Secret video shows cows on Ohio dairy farm brutally tortured

An animal welfare group said Tuesday that a graphic video it secretly recorded shows workers at a dairy farm beating cows with crowbars, stabbing them with pitchforks and punching them in their heads.

The video was recorded in an undercover investigation at Conklin Dairy Farms Inc., said Mercy For Animals, a not-for-profit group that publicizes what it calls cruel practices in the dairy, meat and egg industries and promotes a vegan diet.

The video shows workers holding down newborn calves and stomping on their heads. It shows one worker wiring a cow’s nose to a metal bar near the ground and repeatedly beating it with another bar while it bleeds.

Conklin Dairy Farms, a fourth-generation family operation based in Plain City, said it takes the care of its cows and calves very seriously and had reviewed the video.

“The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable,” Gary Conklin, of Conklin Dairy Cattle Sales LLC, said Tuesday night in an e-mailed statement. “We will not condone animal abuse on our farm.”

The company said it would interview its farm workers and anyone found to have willfully abused the cows or calves would be fired.


<snip>

http://www.cantonrep.com/newsnow/x289837620/Hidden-video-shows-Ohio-cows-beaten

From the www.mercyforanimals.org site:

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

I don't patronize the meat industry. I have to figure out how to eliminate dairy products, too.

save humans is because they feel sorry for us.

:kick:

I can't watch this today. The sadness is already too much. I don't understand how human beings can be so cruel to such helpless animals. It just blows my mind and makes me so sad.

Can we find out who Conklin Dairy sells their milk to? Because I will refuse to buy another drop of their milk as long as they are just going to interview the workers... I mean, they have them on VIDEO. What do they expect them to say when "interviewed"?

It was good to read that article.

:cry:

just so cruel, senseless and sickening.

:cry:

So horrible.

offering low wages for workers. I've worked alongside native born Americans and people who walked through the Arizona desert to get here. (I presume that means their papers were forgeries.) The Americans tended to be guys who couldn't get another job due to not showing up for work and not working when they did show up. The Mexican nationals hustled and got the job done.

Friends of ours in southern Ohio report that a lot of pasture land is being bought up by Dutch companies. They then proceed to factory farm with hundreds of cows who never see daylight. They won't do this in the Netherlands; either because the land prices are too high and/or it's illegal. Southern Ohio had a lot of honest to goodness family farms 25 years ago; people who raised swine, some cattle and truck crops. I don't think they can compete with factory farms.


I'm not advocating any particular solution, just giving witness from on the ground.

Farming is not illegal in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is urbanizing rapidly and running out of land, squeezing farmers off their land. Even where land is available, it's usually too expensive for Dutch farmers to buy. On the other hand, those who sell their land can end up with enough money to make a fresh start with land in a new country. So some farmers are selling their farms in the Netherlands and buying much bigger farms in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Argentina or New Zealand. "Big" does not equate to "bad," just as "immigrant" does not equate to "bad." Those farms are family farms, just like 98-99 percent of all U.S. farms. I am not Dutch, nor am I a farmer. I'm just someone who speaks from facts rather than emotion.

Just the report made me too sad. :(

I will call every one of them and give them what for.

Absolutely sickening.

heres the corporate info for this shithole:

Conklin Dairy Farms Inc.
12939 Us Highway 42 N
Plain City, OH 43064
(614) 873-8024

according to the Ohio Dept of Agriculture.

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2010/may/27/bond-set-worker-accused-cow-abuse-video-ar-90364/

SHUT DOWN CONKLIN DAIRY FARMS AND ARREST AND CHARGE GARY CONKLIN AND HIS CREW WITH ANIMAL CRUELTY!!!

It's not nearly enough, but it's a start.

:thumbsup:

Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't beat on their wives, girlfriends or kids the same way.

Each one carries a penalty of up to 90 days in jail.

They still have many more hours of video to review.

One could choose to not include dairy in their diet. It's really not that hard, or so I'm told. As I understand it, the dairy industry also enables the veal industry, another nasty little bit of animal cruelty.

This is far from an isolated incident.

Kudos to Mercy for Animals for exposing this.

Actually, I've cut down on how much I eat altogether and I feel a lot healthier.

With all of the chemicals and toxins that's in all food these days, I figure we are better off with less of everything.

I buy local, too.

Shit like this just makes me hate people.

I get to walk by a small ranch every day, with herds of cows, goats, donkeys, also free range chickens. I see the animals interact. Cows are very smart and surprisingly active. They have individual personalities. It's heartbreaking to imagine the suffering so many of them go through in the name of cheap food.

I no longer drink dairy milk. If I want something in my coffee, I use soy or preferably almond milk - sometimes I make the almond "milk" myself.

I've cut down on cheese and butter. I am going to switch to local cheeses, where I can maybe better track the chain of production. We have some awesome local cheeses - I just need to verify where they get their supplies from, and how the animals are treated before I buy it.

I raise my own beef now, and if I can no longer do that someday, and can't find a trustworthy local producer from which to buy, I will quit eating beef. I have cut down on chicken, and unless I can find a humane place from which to buy, I am cutting out that too. My herd is full of personality, things they like to do, places they like to be on our ranch, and they do as they see fit every day. They do what they were built to do - they graze, sleep, play, have calves, and hang out with each other.

