BLOG: Farmed Animals used for Blood Harvesting: Unseen Suffering at an Alabama Biotech Facility
May 7, 2025
By Sylvia Boucher, Communications and Fund Development Associate
From neglectful care to filthy enclosures, a disturbing pattern of animal welfare violations has emerged from within the walls of Southern Biotech, a private biotechnology company that has claims to supply the “world’s highest quality antibodies” for medical research.
This Alabama-based biotech company is known for supplying antibodies—proteins normally produced by the immune system—that are used in scientific research and innovation. However, recent federal inspection compliance reports reveal a troubling picture of what is happening behind the scenes to the animals used in this research.
A Company Built on Animals
Founded in 1982, Southern Biotech is a small but influential biotechnology company that manufactures antibodies for use in medical and academic research. Its clients include universities, diagnostics labs, and pharmaceutical companies. The company’s products and services rely directly on the use of a broad range of live animals as displayed in its brochure of veterinary antibodies.
Animals used for antibody production are treated as nothing more than machines. Typically, these animals are injected with antigens—a foreign substance that triggers the animal’s body to produce an immune response. The animal is then left for its body to respond to the introduction of the antigen. Animals are regularly subject to “test bleeds” in which their blood is drawn to measure antibody production. Eventually, the animal’s blood is harvested for the antibodies that its body has produced.
For example, Southern Biotech specializes in Custom Polyclonal Antibody Production Service where it immunizes animals including rabbits, goats, swine, sheep, chicken, donkey, and mice, then harvests their blood for the immune response proteins and purifies the resulting antibodies.
Southern Biotech outlined its standard 90-day antibody production protocol for rabbits, goats, sheep, and donkeys. It details an invasive and exploitative process that instrumentalizes and commodifies the bodies of animals to parallel “living factories” for antibody production. The protocol offers the “exclusive use of animals, housing, maintenance, pre-immune bleed, and six injections”. Animals are being used as biological tools and subjected to distressful blood draws and injections solely for the benefit of human commercialization of their bodies. Over 90 days, the animals undergo bleeds three times to harvest antibodies from their bodies. Southern Biotech states the project is terminated ten days after the last scheduled shipment with extension available at a per diem rate per animal and recommends multiples animals are used to maximize a robust immune response.
To this company, the animals under its “care” are disposable commodities whose only value is profitability from the proteins in their blood. These practices are unnecessary, particularly as there are alternative viable non-animal methods that exist that do not require the exploitation of animals. Recombinant DNA technology, phage display, and in vitro techniques replace the use of live animals entirely. They are reproducible, scalable, more cost effective in the long term, and most importantly eliminate pain and suffering of animals.
Southern Biotech’s activities are conducted in-house in its ISO 9001:2015 certified facilities, a quality management certification, however the standard itself doesn’t directly address animal welfare and Southern Biotech gives no information how it implements or ensures animal welfare programs in the company’s operations. Based on USDA records, in 2023, Southern Biotech used over three hundred animals in experiments, including 51 rabbits, 3 sheep, 3 pigs, 2 llamas, 21 donkeys, 133 goats, and 156 other animals.
Still from video taken on February 7, 2024 by APHIS inspector of sheep #2336 that had bilateral forelimb stiffness and overgrown front hooves.
While it uses several species of animals in experimentation, many of the animals whose blood is harvested and who are subjected to animal welfare violations are those animals typically farmed for food and fiber. This is yet another—and lesser known—illustration of the many ways in which these species suffer at the hands of humans. Farmed animals are often used in this type of experimentation because their larger bodies produce greater volumes of antibodies.
Even worse, as a non-governmental entity, Southern Biotech is not subject to open records laws in Alabama or federally. However, Animal Partisan and other groups like Rise for Animals have obtained inspection reports from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the USDA, as well as photographs or video recordings that reveal unsettling accounts of how animals are treated at Southern Biotech.
A Pattern of Inadequate Veterinary Care
According to USDA Inspection Reports, Southern Biotech has repeatedly violated the federal Animal Welfare Act, a law that is intended to provide protection for some animals used in experimentation. Inspections from July and October 2023 and February 2024 detail an alarming pattern of mistreatment: unwell animals left untreated, enclosures caked in excreta, and unreported injuries that ultimately led to the death of a female goat. One of the most consistent and egregious issues reported is Southern Biotech’s failure to provide timely and appropriate veterinary care to animals in its care:
Two goats experienced swelling and developed painful nodules under their skin which were attributed to research related injections. Neither received treatment. Inspection Report 07/25/23
Four young male goats were castrated without any anesthesia, a painful procedure made worse by their age in June 2023. Inspection Report 07/25/23
A female goat with a broken horn, a painful injury which should have received immediate medical attention, was untreated and later died without care on July 11, 2023. Inspection Report 07/25/23
Several rabbits with hair loss received completely inadequate veterinary care. Some were never evaluated or treated by a veterinarian while others were prescribed monthly medication that was never administered due to unavailability. Inspection Reports 07/25/23 and 10/03/23
A goat and a sheep suffered from severely overgrown hooves and “snowshoe” appearance from neglected trimmings. This failure to provide proper care caused forelimb stiffness and an abnormal gait in both animals. Hoof trimming should be done on a quarterly basis per Southern Biotech’s program of veterinary care. According to records, the goat didn’t have her hooves trimmed for over a year and the sheep’s last hoof trim was 6 months prior. Videos obtained by Animal Partisan from the USDA display the female goat walking with bilateral forelimb stiffness due to overgrown hooves and the female sheep experiencing the same ailments. Inspection Report 02/07/24
These failures violate both federal law and fundamental standards of humane care. “The facility shall ensure the availability of adequate veterinary care to include the use of appropriate methods to prevent, control, diagnose and treat diseases and injuries”. Inspection Report 10/03/23
Filthy Facilities and Dangerous Conditions
The state of Southern Biotech’s facilities as depicted in USDA reports further reflects a lack of concern for animal welfare:
Barns and workspaces were coated in dust, hair, feces, and rust. According to the USDA 02/07/24 inspection report, “in the upper barn, the concrete floor has accumulations of excreta and food waste in corners/post and fencing abutments and on some flat surfaces that have not been removed in a while as evidenced by fungal growth on the accumulations”.
