Ridglan Farms

Ridglan Farms, Inc. is a Wisconsin domestic business corporation (ID 1R06498), organized on September 27, 1966 — the same era as the federal Animal Welfare Act's passage. The registered agent is James A. Burns, D.V.M., who is also described in reporting as “president and co-owner” and is consistently listed as the principal contact in Dun & Bradstreet and commercial directory records. Another owner, veterinarian David Williams, was identified in 2025 reporting in connection with a professional complaint to the state veterinary regulator. Some advocacy reporting asserts additional ownership interests (including other veterinarians and an estate), but those specific stakes are not corroborated in the Wisconsin corporate record or regulatory case summaries.

The corporation's status is listed as “DLQ — Delinquent” in Wisconsin's corporate record system as of mid-2025. The principal office is at 10489 W Blue Mounds Rd, Blue Mounds, WI 53517. Historical filings in the state record include a series of Restated Articles of Incorporation and Certificate of Newly-Elected Officers/Directors entries, though officer names are not visible in the public-facing summary. Third-party directory estimates (Dun & Bradstreet, Manta) suggest approximately 15–25 employees and annual revenue in the $1.5M–$2.5M range, though Burns himself claimed $2.5M net annual revenue and 15 employees in a 2015 profile. By 2025, Ridglan's website stated a full-time staff veterinarian/facility manager overseeing 25 employees and a logistics fleet for customer delivery.

The Blue Mounds facility sits on multiple parcels totaling over 65 acres in the Town of Blue Mounds, Dane County. Property tax records show the main parcel (0606-212-9820-0 / 0606-213-8040-5 at 10489 W Blue Mounds Rd) at 32.27 acres with $1.44M total assessed value ($149,700 land, $1,294,700 improvements). Additional Ridglan-owned parcels include 0606-213-8500-8 (32.9 acres) and 0606-201-9690-1 (2.0 acres at 10592 W Blue Mounds Rd). A 2023 town meeting documented a conditional-use proceeding (CUP2023-4) for “Kennel Use” tied to these parcels. Burns joined the business in 1968, two years after incorporation. By the 2010s, where “more than a dozen competitors” had existed in the 1960s, Burns estimated Ridglan held approximately 10% of the national market in research beagles, with the remainder split between Covance/Labcorp and Marshall BioResources. A 2015 Isthmus profile described Ridglan and Covance (at a Madison-area presence) as part of a “largely hidden local economy of research animal breeders.”

Satellite imagery shows three long warehouse-like buildings plus smaller structures. Ridglan's own website described 16 whelping rooms (each with 20 individual kennels), four nurseries housing 200–300 puppies each (ages 2–4 months), and two “grower barns” for dogs 4–18 months. Dogs are ear-tattooed at six weeks for identification.

At peak capacity in 2014, Burns reported 3,733 beagles housed with a breeding colony of approximately 750 females and 70 studs, and 622 dogs “experimented on in some fashion” on-site that year. A DATCP compliance conference attributed to Ridglan a breeding colony of approximately 600 adult females and 60 adult males, producing roughly 70 litters per month. The facility staffing was described as approximately 19 employees on weekdays, with two employees covering weekend mornings for observation, cleaning, and feeding.

A September 25, 2025 USDA routine inspection counted 1,790 adults and 500 puppies under the Class A license, plus 84 adults under the research license. FOX6 reporting found Ridglan sold nearly 7,000 dogs between 2022 and mid-2025, with measurable declines in shipments over time. FOX6 separately reported Ridglan sells more than 3,000 beagle puppies per year based on its reporting and buyer records. Ridglan is called “America's second-largest breeder of beagles for scientific research” by FOX6.

Before the 2017 activist investigation brought national attention, there were already enforcement signals. A Wisconsin DATCP enforcement summary identifies a routine inspection on October 26, 2016 citing an enclosure-flooring problem — “dogs feet falling through gaps in the flooring” — followed by a warning notice and required follow-up. This is a concrete, dated enforcement artifact that predates the DxE spotlight and foreshadows the wire-flooring conditions that would be documented repeatedly in later years.

For context on the local Dane County research-animal economy: Covance's Madison branch had 3,953 dogs in 2013 (USDA annual report), and the University of Wisconsin–Madison purchased the vast majority of its dogs from Class A breeders “such as Ridglan Farms and Covance.” Covance was later absorbed into Labcorp (“previously known as Covance”) and continued purchasing from Ridglan, appearing in later shipment records. The DATCP case summary also documented extensive state-identified violations across multiple inspections in 2022–2024, including repeat violations and a proposed civil forfeiture.

Rise for Animals analyzed USDA records since 2014 and found that Ridglan had 15 visit events across 28 inspection records — and all 28 were prepared by the same USDA representative, Veterinary Medical Officer Scott Welch. Their analysis was published through their ARLO transparency platform, sourced from inspection records.

This is not just an advocacy claim. USDA's own FOIA monthly logs independently confirm Welch as the named inspector on specific Ridglan inspection dates. A March 2025 APHIS FOIA log references a January 22, 2025 inspection by Welch. A May 2025 log records a Welch re-licensing inspection on May 8. An August 2025 log includes a request for all Welch inspection reports for both Ridglan federal credentials (35-A-0009 and 35-R-0004). Several of these FOIA requests were made by Ridglan personnel themselves.

The divergence is stark. In September 2025, Ridglan cited recent USDA inspections finding “no items not in compliance” — days before the VEB suspended Van Domelen's license. At the same facility, during the same period, DATCP had documented 311 violations including repeat violations and proposed civil forfeitures.

Then in January 29, 2026, a different USDA inspection team (including an “additional inspector” identified on the report header) conducted inspections on both licenses. For the Class A license (35-A-0009), they cited medical-records noncompliance — specifically treatment documentation failures. For the Class R registration (35-R-0004), they found IACUC/protocol documentation noncompliance concerning rationale for the number of animals to be used in certain proposals. These were the first federally documented violations during a period when Ridglan was publicly emphasizing clean USDA records — supporting the analytical question about whether inspector assignment materially affects what appears in the federal record.

In April 2017, Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere entered Ridglan Farms and documented conditions on video — spinning dogs, wire flooring injuries, devocalized dogs unable to bark. Three beagles were removed: Julie, Anna, and Lucy. The footage (Exhibits 6–13 in the later special prosecutor petition) was used in a feature article by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in May 2018.

What followed was six years of attempting to get law enforcement to act. Hsiung, Dane4Dogs, and Alliance for Animals contacted the Dane County District Attorney, the Sheriff, Animal Control, and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. None responded meaningfully. An open records request revealed the DA's office had received 983 separate emails about Ridglan without acting on any.

In March 2024, a petition for a special prosecutor was filed under Wisconsin statute § 968.02(3) — a rarely used mechanism allowing a judge to appoint a prosecutor when a DA refuses to act. The statute permits any citizen to petition a court, presenting evidence of a crime; if the judge finds probable cause, they may appoint a special prosecutor independent of the local DA's office. This became the first successful use of § 968.02(3) for animal welfare in Wisconsin.

The citizen petition was filed by Dane4Dogs, Alliance for Animals, and Wayne Hsiung, with legal representation from the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at Denver Sturm College of Law. An evidentiary hearing on October 23, 2024 produced sworn testimony from former employees and expert witnesses. The 2017 DxE video footage — submitted as Exhibits 6 through 13 — was treated as direct evidence of facility conditions. In January 2025, the judge granted the petition, finding probable cause of multiple criminal violations. Special prosecutor Tim Gruenke (La Crosse County DA) was appointed in February 2025.