was something of a hot topic in Ohio, where a coalition called Ohioans for Humane Farms is pushing for humane reforms and increased oversight of the state's livestock board. It hopes to place a measure that would address farm animal treatment on the state's ballot in November.

In his statement Wednesday, Farm Sanctuary's Baur called the proposed ballot measure "a positive step in the right direction for Ohioans who feel justifiably outraged by the abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms."

Susan Crowell of Farm and Dairy: The Auction Guide and Rural Marketplace, provides something of an industry response to the Conklin animal abuse video, questioning MFA's intent and methodology. I've certainly no problem with that, as most of us know this video documents an intolerable aberration that is as shocking to insiders as to an urban soul like myself. However, she couldn't resist an emotional appeal there at the very end of her article, where she plaintively wails:

Where is our outrage when abusers target our children?

And... that's where she loses me. I suffer from a severe allergy to underhanded illogical appeals and had to self-medicate with chocolate.

Until then, her points are, for the most part, necessary, if not particularly well-taken (she echoes her industry's jaundiced view of vegans and their seductive ways). I don't think impugning MFA's mission of promoting extreme vegetarianism is a meritorious way to rebut the abuse in the videos, however they were obtained, but casting critical doubt is rarely a bad thing:

“Animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation,” condemns Mercy For Animals on its blog. MFA was the group behind the undercover footage and its packaging and release on the Web.

But readers need to be aware of the group’s ulterior motive, and that is promoting a vegan diet (vegans try to eliminate the use of animals for food, clothing or any other purposes). Nothing excuses the actions of the dairy farm employee, but you need to know where this group is coming from.

“Compassionate consumers can end their direct financial support of farmed animal abuse by rejecting dairy, and other animal products, and adopting a vegan diet.”

Personally, I have lots of questions before I feel I can comment legitimately on the issue. Not the issue of animal cruelty or mistreatment of farm animals — that I can easily comment upon because it has no place on any farm, and all farmers must care for their livestock in the most humane way possible. But the issue of how this video came to be produced and released is rather murky.

Who was the undercover “investigator” from Mercy For Animals? When was he hired, if he was posing as an employee? Did he know Gregg before he arrived on the farm? When was Gregg hired? What is the farm’s process for checking references? Who were these guys’ references?

How many employees does the farm have working with the cattle? Who supervises and trains employees? Did other employees know this was going on?

Did the Conklin family know this was going on? When did the Conklins find out about the undercover video, and when did they see it? Where were they when this action was taking place?

Did Gregg know he was being filmed (he clearly speaks to the camera angle in several segments)? Did the individual filming also participate in mistreatment to gain Gregg’s trust? How did MFA target Gregg and/or Conklin Dairy Farm?

Why did it take four weeks for MFA to prepare the video — and let the alleged abuse continue, if they proclaim to care so much for animals? Why not work with law officials or the local human society to create the case?

Did MFA “misuse” the animals itself to promote its vegan agenda? Did the individual filming egg or urge Gregg on, to instigate the abuse?

Have investigators checked computers, e-mails, cell phone records to piece together a timeline, or an understanding of who knew who, and who knew what when?

Was Gregg paid by MFA? Is he a supporter?

Why was the video released at the same time Humane Society of the United States’ CEO Wayne Pacelle was making a visit to Ohio to drum up support for the Ohioans for Humane Farms’ ballot initiative? Was HSUS involved with MFA in the making/releasing of this video?

My questions do not give Gregg a green light to do what he did. We have a rule of law in this country, and he has been charged. It’s time for the police and legal system to work — and get answers and facts.

It’s also time for the rest of agriculture to stop being the silent minority, and to speak out on its own behalf, about how you treat your livestock, which is NOT what is portrayed in the video. There’s no question about that.

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**RX ANTIDOTE TO THE HORROR ABOVE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LUCKY DUCK RESCUE AND SANCTUARY. FOR EFFECTIVE, SEMI-PERMANENT RELIEF, WATCH "Harry the Duck and His Kittens" video (below) q 4 minutes, with a warm, soothing beverage, until sour stomach, aching head, and psychic fatigue are relieved. Faith in humanity will not be restored, but faith in the ineffable has been recognized as a suitable generic substitution.

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical, concept of animals....

We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far beIow ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err...

In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifts with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethern, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of earth."

- Henry Beston