Chains, Guillotine Cutters, and Other Cruel Torture Tools Found at Daisy Farms

PETA Reveals Cruel Tricks of the Dairy Trade Used at Supplier to ‘America’s Favorite Sour Cream’ Brand

For Immediate Release:
October 22, 2015

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

A tip from a whistleblower prompted a PETA eyewitness investigation of Daisy Farms in Paris, Texas, which supplies milk for Dallas-based Daisy Brand, maker of “America’s favorite sour cream” and cottage cheese. As documented by the whistleblower and PETA, Daisy Farms used various tools (shown in these photographs) to mutilate and torment cows—as is standard throughout the dairy industry—including the following:

• Calves were pulled from their loving mothers’ birth canals with chains and separated from them shortly after birth. To prevent distressed calves from trying to nurse from their mothers or from one another, workers placed spiked weaning rings on their noses. These spikes are designed to irritate the calves, who are desperate for the comfort of their mothers, and other cows they try to nurse from.
• After calves were taken from their mothers, they were isolated in tiny enclosed spaces where they suffered from apparent pneumonia, lameness, and scours.
• Since calves were not allowed to nurse from their mothers, they were force-fed milk with feeding tubes inserted down their throats. Multiple employees carelessly inserted the tubes, forcing milk into calves’ lungs and fatally drowning two of them.
• Workers used caustic paste to burn away the sensitive horn tissue on calves’ heads, a painful method of “dehorning” that is done without painkillers.
• To amputate the horns of a heifer, employees used “loppers,” or guillotine cutters, a gruesome tool that looks like a pair of bolt cutters with a guillotine blade at the end.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that these tools were all used at Daisy Farms, which brags that it has the “best cared-for cows on the planet.”

“Spiked nose rings, feeding tubes, caustic paste, and guillotine cutters are used on dairy farms across the country,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA urges everyone to remember these painful torture devices and refuse to buy milk that was stolen from calves and cows, who carry their young for nine months and want nothing more than to be loving mothers, just like humans.”

Broadcast-quality video footage and photographs are available. For more information, please visit PETA.org.