Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

This week’s Rising Anxieties discusses ASPCA’s “humane” shopping guide which has the industry in quite a tizzy, dismantles Temple Grandin’s feel-good slaughterhouse “culture” story, exposes the industry squeezing yet another product out of exploited cows, shreds the myth that farmers are the real victims of subsidy policy, and tracks the fights against factory f...

This week, Mariann Sullivan sits down with Cheryl Leahy, director of the newly launched Animal Law Practice Association (ALPA) at the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, to unpack how the free program is training and connecting lawyers who want to build careers protecting animals. Cheryl explains ALPA’s two core pillars — a growing library of practical, topic-specific legal&#8...

This week, Jasmin and Mariann dig into a wave of encouraging news for the plant-based movement alongside a sobering look at threats to wildlife protections. They cover new data showing plant-based sales climbing across Europe as prices and taste improve, the FDA’s struggle to define “ultra-processed foods” (and its decision not to ban them), a lawsuit challenging the Trump admini...

The industry’s talking points are getting more absurd by the week: a farm blames “vegan extremists” for ending baby goat cuddling sessions, a horse-carriage op-ed acts like $65K/year is a job worth preserving at all costs, and the EU touts a “protein plan” that funnels plant protein straight back into animal feed. On this episode of Rising Anxieties, we call out&#8230...

Bestselling author and James Beard Award winner Joanne Molinaro, AKA The Korean Vegan, joins Our Hen House to discuss her new book, Korean Vegan: Homemade. She traces her journey from a health-driven plant-based diet to animal-centered veganism, and unpacks how she navigates preserving Korean culinary tradition while reshaping it around compassion. The conversation ranges from confronting cultural...

This week, Jasmin and Mariann dig into a wave of encouraging news for the plant-based movement alongside a sobering look at threats to wildlife protections. They cover new data showing plant-based sales climbing across Europe as prices and taste improve, the FDA’s struggle to define “ultra-processed foods” (and its decision not to ban them), a lawsuit challenging the Trump admini...

This week Mariann tears through the industry press so you don’t have to: an Animal Ag Alliance exec frets about “brand-busting” without ever explaining what it means, Oregon’s IP 28 gets branded an extremist plot for daring to remove cruelty-law loopholes, a horse vet insists carriage horses basically drive themselves, and ranchers wax poetic about breeding cattle too docil...

Renee King-Sonnen, founder of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary and author of the new memoir Rowdy Girl: Confessions of a Vegan Cattle Rancher, returns to Our Hen House to share the unlikely journey behind her long-awaited book. From battling addiction to falling in love with a rescued calf named Rowdy Girl, Renee opens up about the spiritual awakening that transformed her from a…

In this episode of Our Hen House, filmmaker Joanna Zelman and her father, retired emergency medicine physician Dr. Jared Zelman, join hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan to discuss their viral short documentary Cow Trip, which follows a chaotic road trip rescuing two dairy calves from Vermont to a Maryland farm sanctuary. The conversation dives into life inside the dairy industry,…

Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan catch up on New York City happenings and dig into major animal advocacy news, from a vegan appointee shaping the city’s food policy to the fight to finally end horse-drawn carriages after a tragic event. They also cover a legal win for student activists, RFK Jr.’s surprisingly bipartisan push to reduce animal testing, and a call…

This episode dives into the Ridglan Farms activist prosecutions, USDA’s new “lawfare portal” (yes, the federal government apparently needs help fighting itself), CAFO propaganda dressed up as science, and fresh data showing just how misled the public really is about caged hens and industry-funded meat studies. Wisconsin prosecutors pile more charges on Ridglan Farms activists, wh...

Artists, authors, and activists Sol Anzorena and Tom Grotewohl join Our Hen House to discuss their grassroots campaign, Protect the Porkies, fighting a proposed copper mine that threatens Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains, Lake Superior, and the North Country Trail. They break down the ecological risks of toxic mine waste, light and noise pollution on wildlife, and how their small local movemen...

