Latest investigations by Farm Transparency Project
In June, investigators from Farm Transparency Project installed hidden cameras at Cedar Meats, capturing the handling and slaughter of thousands of animals, including newborn lambs and kids born in the holding pens of the slaughterhouse. The footage shows workers writing and drawing on the bodies of sheep and goats with blood, animals appearing to have their throats slit while fully conscious, goats and sheep struggling while soaked in the blood of others and even one mother goat giving birth in the stunning restraint, seconds before her throat is slit. read more
On the banks of the Murray River, MD Foods slaughters thousands of sheep and goats every week in a purpose built killing factory.
Previously known as Riverside Meats, the slaughterhouse was exposed twice by Animals Australia in 2013 and 2016, with footage showing abuse, poor stunning and suffering of sheep, cows, goats and bobby calves. These investigations led to significant media coverage and the slaughterhouse was forced to install CCTV, before opting to shut down in 2018 amid protests from workers.
Three... read more
At around 8:30pm on Tuesday 23 July 2024, a truck carrying dairy cows and calves crashed into the Cremorne Railway Bridge over Alexandra Avenue, South Yarra.
The top sections of the truck were completely crushed, with many cows suffering excruciating injuries including broken legs and necks. Others jumped from the top of the truck and attempted to run, with some sighted running down major roads.
FTP investigators attended and documented the horrific crash, filming injured and panicked cows as they tried to free themselves from the wreckage of the top level.
With Victoria Police and... read more
During the public hearings for the Victorian inquiry into pig welfare and in the weeks following, the President of the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Pig Council, David Wright, gave evidence about practices used at his piggery (EcoPiggery in Leitchville, northern Victoria) and by the entire pig meat industry. With statements about the pork industry's adherence to “industry best practices,” and commitment to animal welfare, he painted a picture of idyllic farms, under threat from aggressive activists, determined to destroy his industry.
In the months following the hearings, investigators collected evidence of how pigs are confined and handled... read more
Hidden cameras installed by Farm Transparency Project in early 2024 reveal the brutal slaughter of 'beef' and dairy cows at Ralph's Meats, in Seymour, Victoria.
Workers are seen repeatedly swinging gates into frightened cows to attempt to herd them into the race, and aggressively prodding them with an electric prodder, even when they have nowhere to go.
The footage reveals cows remaining conscious after multiple 'stunning attempts', meaning they can feel everything as their throats are cut open.
The commercial slaughter of rabbits in Australia has never been captured on camera... until now.
Our investigators installed hidden cameras in not one, but two rabbit slaughterhouses, capturing the final terrified moments of these gentle, sensitive animals.
This is what our investigations into Gippsland Meats in Bairnsdale, VIC and Summerland Poultry in Kellyville, NSW uncovered…
10 years ago, this slaughterhouse was one of the first investigated by the recently launched organisation, Aussie Farms (now Farm Transparency Project). At the time, investigators filmed pigs, cows, sheep and calves being beaten and violently slaughtered across two, blood-soaked kill rooms. A decade later, we returned and spent two months installing cameras inside the multi-species slaughterhouse, which sits on a residential street in the busy, rural city of Wangaratta.
The scale of suffering we uncovered was so bad that we’ve had to split it across two videos.
Part 2 focuses on pigs, sheep and goats.... read more
In late 2023 and early 2024, FTP's investigators revisited Midland Bacon piggery near Stanhope in northern Victoria, focusing on the farrowing shed.
Farrowing crates are small pens containing even smaller cages, where sows are confined for up to 6 weeks while they give birth to and nurse their piglets. Every intensive breeding piggery in Victoria still uses farrowing crates.
In these crates, newborn piglets are subjected to a series of painful surgical mutilations, without any kind of anaesthetic or pain relief. Their tails are cut with scissors. Their teeth are cut back. Chunks are cut out of their... read more
10 years ago, this slaughterhouse was one of the first investigated by the recently launched organisation, Aussie Farms (now Farm Transparency Project). At the time, investigators filmed pigs, cows, sheep and calves being beaten and violently slaughtered across two, blood-soaked kill rooms. A decade later, we returned and spent two months installing cameras inside the multi-species slaughterhouse, which sits on a residential street in the busy, rural city of Wangaratta.
The scale of suffering we uncovered was so bad that we’ve had to split it across two videos.
In the cow kill room, workers force... read more
The milking of a herd of jersey cows at Caldermeade dairy farm and cafe in Victoria, Australia. Captured in February 2024.
In September 2023, Farm Transparency Project captured the separation of newborn calves from their mothers at four Tasmanian dairy farms.
In order to make milk for human consumption, dairy cows need to be pregnant. Female cows are artificially inseminated multiple times a year, so that they can continue to be milked every day. When they give birth, they bond with their babies immediately, only to have them ripped away from them, usually within hours, so that humans can take their milk to be sold.
Hidden camera footage captured in August-September 2023 reveals extreme animal suffering as well as broken or ineffective machinery and injuries to workers.
The footage shows the slaughter of pigs, cows, sheep and deer, who are stunned using a rifle or an electric stunner, which is revealed to be frequently broken and amateurly repaired by workers. Cows are seen to be shot in the head up to six times, while bellowing in pain, then jumped on by workers to force them into the kill room. One worker is chased into the enclosed stunning race by a frightened and enraged... read more
Scottsdale Pork is Tasmania's largest pig slaughterhouse, with pigs mostly coming from the company's nearby free-range piggery. An electric stunner is used to incapacitate pigs before their throats are slit, but this is frequently ineffective.
Hidden camera footage from a slaughterhouse partly owned by 2024 Tasmanian of the Year, Stephanie Trethewey, shows ‘sustainable beef’ cows shot with a rifle up to eight times before losing consciousness and forced into the kill room using a hammer and a metal pipe. Investigators also captured footage of workers jabbing sheep and cows with painful electric prodders, including in the face and genitals, as well as beating, kicking and throwing sheep to the ground.
