Video Shows Cattle Abuse at California Feedlot

Cows are zapped with electricity, picked up with forklifts, and subjected to high-pressure jets of water up their noses in a video taken at a California slaughterhouse by an undercover investigator from the US Humane Society, the Washington Post reports. The video shows cattle workers using extreme, and illegal, measures to try to get sick or slow cows moving.

"These weren't rogue employees," said the investigator at Hallmart Meat Packing, which supplies meat to the nation's school system. "This is the pen manager and his assistant doing this right in the open." The company's president denies the methods in the video, which violate federal anti-cruelty laws, are in widespread use. The USDA says it will investigate. (More animal cruelty stories.)