Podcasts – Our Hen House

This week, Mariann finds herself in a suspiciously good mood despite a roster of horrors: ag-friendly lawmakers are departing Washington, Western states are busy “euthanizing” wolves in the most creative misuse of that word yet, and 2,400 pigs died in a barn fire that somehow produced “no injuries.” On the bright side, Gen Z is apparently ghosting pork, the hog market&#8230...

In this episode of Our Hen House, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Cat Phipps of Southampton Animal Action about their remarkable grassroots campaign that convinced Brittany Ferries to end live animal exports between Ireland and France. Cat breaks down the history of live export protests in the UK, how a small local group used consistent, legal, and disruptive tactics over more than…

In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin and Mariann discuss groundbreaking news: New York City’s horse-drawn carriage industry may finally be coming to an end under Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration. They trace the decades-long grassroots fight to ban carriage horses in NYC—from protest carols at Columbus Circle to the strategic political organizing that made this moment possible...

In this episode of Our Hen House, Mariann and Jasmin sit down with Alex Bury, Vice President of Development at Vegan Outreach, and Stacy Shepanek, Director of Communications at Vegan Outreach and co-lead of Knox Vegan, to talk about grassroots vegan activism that works. They dig into Vegan Outreach’s massive leafleting legacy (22 million booklets and counting), their 10 Weeks to…

In this episode of The Hen Report from Our Hen House, Jasmin and Mariann dig into the tension within the animal protection movement over anti-factory farming messaging that stops short of asking people to eat fewer animals. Inspired by Mariann’s Substack piece Expanding the Tent and Jasmin’s experience at an op-ed writing workshop, the two trace this strategic issue through historical&...

Mariann Sullivan breaks down why the meat industry is panicking about animal rights groups making common cause with small farmers, how dairy operations turned their unwanted male calves into a billion-dollar beef sideline (20% of the US beef supply and counting), and why the H-2A visa program is a legal nightmare for an industry that runs on exploited labor. Plus: Colorado…

Award-winning undercover investigator Lindsay Oliver joins Jasmin and Mariann to discuss her groundbreaking work inside a national primate research center and her new memoir, Marshmallows Are Their Favorite: Undercover at a Primate Lab. Over a two-decade career spanning more than 100 investigations across factory farms, research labs, zoos, and circuses, Lindsay shares what it’s really like...

In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin and Mariann sit down with Gretchen Primack and Ella Magers to debrief the historic March to Abolish Animal Testing (MAAT) — a 207-mile trek from Albany to Marshall Bioresources, the country’s largest breeder of dogs for animal experimentation. The organizers share what it took to mobilize over 1,000 people in just three and…

Marshall BioResources is big mad about Our Hen House, the Animal Agriculture Alliance thinks animal activists are secretly swimming in a billion dollars, and a UK newspaper is very upset that PETA has the audacity to care about sheep. Meanwhile, a Smithfield plant worker becomes the fourth death on the job, a rancher writes a whole essay pretending climate change isn’t…

In this episode of The Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Eric Glitzenstein, Director of Litigation at the Center for Biological Diversity, about what he calls the most extreme attack on the Endangered Species Act in its history. They break down two unprecedented actions by the Trump administration: the elimination of the long-standing regulatory definition of “harm” that...

 In this episode of The Hen Report from Our Hen House, hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan unpack the growing differences in approaches within the animal protection movement between some large organizations and some grassroots activists. They examine how some major groups are currently framing their “end factory farming” missions — often without naming a clear end state or using t...

This week, Mariann Sullivan is in a mood — and who can blame her? A fashion industry executive body-slams PETA protesters at a runway show, and The New York Post wants you to feel bad about a foie gras ban. The FAA is investigating the drone pilots who keep catching ranchers in the act of abusing animals. Plus: screwworm makes a…

Marie Gibbons, co-founder and CEO of VeriBark, joins Our Hen House to explain how her AI-powered app analyzes over 130 dog body signals and vocalizations to help pet parents understand what their dogs are really communicating. The conversation digs into the science behind animal body language, the ethics of using AI in animal advocacy, and VeriBark’s ambitious roadmap to expand beyond…

This week on The Hen Report, we talk with poet and activist Gretchen Primack and Sexy Fit Vegan founder Ella Magers about the March to Abolish Animal Testing — a 207-mile trek across upstate New York from Albany to Marshall BioResources, the country’s largest breeder of dogs, cats, ferrets, and pigs for animal experimentation. They dig into the logistics of supporting…

Rising Anxieties digs into the pork lobby’s freshly inflated “$1.07 billion animal rights conspiracy” report , the Gallup poll agribusiness loves to misquote, and a meat-trade columnist practically begging Big Beef to invent lab-grown protein before someone beats them to it. The $1.07 billion “animal rights” funding illusion  Prop 12 fallout and the 2026 Farm Bill — w...

In this Our Hen House interview, Mariann Sullivan sits down with Simone Scampoli, executive director of Capra Libera Tutti animal sanctuary near Rome, Italy, to explore how sanctuaries function as spaces of transformation. Simone shares the sanctuary’s origin story, its evolving relationship with a once-exploited mountain landscape, and the philosophy of consent and animal agency that shapes...

On this episode of The Hen Report, Mariann talks with recent University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate Ryan Blum about his solo, year-in-the-making undercover investigation into the campus’s Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery building, where he captured rare footage of pigs being stunned using CO2 gas chambers. Ryan breaks down how the process works, why it directly contradicts the u...

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...