One cow is documented crying out in pain after having been shot in the head multiple times, while others become stuck in the... read more
In August and September 2023, investigators from Farm Transparency Project entered and installed cameras at Tasmanian Quality Meats slaughterhouse, Tasmania's largest sheep and calf slaughterhouse. The result was two two weeks of footage, capturing the brutal treatment and slaughter of thousands of sheep and week-old calves, many who were pushed, thrown, beaten and even killed while fully conscious. The investigation exposed that calves were frequently killed without any form of stunning, due to them being stuck upside down in the restraint or workers failing to stun them before they were tipped out into the kill room. Dozens of calves, had... read more
In February 2014 a small group of investigators entered Corowa slaughterhouse in NSW, which was at that point in time, the largest pig slaughterhouse in the southern hemisphere. At this stage, no one had ever filmed inside of a pig gas chamber before, with only rumours and whispers standing against the industry's promises of peaceful, humane deaths. This was about to change.
Over three days, the investigators installed cameras inside the slaughterhouse, including in the gas chamber itself, revealing, for the first time in the world, the true horror of what was happening inside. The footage launched a... read more
Snowtown slaughterhouse, located in Snowtown, South Australia, kills goats, sheep and cows/cattle.
Crowded into a small room, goats and sheep are dragged one at a time onto the kill platform, where their throats are brutally cut open without any attempt at stunning.
The sixth slaughterhouse exposed as part of our Shut Down Slaughterhouses campaign.
Menzel's Meats is a multi-species slaughterhouse in Kapunda, South Australia, which kills pigs, goats, sheep and cows/cattle.
Unlike larger slaughterhouses, Menzel's does not use a gas chamber for pigs. Instead, for smaller pigs, sheep and goats, an electric stunner is used, while larger pigs and cows are shot with a rifle.
Pigs are herded with an electric prodder into a stunning pen, and then painfully paralysed one at a time, in front of each other. Some pigs try to comfort those who have been paralysed.
Many animals remain conscious after 'stunning', but... read more
On the banks of the Murray River, under an hour from Adelaide, thousands of pigs are being excruciatingly gassed to death every week at BMK Foods slaughterhouse.
Our team of investigators entered and installed cameras inside the kill room of this facility, capturing footage of pigs as they died in agony.
In early 2023, investigators from Farm Transparency Project covertly entered Victoria's three largest pig slaughterhouses, to capture footage inside the highly secretive, "humane" gas chambers. It's time to ban gas chambers.
At the Benalla slaughterhouse, pigs of all ages and sizes are brutally gassed - from “sucker” piglets, to standard 5-6 month old pigs and mother “sows” no longer useful to the industry. Pigs are forced into the chamber with a painful electric prodder.
Diamond Valley Pork in Laverton kills up to one million pigs per year - 20% of the national total. Pigs are forced into... read more
In our latest investigation for Defend the Wild, Farm Transparency Project surveilled a trapper employed by the Victorian Government, revealing the brutal capture and killing of native dingoes as a scapegoat for poor animal welfare in the meat, leather and wool industries.
An investigation by Farm Transparency Project uncovered the widespread use of sow stalls in Victorian piggeries, 5 years after the industry claimed to have phased them out.
On the night of November 9, 2021, Farm Transparency Project received a tipoff about a shed catching fire at an intensive egg farm in Carisbrook, Victoria. The farm, owned by Kinross, produces "cage-free", "barn-laid" eggs in an "aviary" system, with up to 45,000 hens in each shed. Our investigators went to document the aftermath and check for survivors.
Ex-racehorse slaughter at Kankool and Highland knackeries in NSW - the racing industry's retirement plan (part 2).
www.farmtransparency.org/campaigns/finish-line-part2
One year after being reported to authorities, an illegal slaughterhouse east of Melbourne has been found to still be slaughtering sheep without stunning.
An investigation into the fate of ex-racing thoroughbred and standardbred horses in NSW led to two Sydney knackeries, where hidden cameras captured their brutal slaughter and sale as pet meat.
See more: www.aussiefarms.org.au/campaigns/finish-line
Intensive feedlot housing 8000 sheep in western Victoria.
Disbudding of female goat kids at Lochaber Goat Farm (Meredith Dairy) in Meredith, Victoria, late 2019.
Male kids routinely slaughtered at Gippsland goat dairy farm owned by John Gommans. See more at https://www.aussiefarms.org.au/facilities/4c3c4-cibus-goats/videos
Hidden camera footage captured anonymously and provided to Farm Transparency Project.
An Australian-first investigation, in collaboration with Animal Liberation, reveals the mass killing of 'useless' male chicks and the painful de-beaking of day-old females, in the Specialised Breeders Australia (SBA) Hatchery near Bendigo, Victoria, one of the country's largest egg-layer hatcheries.
www.EggsExposed.com
www.aussieabattoirs.com/slaughterhouses/gathercoles-wangaratta
www.aussieabattoirs.com
Hidden camera footage from the gas chamber at South Australia's largest pig slaughterhouse, Big River Pork near Murray Bridge, May 2014.
Australia's largest pig slaugterhouse, in Corowa NSW, owned by Rivalea Australia.
World-first footage shows just how "humane" the carbon dioxide (CO2) gas chambers used to stun the majority of Australian pigs really are.
For context, the whole process is shown between 0:00 and 1:46 from the different angles. Pigs are herded into a cage within the gas chamber by an electric cattle prod. The cage door shuts behind them and they are lowered into the gas. Once the cage reaches the bottom of the chamber it comes back up the other side and tips the pigs out... read more
