Kinship Circle | Letter Campaigns

9/17/08: Hormel's Pigs: Slammed, Cut, Spray-painted

SOURCE OF INFORMATION / BACKGROUND

UPDATE - 6/26/09: Pig Abusers At Hormel Supplier Get 1 To 2 Year Probation
SOURCE: 4 in Iowa sentenced to probation for abusing pigs

Four employees at a western Iowa farm (owned by MowMar Farms LLP of Fairmont, MN and a supplier to Hormel Foods) were sentenced to probation for pig abuse. The abuse — exposed by a PETA investigator working there undercover — was shown in a graphic video last year.

Richard Ralston, 28: One count livestock abuse: Two years probation.
Alan Rettig, 60: One count livestock abuse: Two years probation.
Greg Hackler: One count livestock abuse: One year probation.
Jordan Anderson, 26: One count aiding and abetting livestock abuse: Two years probation with deferred judgment (if probation is successful, his record is erased). All men but Anderson were banned from working with livestock during probation.

In Janurary 2009, Shawn Lyons, 36, pleased guilty to one count of livestock neglect and was sentenced to six months probation. The case of Shelly Mauch, also charged with animal cruelty, is pending. **While the penalties seem lame, they're progress. Charges and litigation rarely even occur in farmed animal abuse cases.

• Undercover Investigation Reveals Hormel Supplier's Abuse of Pigs
• Hormel Foods Position on Humane Handling

LEFT PHOTO: A mother pig and her piglets severely confined to a small farrowing crate during nursing. RIGHT: A sow with an open sore on her nose from an apparent beating with a metal gate rod. ALL PHOTOS: peta.org/actioncenter/iowa_pigfarm_gallery.asp

LEFT: Piglets' tails were cut—and males castrated—without painkillers. This is a pile of pig tails and testicles on the floor. RIGHT: A worker slammed these piglets' heads against the floor and left them to die in a bin.

LEFT: An employee sprayed paint — for over 30 seconds — into the nostrils of a nursing sow. RIGHT: A piglet born without eyes, shortly before his or her death.

LEFT: Sow #13319 sustained multiple cuts to her back, likely the result of being beaten and scraped with a gate rod while being moved from the gestation building to the farrowing building.

CONTACT INFORMATION + SAMPLE LETTER

CONTACT INFORMATION • Print/Send This Letter

PETA WRITES: Since Hormel has been receiving so many emails because of this investigation, you might receive a bounce-back email from the company.

Hormel Foods Corporation
Consumer Response
1 Hormel Pl. / Austin, MN 55912
ph: 1-800-523-4635
web mail: www.hormelfoods.com/contact.aspx
web mail: www.hormelinternational.com/contact_us.asp

Jeffrey M. Ettinger, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Brian Stevens, Director of Pork Procurement, Hormel Foods

Media Contacts / Corporate Information
media@hormel.com, Katy.Hendrickson@bm.com, brands@hormel.com SOURCE: www.hormelfoods.com/newsroom/press/default.aspx

Hormel Foods International Corporation:
dllongacre@hormel.com, lgmarconi@hormel.com, evcastillo@hormel.com, hotolentino@hormel.com, smartin@hormelfoods.com.au, malilly@hormel.com, stephenw@public.bta.net.cn, sienna@public3.bta.net.cn, bibik@a-1.net.cn, rarogers@163bj.com, msforbes@a-1.net.cn, rszabo@sh163.net, sneufeldt@hormel.com
SOURCE: www.hormelinternational.com/regions.asp#austin

*Kinship Circle cannot guarantee validity of email addresses. During campaigns, recipients may change or disable their email addresses. Emails from government, corporate, or institute websites may be incorrect.

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SAMPLE LETTER • Print/Send This Letter

Dear Hormel Foods Corporation:

I commend your zero-tolerance stance on animal abuse. I urge Hormel Foods Corporation, its international division, and all factions to take this policy to heart.

As you are aware, a 9/16/08 video depicts workers at a Hormel supplier in Iowa battering pigs with metal gate rods. One supervisor thrusts a cane into a sow's vagina and smacks her back some 17 times. Clothespins and fingers are poked into pigs' eyes and faces. Piglet's heads are crushed against a floor and they're tossed into a bin to die. An obese worker clobbers a sow's back and reportedly sits on the animal's head. Another beats a piglet's face with the rim of a herding board, a method that investigators saw repeatedly. An employee even spray paints the nostrils of a nursing sow.

"Beat on the bitch. Make her cry," a supervisor advises, as he kicks a young pig's face, abdomen and genitals. The dismissive nature of these workers indicates their cruelty is commonplace. How can Hormel monitor this single supplier — let alone all its producers, transporters, and other employees — when egregious violence toward animals is routine?

I respectfully suggest you begin with the prompt termination and criminal prosecution of workers implicated this video, along with any employees who neglect or hurt animals. Please require all Hormel suppliers to comply with basic animal welfare standards such as phasing out gestation crates. It is widely known breeding sows cannot move in these cruel confinement systems where they endure months-long pregnancy cycles.

In addition, Hormel can immediately install video surveillance cameras at factory farms. I also encourage you to take the "factory" out of farms by advocating a more natural environment. Currently, pigs are denied space, sunlight, straw bedding, mud baths or anything intrinsic to pigs.

Please put some action behind the words in "Hormel Foods Position on Humane Handling."

Thank you,

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DISCLAIMER: The information in these materials is verified with the original source. Kinship Circle does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information or for the consequences of its use. Nothing on this website is intended to encourage illegal action in whatever country you are reading it in. Kinship Circle does not engage in, nor support, any form of harassment or unlawful activity. Nothing in this action alert serves to promote such conduct.

Kinship Circle cannot guarantee the validity of email addresses. During a campaign, recipients may change or disable their email addresses. Email addresses obtained from government or other official websites may be outdated or incorrect.