What is Mercy for Animals and Where Can the Organization Be Found?

Rick! the little chick said,
as his beaten head bled;
blinked his eyes instead
when they also turned red.

Factory farm raised and led,
also factory farm bled,
Rick the chick was red
in a cramped cage fed.

I have my very own name,
said Rick the little yellow chick.
It's Rick; I'm not to blame,
if humans don't get the trick.

Mercy for Animals fights specifically for the rights of factory farmed animals abused, cruelly held in small confinement cages and pens, and painfully slaughtered for human consumption. Its mission statement is: Mercy for Animals is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit animal advocacy organization that believes non-human animals are irreplaceable individuals who have morally significant interests and hence rights.

According to its website information, the organization's executive director, Nathan Runkle, was in Dayton, Ohio when he first took in the meaning of factory farming. An Earth Day event there included an exhibit on factory farming, an exhibit viewing that changed Runkle's mission in life.

The exhibit and accompanying brochures gave an explicit account of how animals raised on farms in quantities to feed America daily suffer cruelty and abuse in the hands of those who feed and water them for the sole purpose of creating more bodies for slaughter. Ninety-nine percent of slaughtered animals are contained in the egg, meat, and dairy industries.

Runkle learned of laying hens unable to move in 8-1/2 x 11 cages, baby calves stripped from their mothers and penned by the neck in wooden crates barely wide enough to hold them, and pigs confined in metal stalls with not enough room to lay comfortably to nurse their young.

Today, Mercy for Animals lobbies against these conditions and investigates suspected, or known cases of abuse and cruelty on factory farms. One of its most recent cases involved the video-taped expose in May, 2010 at the Conklin Dairy Farm near Plain City, Ohio where dairy cows and their calves were being beaten with crowbars and metal pipes, and kicked and punched within their tiny areas of fenced pens. An arrest was made at the farm for violations of Ohio 's anti-animal cruelty law. In 2009, the organization's undercover operatives captured video of hatchery farm workers pitching and grinding live male chicks on an Iowa factory farm.

The mission of Mercy for Animals continues through outreach programs that involve investigations, education for humane treatment of animals, advertisements that speak for animal equality, a movie presentation called "Foul Play", explanatory leaflets, informative library functions, reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet, and feed-ins that distribute try-it-out veggie servings.

Promoting an exploration and adoption of a healthy humane vegetarian, or Vegan (complete abstinence from dairy products) lifestyle and absolute dedication to establishing and defending the rights of all animals are the hallmarks of the organization, Mercy for Animals.

Mercy for Animals advocacy speakers are available for presentations at high schools, in college classrooms, at conferences, community, and civic organizations, and for church groups, as well as other venues.