Lauded for its supposed humane treatment of animals, Pitman Family Farms is the most prominent supplier of free-range, slow-growth chicken to retailers like Whole Foods. The DxE Open Rescue team put the company on 24 hour surveillance with undercover cameras, and when we saw no birds were being allowed outside, we took the next step: entering the barns. 
 

Crowding

While Whole Foods has lauded its new slow-growth farms as solving the “root of the animal welfare problem,” birds at Pitman were crowded shoulder to shoulder in massive industrial sheds. Birds never stepped outside, and they lived twice as long in horrific, filthy conditions. 

Fighting

Driven insane by confinement and starvation, roosters and hens pecked at each other viciously. Every attempt for food or water required struggling through a crowd. 

Mutilation

Birds like Sophie -- small or sickly -- were viciously attacked by the mob. We witnessed many birds with missing or injured eyes, bloody combs, and even broken keel bones. One study found that birds in free-range, slow-growth farms have nine times as many broken breastbones. 

When DxE found Sophie, she was struggling to defend her right side from the mob of birds pecking and trampling her. At just 1.5 pounds, she was less than half the size of the other birds. But in Sophie’s miraculous recovery, she teaches us important lessons about life. 

We Need Your Help To Rescue Animals.

With your support, DxE has rescued dozens of animals like Sophie from horrendous abuse.

For the summer, every new monthly donor (in any amount) earns DxE a bonus $100 from a generous matching grant.

Any monthly donation makes you a subscribing member of DxE -- a grassroots network for nonviolent direct action for animals. You’ll receive an annual update on DxE’s progress building a movement for animals and access to weekly DxE Discussions hosted by lead investigator Wayne Hsiung.

A donation of $45 a month (the estimated cost to care for one rescued animal) makes you a member of the DxE Open Rescue Network, which rescues animals from the most hellish places on earth and places them in sanctuary for the rest of their lives. You’ll receive quarterly updates on rescues and investigations, special opportunities to meet the animals we’ve saved, and access to weekly DxE Discussions hosted by lead investigator Wayne Hsiung. 

If you are already a monthly donor and you want to change or cancel your monthly donation, please email donate@friendsofdxe.com.

You can donate using the buttons above or by sending a check, payable to FRIENDS OF DXE, to the following address: 

FRIENDS OF DXE
3365 Gross Rd
Santa Cruz, CA 95062

Please notify donate@friendsofdxe.com if a check is in the mail so that we can look out for it!  Note that if you would like to request your donations be used for a specific chapter/project, please email almira@directactioneverywhere.com.

Friends of DxE, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation that provides grants for DxE's campaigns. The board and leadership of Friends of DxE, which has no paid employees, is independent of each of the grassroots chapters that comprise DxE's worldwide network.