On September 13, 2023, ARM released some of the most disturbing footage captured of rampant dairy cow abuse stemming from its undercover investigations inside two independent Fair Oaks Farms “Lakes States Dairy Center” facilities located in Fair Oaks, Indiana.
The two dairy farms, Windy Ridge Dairy and Windy Too, which ARM re-entered into, are owned by Fair Oaks Farms President, Steve Bos. They are also are a part of the family network dairy farms that Fair Oaks Farms as a supplier to Select Milk and Fairlife is comprised of.
This investigation stands as a follow-up to ARM’s 2019 exposé, referred to as ‘the biggest undercover dairy farm investigation in history’ that became famed for instantly going viral, reaching over 25 million views from outraged consumers and advocates, prompting an urgent national demand to improving dairy industry care standards.
Steve Bos and his Windy Ridge dairy farms were at the forefront of this operation in its findings of egregious crimes of animal abuse.
The 2019 investigation not only shinned the light on the inherent cruelty of Big Dairy as a whole, but it also connected the most powerful beverage consumer, Coca-Cola, and its subsidiary, Fairlife LLC, to the Fair Oaks Farms milk flagship supplier and Select Milk Producers who supplies to the Fairlife brand (also owned by Mike McCloskey). Read more about this investigation.
ARM’s Operation Fair Oaks Farms 2023 investigation focused on two locations that it had previously infiltrated and represents the first time an animal advocacy organization has returned to a dairy farm to assess and audit welfare updates committed to by owners and other stakeholders.
When ARM’s 2019 animal cruelty investigation was publicly released, Steve Bos joined Mike McCloskey’s vow to never again engage, accept, or witness animal cruelty on any farms under their care.
However, these promises were not implemented by Steve Bos, and ARM’s investigator documented care and housing conditions as bad, if not worse, than previously documented.
Some of the crimes and wrongdoings toward dairy cows and calves include:
- Cows are kicked, beaten, and punched daily by employees.
- Cows are repeatedly whipped with heavy ropes, beaten with sawn-off golf clubs and poles, stabbed with sharp ‘shanks’, knives, and screwdrivers.
- Cows are slammed into and dragged by tractors and heavy machinery while conscious and in clear distress.
- Employees use excessive force when moving the cows, including hyper-extending the cow’s sensitive tails backward, often breaking them.
- Downer cows are hoisted in the air with chains (by use of tractors and heavy machinery)
- Managers inhumanely and improperly shoot sick and injured cows with shotguns as a means of euthanasia, often leading to a slow painful death.
- Downer and injured cows are dumped and abandoned in small enclosed ‘death pens’ along with sick, dying, and dead cows. Animals are forced to watch their own demise.
- Cows are neglected and refused critical medical aid from veterinarians and suffer from painful infected wounds. Cows were documented with large abscesses on their knees that immobilized the animal, showed obvious signs of pain, swelling, and distress. These were acknowledged by employees and managers but were left untreated.
- Cows are forced to live in overcrowded living quarters in deplorable, unsanitary conditions. Feces piles regularly documented at depths that came up to the knee.
- Cows have to resort to standing and lying in feces 24 hours a day. Cows have difficulty walking through the sludge of feces.
- Newborn calves are abandoned and left to die slowly in dark corners of barns and in piles of filth and feces.
- Rotting bodies pile up and require being cleared several times a day due to the volume of deaths.
ARM’S Fair Oaks Farms 2023 follow-up investigation revealed that the measures that industry leaders point to rectifying and implementing do not go far enough in protecting dairy cows and calves against excessive animal cruelty, abuse, and neglect. This lack of reform and animal welfare demonstrates an overall, undeniable and fundamental failure of executive leaders of the Dairy industry.
Click here to read ARM’s entire report to learn more about the animal cruelty and abuse that the dairy cows of Fair Oaks Farms suffer daily.
As consumers, you can make your voices heard by clicking on our CALL TO ACTION page to sign our petition to demand change in an incredibly cruel industry that traps innocent animals in a continuous cycle of widespread abuse and neglect and other developing actions.
One of the most significant ways that the public can contribute to change in this industry is to choose plant-based choices and discontinue the consumption of dairy products.
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Undercover Footage
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