This episode of The Hen Report features Mariann Sullivan and constitutional law professor Michael Dorf, filling in for Jasmin, for a wide-ranging conversation connecting Supreme Court doctrine to the fight for animal rights. Dorf draws sharp parallels between the catch-22 legal standards trapping activists like Wayne Hsiung and the contradictory hoops required for habeas corpus relief, arguing bot...

This week on Rising Anxieties, Mariann Sullivan digs into a genuinely encouraging legal development (yes, really), some deeply depressing policy news from our neighbors to the north, a dairy industry propaganda machine that apparently involves a live cow, and a livestock industry reminder that “precious cargo” has nothing to do with feelings. The usual cocktail of outrage, dark humor,...

Animal law attorney and activist Wayne Hsiung joins host Mariann Sullivan along with attorneys Chris Carraway and Steffen Seitz of the University of Denver’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project to break down the California Court of Appeals decision in Hsiung’s criminal case—a pivotal ruling that overturned two of three trespass convictions stemming from actions at Sunrise Farms and R...

In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan welcome flock member and postdoctoral researcher Neha Nataraj from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Neha attended the Johns Hopkins/PCRM Summer Immersion on Innovative Approaches in Science — a free, four-day conference focused on reducing and replacing animal use in biomedical research and toxi...

In this episode of Rising Anxieties, Mariann Sullivan tears through the week’s most revealing industry news — from egg producers finally grasping that animal advocates want them gone, to Oregon’s audacious PEACE Act inching toward the ballot, to the toxic gas hazards quietly killing dairy workers. She also covers the Cargill lockout rocking Colorado’s beef industry, the federal g...

This episode of the Our Hen House interview features Thomas “Richie” Manandhar Richardson — AI Impact Director at Vegan Hacktivists and former Director of Research at Bryant Research — in a wide-ranging conversation about two urgent frontiers for the animal movement: financial activism targeting factory farming and the growing role of artificial intelligence in animal advocacy. Richie...

This episode of The Hen Report celebrates two major animal rights victories — the closure of the notorious Ridglan dog testing facility and Philadelphia’s ban on horse-drawn carriages — then pivots to the next big fight. Hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan are joined by animal advocate and poet Gretchen Primack and Sexy Fit Vegan founder Ella Magers to announce an…

This week on Rising Anxieties, Mariann covers the EU’s ongoing (and apparently never-ending) effort to strip plant-based foods of their meat-adjacent vocabulary, the Oregon ballot initiative that has the animal agriculture industry writing fever-dream op-eds, and a Russian company claiming it’s wiring dairy cows’ brains for remote-controlled lactation — which is either the future...

In this episode of the Our Hen House interview, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan speak with Liliana Pacheco and Gregg Tully, co-founders of the newly launched nonprofit Animals Unbound — an organization working at the intersection of animal crisis intervention, capacity building, and fundraising to support animals and the local groups that protect them in some of the most under-resourced and&#82...

This is a week packed with animal rights wins and sobering setbacks. Jasmin & Mariann open with a review of The Sheep Detectives, a fun animated film with some meaningful (if imperfect) animal messaging, then dive into a string of legislative victories: Portland’s foie gras sales ban, New York State’s octopus farming ban headed to the governor, and promising momentum around…

The meat industry is having a week — and not the good kind. Screwworm has officially crossed the U.S. border into Texas, turning what was once a theoretical threat into a two-case-and-counting reality, while your tax dollars are already being mobilized to save an industry that created the conditions for this mess. Meanwhile, Oregon is inching toward a ballot initiative that…

This week, Jasmin and Mariann welcome back Dr. Liz Tyson, Director of Animal Welfare and Advocacy at Born Free USA, for a wide-ranging and eye-opening conversation about the reality of animal captivity in zoos — including the “best” ones. Using the recent death of Happy the Elephant at the Bronx Zoo as a launching point, they dig into Born Free’s ongoing…

In this week’s Hen Report, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan cover a lively mix of animal advocacy news, pop culture, and vegan messaging. They discuss Sangamithra Iyer’s new memoir Governing Bodies and its LA Times review, celebrate vegan powerlifter Katya Gorbacheva’s post-partum championship win, and unpack Angela Davis’s shout-out to animal rights at a college commence...