Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation
Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan
Join hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan for intimate conversations with leading vegan activists, animal rights advocates, and changemakers transforming our world. Each week, Our Hen House brings you inspiring stories from the frontlines of animal liberation, practical activism strategies, and the latest developments in the fight for animal rights. Whether you’re a seasoned activist or newly vegan, discover how to make a difference for animals through engaging interviews and actionable insights.
Episodes
Grassroots Vegan Activism That Works: Inside Vegan Outreach’s Vegan Chef Challenge
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…
The Hen Report: “Do Something Substantive” | Why Anti-Factory Farming Needs Diet Change
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…
Farm Action, Dairy’s Beef Hustle, H-2A Visas, and Dead Wolves | Rising Anxieties
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…
“Marshmallows Are Their Favorite”: Inside a Primate Lab with Undercover Investigator Lindsay Oliver
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 to go undercover in facilities…
The Hen Report: Inside the 207-Mile March to Abolish Animal Testing
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…
Wool, Wealth, and Walking Out: Why the Animal Industry Is Having a Terrible Week | Rising Anxieties
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…
The Trump Administration Is Dismantling the Endangered Species Act
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 protected endangered…
The Hen Report: “The Ultimate Goal” | Vegan Advocacy, Factory Farming & the Future of “The Movement”
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 the…
Assault at the Runway: PETA, Drones, and Other Things the Industry Hates | Rising Anxieties
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…
VeriBark’s Marie Gibbons on Decoding Dog Body Language — And What’s Next for Farmed Animals
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…
The Hen Report: “Give Us That Last Mile” | March to Abolish Animal Testing
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…
Billion-Dollar Bacon Panic: Big Meat’s Paranoid New Enemies List | Rising Anxieties
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 — why California’s cage-free law…
Sanctuaries as “Movement Infrastructure”: Simone Scampoli on Building Multispecies Community at Capra Libera Tutti
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 every visitor interaction —…
The Hen Report: “It’s Horror” | Inside UW-Madison’s Secret Pig Gas Chamber
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 university’s own claims…
Theater as Activism: Dr. Ben Hunt on Performance, Puppetry, and Animal Liberation
In this episode of the Our Hen House Interview, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan sit down with performance researcher and theater maker Dr. Ben Hunt, founder of the Performing Animal Rights podcast and newsletter, to explore how theater, puppetry, drag, and creative practice can break through the psychological resistance that keeps people from engaging with animal rights. From vigils as unintentional…
The Hen Report: “More Than Infrastructure” | Animal Rights Movement, Vegan Sanctuaries & Legal Wins
On this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan dig into a mix of movement news and reflection. They share encouraging data on the growth of plant-based product labeling and break down key legal wins in animal rights cases — including the Wayne Hsiung prosecution and the Meyenberg goat rescue case. The conversation turns to the environmental toll…
This Week in Animal Ag Spin: Prices, Politics, and Propaganda | Rising Anxieties
Turns out when food prices spike, the animal ag industry’s solution is just cheaper spin. This episode digs into the meat lobby’s sudden “affordability” crusade against animal welfare reforms, the bizarre pro-grazing propaganda tour, Trump’s confusing detour into meat processing policy, the BLM’s wild horse slaughter pipeline finally getting some overdue press, and the sneaky psychological reason your uncle still won’t…
Rescuing Baby Goats is a Felony?: Attorney Taj Uppal on Facing Prison for Saving Two Lives
This month’s Animal Law Podcast features attorney Taj Uppal, who was arrested and charged with felony grand theft after rescuing two sick baby goats from Vera Goat Dairy, a California factory farm supplying Meyenberg Goat Milk to retailers like Whole Foods and Walmart. Uppal walks through the investigation that preceded the rescue, his arrest by Kings County Sheriff’s deputies, and the…
The Hen Report: “Total Blind Spot” | Calling Out Anti-Vegan Bias
In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin Singer is joined by Marielle Vigneau-Britt of Totally Forkable to unpack a viral video from The Financial Diet’s Chelsea Fagan, who took aim at vegans while discussing consumerism in France versus the US. Together they dig into why comment sections don’t represent an entire community, how veganism keeps getting conflated with extreme “purity…
Factory Farms Are Fine, Says Industry That Created Factory Farms | Rising Anxieties
The pork lobby thinks conferences make activists scary, the dairy industry wants everyone drinking more milk they didn’t ask for, and chicken gets a chlorine bath nobody has to disclose — welcome to another week of animal agriculture explaining itself to itself. Industry playbook, exposed by industry: A pork trade publication frets that animal rights groups are getting “sophisticated” at litigation…
Uncovering Miranda’s Rescue: Jennifer Raymond on the Humboldt County Dog “Rescue” Scandal
This week on Our Hen House, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan sit down with longtime animal activist Jennifer Raymond — founder of Humboldt Critters Without Litters and author of The Peaceful Palette — to hear the harrowing, firsthand account of how she helped expose Miranda’s Rescue, a Humboldt County, California “rescue” that took in hundreds of shelter dogs each year while…