Several pens, enclosures, and shelters needed repairs and were not structurally sound with loose wood and metal exposing animals to potential injury and cause difficulty cleaning these areas that pose potential contamination and disease hazards. Inspection Reports 07/25/23, 10/03/23, 02/07/24
A wild raccoon was regularly entering the barn and office to eat cat food posing a serious disease transmission risk to rabbits and other animals. “The inspector was told that the construction of the barn does not allow the facility to keep the raccoon out of the rabbit room. Raccoons can carry several diseases that can be spread to other animals and they can cause stress in the rabbits. The facility shall ensure that housing facilities for rabbits be structurally sound and maintained in good repair to restrict the entrance of other animals”. Inspection Report 07/25/23
Some water containers were extremely unsanitary and described as “dark and murky in color and opaque. The bottom cannot be visualized. There is green material growing in the water and on the sides of the receptacles”. Inspection Report 07/25/23
Indoor portions of goat enclosures were covered in a “thick layer of dried fecal material, dirt, debris, and shed hair”. Excess excreta risks contamination, disease, and attracting pests. “Evidence of pests present include many huge cobwebs and rat feces”. Inspection Report 07/25/23
Sanitation in rabbit enclosures was only done twice a year by flame sterilization. The USDA states primary enclosures for rabbits shall be sanitized at least once every 30 days by washing with a detergent solution followed by use of live steam/flame. Inspection Report 07/25/23
These environmental hazards not only violate federal standards, but they also compound the stress and suffering of the animals subject to these conditions.
A Legal and Ethical Crossroads
As described above, Southern Biotech has repeatedly violated the federal Animal Welfare Act. Violations such as these come at a pivotal moment for animal experimentation in the United States. In April 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator committed to reinstate a ban on animal testing that calls for a 30% reduction in mammal testing by 2025 and complete phaseout by 2035 as well as retirement plans to be put in place for some test animals such as rabbits. This plan aims to reduce taxpayer funding towards animal testing while promoting New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). Similarly, the FDA announced a plan to phase out animal testing requirements for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs and replace animal testing with more effective, human-relevant methods using NAMs such as AI modeling and human cell-based assays. This proposal includes several benefits for humans and animals alike. Monoclonal Antibodies are one of Southern Biotech’s primary products and could prompt them and other biotechnology companies to align with developing federal policy objectives to adopt non-animal alternatives in experiments. Embracing these emerging approaches could reduce animal suffering while improving the efficiency and ethics of biomedical experimentation.
In Alabama where Southern Biotech is located, momentum is also building for some animal welfare protections under state law. Lawmakers are taking steps to strengthen protections for companion animals, particularly dogs. Proposed legislation HB 249 would classify the abandonment of dogs and cats as a criminal offense, and HB 149, aims to ban inhumane tethering practices and establish clear shelter requirements. While these proposed bills signal progress for pets, they underscore a recurring and unfortunate outcome for research and especially farmed animals to remain largely unprotected from normalized patterns of animal exploitation.
As the state of Alabama begins to acknowledge suffering of companion animals and the federal government introduces more plans to reduce mammal testing, it’s critical that we extend these considerations to all species subjected to harm, including those used for profit in science and agriculture industries.
Why It Matters
Southern Biotech’s USDA-reported repeated violations have resulted in preventable animal suffering and death. Its failure to maintain humane conditions, follow basic veterinary care, and meet regulatory standards raises urgent concerns namely for the animals in their care, but also for the integrity of scientific research compliance.
As non-animal testing and NAMs become more feasible and public sentiment continues to shift against cruelty in research and agriculture, Southern Biotech must be held accountable and driven to evolve beyond an accomplice to animal suffering and exploitation.
The industry of biomedical research doesn’t need to be built on suffering. Demanding transparency, oversight, and a commitment to genuine animal welfare can help Southern Biotech and other companies ensure better conditions for in-house animals and eventually adopt alternative sourcing methods of secondary antibodies, primary antibodies, and additional immunoreagents for research purposes.
Animal Partisan is exploring legal action against Southern Biotech.
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