Thomas and Susan Blassingame have
retired from chicken farming after an underground video by members of Mercy for
Animals showed them killing chickens with a spiked stick.
The Tennessee couple lost their
contract with Tyson Foods after Mercy For Animals made its video public.
Mercy for Animals has also done
undercover videos at Canada’s largest dairy farm in British Columbia and at
turkey barns in Ontario where birds were kept as breeders for the global
company Hybrid Turkeys.
The Blassingame were fined $25
each and given just under a year of unsupervised probation.
Their lawyer, Steve Conley, says the
couple could have won had the case gone to trial, but the Blassingames did not
want to.
There is a lesson here for farmers: if it won't stand up to public exposure via video, don't do it.