The Hen Report: “Giant Mainstream Numbers” | Animal Rights Weekly News
This episode covers the Save Our Bacon Act getting shut down (again) in the Farm Bill, the delightfully weird strange-bedfellows saga around the Ridglan Farms beagle rescue, and the growing bipartisan side-eye toward animal testing — plus a Nonhuman Rights Project update and a preview of the next Animal Law Podcast episode. The pork industry tried (again) to torch state animal…
Undercover Videos, Vegan Supermarket Fantasies, and A Water Fight Nobody Asked For | Rising Anxieties
Animal abuse industry PR groups are suddenly very worried about undercover investigations targeting retailers instead of farms, a Brazilian trade show imagined a vegan supermarket with no bread (checks notes: vegan bread abounds), and a Wisconsin dairy program is teaching kids about cows via “virtual escape rooms.” Also: Congress “fixed” school milk access, USDA quietly un-fixed it, and somehow bird flu…
Beyond Factory Farming: Björn Ólafsson on the Psychology of Meat Reduction and Plant-Based Nudges
Animal advocacy researcher Björn Ólafsson (More Than Meats The Eye, Better Food Foundation, Spain’s Animal Welfare Observatory) joins Jasmin and Mariann to unpack new UK survey data on public attitudes toward factory farming, why cognitive dissonance keeps animal lovers eating meat, and the behavioral science tactics — from “tasty titles” to plant-based defaults — that are quietly reshaping what people order.…
The Hen Report: “I Don’t Want To” | Vegan Allies, Factory Farming & Animal Advocacy
This week’s Hen Report dives into what makes an ally “natural” for animal advocacy, questioning whether meat reducers, cruelty-free (but non-vegan) consumers, or regenerative farmers truly share the movement’s goals. Jasmin and Mariann also break down troubling news about organic chicken production, the slow progress of cultivated meat, and the power of language in shifting public perception of animal agriculture. Are…
ShopKind, Temple Grandin’s PR Spin, and the Industry’s Never-Ending Excuses | Rising Anxieties
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 farming still being waged in the Senate and…
Building the Field: Inside the Animal Law Practice Association with Cheryl Leahy
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…
The Hen Report: “Is There Anything Left To Say?” | Octopus Farm Canceled, Brazil Bans Foie Gras & More Animal Rights News
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 administration’s rollback…
No More Goat Snuggles: Animal Ag’s Week of Bad-Faith Excuses | Rising Anxieties
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…
The Korean Vegan on Culture, Compassion, and Cooking: Joanne Molinaro’s Path to Success
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 assumptions about meat to…
The Hen Report: “Animal Activism Matters” | Vegan News, Animal Welfare & Factory Farming Updates
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 administration’s rollback…
Litigation Anxiety, Oregon’s IP 28, and Cattle That Are Bred to Shut Up | Rising Anxieties
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 docile to complain.…
Rocky Road to Redemption: Rowdy Girl’s Renee King-Sonnen on Faith, Sobriety, and Going Vegan
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…
Cow Trip: How a Dairy Calf Rescue Road Trip Became a Viral Documentary
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,…
The Hen Report: “Everything Changes, Yet Nothing Changes” | Horse Carriage Ban, Vegan Food Policy & Animal Testing News
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…
Lawfare, Loopholes, and Landed Gentry: The Ag Industry’s Anxiety Playbook | Rising Anxieties
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, while the actual documented animal cruelty…
Protecting the Porcupine Mountains: Artists Sol Anzorena and Tom Grotewohl on Fighting the Copperwood Mine
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 movement grew…
The Hen Report: “It Doesn’t Seem Fair” | Animal Cruelty Laws, SCOTUS & Constitutional Rights for Animals
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 both function as reassuring…
Chickens Sue Back, Canada Fumbles, and Cows Are Overheating | Rising Anxieties
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, and the…
Wayne Hsiung’s Landmark Animal Rescue Appeal Wins Some, Loses Some: What It Means for the Right to Rescue
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 Reichardt Duck Farm,…
The Hen Report: “Depending on Who You Ask” | NAMs, Animal-Free Science & the Future of Lab Research
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 toxicology —…
Eggs, Ballots, and Manure Pits: Animal Agriculture’s Worst Week (Again) | Rising Anxieties
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 government’s creative reinterpretation…
Can Finance Activism End Factory Farming? AI, Divestment, and Animal Advocacy with Richie Richardson
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 breaks down why divestment…
The Hen Report: “We Won” | Ridglan Closes & the March to Marshall BioResources Begins
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…
Brain Chips, Beef Exports, and the EU’s Vocabulary Crisis | Rising Anxieties
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 or a war crime, possibly both. Also:…
Animals Unbound Is Helping Animals in Crisis Zones Around the World
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…
The Hen Report: “When Is This Gonna Change?” | Animal Rights Wins, Farm Bill & Carriage Horses
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…
Screwworms, Spy Drones, and a Ballot Initiative That Could Break the Meat Industry | Rising Anxieties
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…
The Truth About “Top” Zoos: Dr. Liz Tyson of Born Free USA on Animal Captivity, Happy the Elephant, and Why No Zoo Is Good for Animals
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…
The Hen Report: “Vegan-Colored Glasses” | Beagles, Angela Davis & Plant-Based Athletes
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 commencement. The episode also digs into…