I can't watch the video either, but am rec'g this thread. I changed everything about how I eat once I started realizing how we all were getting our "cheap" food. I am not that interested in quantity over quality of life of what I choose to eat.

my state is dependent on dairy and I don't just mean financially. Cheese may very well save the Vermont landscape and farming way of life. The important thing is to know where your dairy is coming from. I know my neigbor's cows are treated extremely well- right down to jazz in the barns in the winter. Every time I eat a piece of constant bliss or bayley-hazen blue, I'm supporting an enterprise that is entirely worthy.

It's my favorite snack :)

It's a win/win for the community! I've been switching to more and more local foods and organics over the last couple years. Since January I've also cut out wheat flours, corn products, sugars and processed foods. I eat meat, fish and dairy. In New England local wild fish is plentiful and with the meats I find that with the grassfed, organic meats I need much less to feel the same satisfaction. Dairy is more expensive and I no longer drink milk. I do use dairy in cooking.

Over all I have dropped 30 pounds since the new year and feel great. Doing all my own cooking has offset the cost increase of the organics/local foods. Once I move into my fiances I am looking forward to buying a chest freezer and doing bulk organic meat purchases. We also found a fish Co-op in Boston which is a total win/win for consumers AND small fisherman.

If these sorts of things became easy to find and more popular it would go a long way to improve things.

and grow a good amount of my own produce. But cheese is a hard thing to make on my own. Would you or anybody else know were I can get local made cheese in Cincinnati?

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/welfare-group-hidden-video-shows-ohio-cows-beaten

CLEVELAND - >

Union County Sheriff Rocky Nelson announced Wednesday afternoon that 25-year-old Billy Joe Gregg of Delaware County was arrested and charged with 12 counts of cruelty to animals, a second degree misdemeanor.

Sheriff Nelson said deputies were called to Conklin Dairy Farm at 6 a.m. Wednesday to provide security for an employee termination. After learning the nature of the termination, the sheriff’s office conducted its own investigation and made the arrest.

>>>

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, issued the following statement:

"The people who committed the sadistic and barbaric cruelty documented by Mercy for Animals at an Ohio dairy should have the book thrown at them. These deeply disturbing attacks against helpless animals should be troubling to anyone with any level of decency. Given the anemic state of Ohio's anti-cruelty laws, it is time for the Legislature to upgrade these statutes so judges and prosecutors have the tools to handle people who engage in malicious cruelty, including to farm animals."

Second Degree not more than ninety days $750 max

http://www.clelaw.lib.oh.us/public/misc/faqs/sentencing.html

NOT ENOUGH!

But jail time is a start!

MARYSVILLE, Ohio -- The man accused of brutally beating cows and calves at a Union County dairy farm says he is a wounded Army veteran of the war in Iraq who is about to take his exam to become an Ohio police officer.

Billy Joe Gregg, 25, sat still and listened this morning as Marysville Municipal Court Judge Michael Grigsby detailed the 12 charges of animal cruelty that were filed against Gregg yesterday. Gregg said he has no job and no money, and asked for a court-appointed attorney.

Gregg was the star of a video released late Tuesday by Mercy For Animals, a Chicago-based, animal-rights group that promotes a vegan lifestyle. Mercy sent an undercover employee into Conklin Dairy Farms on Rt. 42 near Plain City and recorded what it says is about 20 hours of tape that shows Conklin employees -- mainly Gregg -- beating cows with crowbars, sticking them with pitchforks, breaking their tails and throwing calves to the ground and stomping their heads.

Only about four minutes of the tape has been shown publicly.

-snip

On the tape provided by Mercy For Animals, Gregg can he seen bringing guns into the farm's milkhouse, firing them on the property and talking about stealing M-16s from the U.S. Army while he was stationed in Iraq.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/05/27/gregg-court-appearance.html?sid=101

up in fines as well as any imprisonment time that the law carries.

McBurger Doodles has it on sale, and people pay for it? Geeerosss.

..and hope that the perp receives the same sort of kind, compassionate care he gave to the animals in his charge when he gets locked up..

Yesterday police arrested one of the dairy workers documented maliciously torturing animals at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio by an undercover Mercy For Animals investigator. Billy Gregg, Jr., 25, was taken into custody by the Union County Sheriff's Department and charged with 12 counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals.

MFA commends the City Prosecutor and law enforcement for their swift and decisive apprehension of Gregg, a violent individual who is extensively documented sadistically abusing newborn calves and cows.

Following the arrest, MFA conducted news conferences statewide and released the undercover footage of farm workers beating, stabbing, clubbing, and kicking cows and calves. Even the owner was caught on camera kicking a cow.

A media flurry erupted as the case crossed the nation on outlets such as CNN, ABC, Fox and the Los Angeles Times, and in scathing coverage on CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland. The case went on to receive worldwide coverage, including in the UK and Australia.

MFA's investigator documented Ohio dairy workers:

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
Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars
Twisting cows' tails until the bones snapped
The deplorable conditions uncovered at Conklin Dairy Farms highlight the reality that animal agriculture is incapable of self-regulation and that meaningful federal and state laws must be implemented and strengthened to prevent egregious cruelty to farmed animals.

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

www.mercyforanimals.org

I'll be sending them another donation after this. Thank goodness for them.

This news came out on my birthday, which sickened me, but the upside is that if this doesn't get the anti-cruelty ballot measure passed in Ohio, I don't know what will.

http://www.ohiohumane.com/

Strangely enough, I had just made plans to go to Ohio for the first time next month.