One of twelve men—including three supervisors—who forcefully threw turkeys into coops for transport.

Last week—just in time to give the turkeys who are still suffering at Aviagen something small to be thankful for—Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., announced that it had terminated all the employees who were found to have violated Aviagen's animal welfare standards. (I hope the guys who stomped on turkeys' heads were the first to go.)

This is a great, although small, step for the turkeys who are still tightly trapped in Aviagen's dark, dusty sheds—at the very least, they won't have to suffer at those individuals' hands or under their watch any longer. So far, however, Aviagen seems to have passed on the opportunity to press for a criminal investigation and prosecution of the dismissed workers. If the executives at Aviagen were really serious about cracking down on cruelty to animals, wouldn't they join us in asking officials to prosecute these individuals?

Also, Aviagen has announced that it has "outlined a series of actions" that will improve its "existing welfare guidelines" and "ensure [that] violations do not occur in [the] future." That sounds nice—but based on what the company's "existing welfare guidelines" failed to prevent, I think I'd feel a little more comfortable with some specifics, don't you? Gosh, it sure would be nice if somebody were to provide Aviagen with a list of specific steps to take to improve animal welfare—oh wait … we did.

Please help by writing a polite letter to Aviagen asking the company to implement PETA's Seven-Point Animal Welfare Plan and to call on officials to prosecute any employees—past, present or future—who abuse or neglect animals. Aviagen has made some small progress already—let's hope it continues its much-needed reforms.

Posted by Amanda Schinke

One month ago, we released shocking footage from an undercover investigation of a factory farm in Iowa that raises pigs who are destined for Hormel. The public was rightly outraged by the horrific findings of PETA's investigators, who found that workers repeatedly hit pigs with metal gate rods and canes, a worker slammed the heads of piglet "runts" into the floor, and a supervisor shoved a cane into a sow's vagina and talked about sexually abusing pigs.

Even after the farm changed ownership and management during the investigation, this disgusting treatment and abuse of animals continued.

That being said, we have just released previously unseen footage from the investigation, apparently showing the farm manager kicking and shocking a pig. Unbelievably, he is still the manager of the farm!

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In the video, the farm manager is seen shocking a pig with an electric prod and kicking her—both in apparent violation of the farm owner's own written policy—in a prolonged attempt to make her stand, which is a requirement for pigs who are sold for slaughter. The suffering sow, who was unable to stand due to crippled hind limbs, was left in the pen for two days, bleeding from a severed hoof, until she was ultimately shot and killed.

This shocking footage of the farm manager was recorded the very next working day after PETA's undercover investigator reported to the farm manager the abuse that he had documented at the farm.

We are seething mad that the farm manager retains his position as farm manager and has been allowed to continue to supervise other employees and their treatment of pigs. It is painfully obvious to us that all factory farms—as long as they exist—must be managed by individuals who are competent in humane handling of animals and who can lead by example. We'll let you determine whether he fits the bill.

We stand firm in our demand that Hormel take action against these abuses, despite the company's continued failure to respond to our attempts to work with it. Join us in renewing our pressure on Hormel. Demand that the company enact meaningful reforms to prevent this sort of abuse from occurring on its suppliers' farms.

Update: We wanted to make sure that it's clear to our readers that we offered several times to show Hormel and the farm's management ALL the footage that was taken during PETA's undercover investigation at the supplier's farm—including the above footage of the manager. Neither Hormel nor the farm's management took us up on our offer.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky