Author Archive for Peace Chicken

Columbus Vegan Map

January 29, 2012 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Often times when I’m running errands around town, I lose track of time and inevitably find myself hungry/starving/famished. When I get to that point, my brain no longer functions well enough to remember what vegan-friendly restaurants are around me. So I’ve created a Google Map of all my favorite vegan-friendly restaurants, which I can then open on my iPhone and quickly find what’s closest. So far it’s just the places I’ve been to and know I like, it’s certainly not an all-inclusive list of veg-friendly places in Central Ohio.

What’s even cooler is if you open the map and use the “Add to Home Screen” option, it essentially functions as an app, but since it’s still just a link to the map, it will automatically be updated whenever new places are added.

Columbus Vegan Map

In case anyone else is interested in this little trick, here’s the URL for the map: http://g.co/maps/25ntj.


View Columbus Vegan Map in a larger map

New Mercy for Animals Investigation Exposes More Calf Farm Cruelty

April 20, 2011 0 Comments Tags: , .

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than Conklin.

From MercyForAnimals.org:

A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation provides a horrifying look into E6 Cattle Co. in Hart, Texas.

E6 Cattle rears calves for use on dairy farms, confining approximately 10,000 calves and subjecting them to lives of prolonged neglect and misery. For over two weeks in March of 2011, an MFA undercover investigator documented the operation’s deplorable conditions and brutal mistreatment of animals.

MFA’s hidden camera reveals:

  • Workers bludgeoning calves in their skulls with pickaxes and hammers – often involving 5 to 6 blows, sometimes more – before rendering the animals unconscious
  • Beaten calves, still alive and conscious, thrown onto dead piles
  • Workers kicking downed calves in the head, and standing on their necks and ribs
  • Calves confined to squalid hutches, thick with manure and urine buildup, and barely large enough for the calves to turn around or fully extend their legs
  • Gruesome injuries and afflictions, including open sores, swollen joints and severed hooves
  • Ill, injured and dying calves denied medical care
  • The budding horns of calves burned out their skulls without painkillers

Upon reviewing the undercover footage, Temple Grandin, PhD, animal welfare advisor to USDA, declared: “It is obvious that both the management and the employees have no regard for animal welfare.”

Colorado State University Professor of Animal Sciences Dr. Bernard Rollin also condemned the operation: “I urge everyone in a position of authority to serve notice to the world that this sort of behavior has no place in a society wishing to consider itself civilized. These people must be corrected with the full force of the legal system.”

Dr. Armaiti May, a practicing veterinarian experienced in the care of farmed animals, echoed Dr. Rollin’s sentiment, recommending that “charges of animal cruelty be brought against the workers involved and that the farm be shut down for cruel treatment of animals and lack of proper oversight of its workers.”

The owner of E6 Cattle required his employees to bash in the calves’ heads with a claw hammer, forcing them to condemn calves to a prolonged and horrific death. As Debra Teachout, DVM, asserts, “They feel every blow until they become unconscious.” The American Veterinary Medical Association condemns the use of blows to the head as a means of killing young calves.

Promptly following the undercover investigation, MFA alerted law enforcement authorities to violations of Texas anti-cruelty law at E6 Cattle, and presented a detailed legal complaint and meticulously compiled evidence of such violations to the Castro County District Attorney and sheriff. The evidence demonstrated an ongoing pattern of torture, unjustifiable infliction of pain and suffering on animals, and a failure to provide necessary medical care.

As MFA continues to expose the unconscionable cruelties of animal agriculture, and to diligently pursue justice by aiding prosecutions of animal abusers, consumers still hold the greatest power of all to end the needless suffering and death of calves – and all farmed animals – by adopting a compassionate, vegan diet.

Eight Years Too Many

March 19, 2011 0 Comments Tags: , .

Another March, another war anniversary post. We’ve now been waging an unconstitutional, immoral, unjustified “war” on Iraq for EIGHT YEARS.

Though it’s not really a war, of course— it’s an invasion and occupation.

So what have we accomplished in all this time?
4,758 dead soldiers, over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND dead Iraqi civilians, and lots more.

There’s plenty I could write about for this latest disgusting anniversary. Hard to choose. The civilian deaths? Soldier suicides? The wounded? Depleted uranium? Obama’s lies and warmongering? The cost of war? The list is endless, and I’ve said it all before. War is nothing new.

Imagine for a moment that you’re an Iraqi civilian. Someone who’s endured this hell for eight years.

