A Kentucky hog farm operator has fired three workers after an animal rights group video- tapedalleged incidents of animal abuse at the farm.
Tosh Farms CEO Jimmy Tosh said in an email he is taking action in response to allegations of animal cruelty at one of his farms after an undercover investigator from the non-profit Mercy For Animals documented abuse while working for four months at a Franklin, Kentucky, farm earlier this year.
The farm is leased and managed by Tosh Farms to raise pigs for slaughter in Louisville’s JBS Swift plant.
The activist group Mercy for Animals fileda complaint to the local district attorney’s office Tuesday for legal action against behaviors including repeatedly smashing a piglet’s head against the floor.
Jimmy Tosh said that three employees have since been fired, outside service people have been added on a regular schedule to monitor operations and a third party consultant has been flown to the facility to tour the unit.
Tosh said the consultant’s recommendations will be implemented as soon as possible and that all his employees are required to sign a zero tolerance animal abuse policy.
Those identified in the video have been terminated for behavior that is considered intentional abuse.
Mercy for Animals is calling for additional action from JBS, one of the largest meat and pork producers in the global market to ban gestation crates, metal enclosures in which a farmed sow used for breeding may be kept during pregnancy, and for JBS to put an end to painful mutilations.