Watch this short video:

Now think about listening to those sounds 1,402,528 times and you’ll have an idea of what life has been like for Iraqis since March 19, 2003. If this were happening in America, would the reaction be any different?

Since Obama’s taken office it seems the vast majority of the anti-war crowd has grown completely apathetic, turning a blind eye to this boring, old war. Or worse: adopting and advocating the same justifications once held by Bush-supporting Neo-Cons as to why we are still over there. It’s no fun to protest now that Bush is gone. It seems war is magically more acceptable if there’s a D next to your name instead of an R.

Party affiliation means nothing to the people still being blown up by American bombs. War is war is war. And I’ve had enough.

WAR IS A RACKET.
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW.

TAKE ACTION! Keep New Hi-Q Factory Farm Out of Ohio!

February 16, 2011 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Today Mercy for Animals sent out a long-awaited update on the fight to stop Hi-Q Egg Products from building their new factory farm here in Central Ohio.

The short version: Hi Q’s permits are still pending approval from the Ohio Department of Agriculture and we have until February 22nd to email the ODA and speak out against this. Your voice can make a HUGE difference in the lives of SIX MILLION chickens, not to mention the community that would be left to deal with this horrific facility.

Dead Chicken

Dead/mangled/diseased chickens are normal occurrences on factory farms like the one Hi-Q wants to build.

If you’re not familiar with battery cages, check out this Virtual Battery Cage for a few minutes to get a glimpse of the hellish lives battery-caged factory-farmed chickens endure.

Another link worth checking out is Your Daily Vegan’s in-depth post on this issue, including a break-down of what exactly Hi-Q’s factory farm will bring to Ohio (hint: LOTS and LOTS of chicken poop, disease, and contaminated water.)

Here’s the full update from Mercy for Animals:

Please take a moment to contact Jim Zehringer, Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, who also serves as the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board Chairman, to ask him to deny the permits Hi-Q Egg Products needs to build a 15 layer-house egg-production facility in York Township, north of Marysville, Ohio that would confine six million hens.

In mid December 2010, dozens of MFA supporters crowded the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s conference room in protest over the proposed permits during a multi-day hearing. The hearing officer is now expected to hand his findings to Zehringer on February 22nd. Chairman Zehringer will ultimately make the final decision on this case.

The millions of hens who could be confined at the proposed Hi-Q Egg Farm would be forced to live crammed together inside battery cages – small, barren wire cages stacked in rows inside filthy windowless sheds. Battery cages are typically the size of a file drawer and confine five to seven hens, giving each bird only 67 square inches of floor space – an area smaller than a notebook-sized piece of paper. Sickness and disease run rampant on factory farms when animals are forced to live in dirty and unsanitary conditions.

In addition to cruelly confining six million hens, Hi-Q Egg Farm would reportedly produce at least 74,000 tons of chicken manure and 23 million gallons of manure-contaminated egg-wash water each year, creating an environmental and public food safety risk.

Hi-Q has been attempting to build its farm for years and has met much resistance from the residents of Ohio. We must continue to speak for the millions of hens that would suffer as a result of this new factory farm, but time is of the essence!

What You Can Do

Please take a moment today to contact Director Zehringer at:
administration@agri.ohio.gov

You can also e-mail your comments to the Board at:
livestockstandardsboard@agri.ohio.gov or send a letter to: Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, 8995 East Main Street, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068.

Politely ask Jim Zehringer and the Ohio Department of Agriculture not to permit Hi-Q Egg Products to build their enormous egg factory farm in our great state. Please send your letter before February 22nd and include in your correspondence your full name and the city in which you live.

Sample Letter:

Dear Director Zehringer,

As a constituent and resident of Ohio, I ask that you deny permits to Hi-Q Egg Products to keep a new battery-cage factory egg farm out of Ohio. This proposed Hi-Q Egg farm would harm the public and violate the values and ideals of Ohioans. Not only are factory farms repositories for unconscionable animal cruelty and neglect, they threaten human health, the environment and local economies. Further, sickness and disease run rampant on factory farms when animals are forced to live in dirty and unsanitary conditions.

Hi-Q is bad for animals, the environment, neighboring communities and the state of Ohio. Please don’t allow this egg factory farm to be built.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your City, State

We need your help to give a voice to the voiceless – one email today may help save six million hens. Tell Zehringer that animal abuse has no place in Ohio!

Thank you for helping farmed animals in Ohio.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take a couple minutes and speak out against Hi-Q.

After you’re done, spread the word— post this information on Facebook, Twitter, email your friends and family, anything you can think of.

We’re talking about SIX MILLION CHICKENS. The amount of pollution, suffering, and death that would result is unimaginable.

We simply CANNOT let this happen.

Six Million Chickens

Farm to Fridge – The Truth Behind Meat Production

February 9, 2011 0 Comments Tags: , .

The newest video from Mercy for Animals speaks for itself.

Factory Farm Nation: How America Turned Its Livestock Farms into Factories

November 30, 2010 0 Comments Tags: .

There’s a new report out from Food and Water Watch that’s definitely worth reading.

The gist of it is this: factory farms are still growing— at an alarming pace. 28 MILLION animals are now confined in these hell holes. It’s incredibly depressing to say the least. But that means there are now 28 million reasons to keep working relentlessly, on behalf of the animals.

From FoodAndWaterWatch.org:

Over the last two decades, small- and medium-scale livestock farms have given way to factory farms that confine thousands of cows, hogs and chickens in tightly packed facilities. Farmers have adopted factory-farming practices largely at the behest of the largest meatpackers, pork processors, poultry companies and dairy processors. The largest of these agribusinesses are practically monopolies, controlling what consumers get to eat, what they pay for groceries and what prices farmers receive for their livestock. This unchecked agribusiness power and misguided farm policies have pressed livestock producers to become significantly larger and adopt more intensive practices. Despite ballooning in size, many livestock producers are just squeezing by because the real price of beef cattle, hogs and milk has been falling for decades.

Factory Farm NationThese intensive methods come with a host of environmental and public health costs that are borne by consumers and communities; none of the costs are paid for by the agribusiness industry.

Factory farms produce millions of gallons of manure that can spill into waterways from leaking manure lagoons or fields where manure is over-applied as fertilizer. Manure contains hazardous air pollutants and contaminants that can endanger human health. Neighbors and workers in these animal factories often suffer intensely from overwhelming odors and related headaches, nausea and other potentially long-term health effects.

Even people thousands of miles away from these facilities are not immune to their impacts. Thousands of animals crowded into unsanitary facilities are vulnerable to disease. Consumers eating the dairy, egg, and meat products produced in factory farms can inadvertently be exposed to foodborne bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella, as well as to the public health consequences of unchecked antibiotics and artificial hormones. And yet, despite all of the well-documented problems and health risks, the number and concentration of factory farms in the U.S. continues to increase.

Read the full report here.

Live Hidden Camera Installed at Battery Egg Facility

November 12, 2010 0 Comments Tags: .


Can’t see the video? Click here.

From Mercy for Animals:

Imagine being locked inside a crowded elevator for your entire life, unable to fully stretch your legs or turn around without rubbing up against someone else. Now, imagine that instead of a crowded elevator, you are barefoot in a wire cage, unable to stand or lie down comfortably, surrounded by tens of thousands of your fellow cage mates inside a giant, ammonia-filled warehouse. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you will never do anything that comes naturally to you.

You will never see the sun, or breathe fresh air, until the day you are sent to slaughter.

For most people it is next to impossible to imagine this type of existence, yet this is the grim reality for millions of egg-laying hens worldwide. But now, thanks to the courageous efforts of Anonymous for Animal Rights, a hidden camera has been installed inside a battery egg facility in Israel, giving the world a rare glimpse of the conditions that millions of egg-laying hens are forced to endure.
The Israeli parliament will soon decide whether or not to ban battery cages under the Israeli Animal Welfare Act and this live broadcast of suffering hens may influence that decision. “This is a first of its kind in Israel, perhaps worldwide. It aims to make the walls of industrial farms transparent, allowing the public a direct view of the suffering 7 million hens have to go through each and every day of their lives,” says Chen Morad, who runs the “Israel Leaves the Cage” campaign for Anonymous.
With growing consumer awareness of the inherent cruelty of battery egg production and mounting concerns over repeated salmonella outbreaks linked to battery cage egg facilities, the days of battery cage egg production may be numbered. In 1992, Switzerland became the first country in the world to ban conventional battery cages. Following a 10 year phase-out period, barren battery cages are due to be banned from the European Union in 2012. After the passage of Proposition 2 in 2008, California became the first U.S. state to ban battery cages effective in 2015, followed by Michigan just last year.
But consumers need not wait for battery cage bans to take a stand against the cruel practices of industrial animal agriculture. Adopting a healthy and humane vegan lifestyle is an easy way that each of us can withdraw our support of needless cruelty to animals. Visit ChooseVeg.com to find out more.