Dairy and Eggs
Because Calves Apparently Aren't as Cute or Worthy as Seals
Published May 28, 2009 @ 10:16AM PT
As I was walking with my dog friends this morning, just after publishing the morning's post on Governor General Jean, her public gnawing on a seal heart, and her remarks on eating veal calves and lambs, my line of thinking started going in another direction. And it started with this: Well, at least she's consistent in her view of animals. And that's more than I can say for a number of the people who oppose the annual seal hunt.
Michaelle Jean made a food choice and remarks regarding seals that sparked outrage. But for her latest remarks, there will be no widespread outrage. The general public will not care that Jean casually eats the bodies of calves and lambs or that she casually remarked on it--even though the dairy/veal industry is every bit as cruel and unnecessary as Canada's annual seal hunt, even though the number of domesticated, confined animals being killed barbarically far outnumbers the seals being killed, even though dairy/veal calves and other animals (including the mother dairy cows, animals raised primarily for flesh, and egg-laying hens) suffer as much as, or in many cases fare more than, the seals. And again, all this is as unnecessary as the seal hunt. People don't need the flesh and skin of calves and lambs to survive anymore than they need the flesh and skin of seals.
There have undoubtedly been people expressing fury and disgust over Michaelle Jean's actions and statements in the last week while absentmindedly snacking on cheese and flesh and eggs imbued with far more cruelty than even the eating of a seal's heart. Likely few of them will pause when they read her new remarks on calves and lambs or would pause if they saw her putting a piece of bloody calf (or piece of cheese for which that calf was killed) in her mouth. I hope at least some of them will stop and consider the irony.
Cracking the Cruelty During National Egg Month: Pledge to Go Egg-Free!
Published May 24, 2009 @ 12:19PM PT
Following is a guest post from COK executive director Erica Meier. Please note that though this post focuses on what life is like for hens in battery cages (and that's where the majority of egg-laying hens experience their suffering), the pledge is to go egg-free for 30 days--because as anyone who's been reading this blog in the last several months knows, cage-free and free-range are not nearly free of cruelty. So in this final week of the industry's "Egg Month," make your compassionate pledge for the next 30 days and get your action pack from COK; you'll learn it's easy enough to kick the habit for good. -S. Ernst
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As kids, most of us probably sang along to some version of "Old MacDonald's Farm" ("...and on his farm he had some chickens...ee-i-ee-i-o..."). It's a fun song that helps children learn about different animals, but it also makes a long-lasting impression about how farmed animals are raised, so it's no surprise that as adults, we still conjure up images of these animals romping around on idyllic green pastures while happily clucking, mooing, or oinking. Little, however, could be further from the truth-and some of the worst abuses of farmed animals are taking place on today's egg factory farms.
Pregnancy at Slaughter: What Happens to the Calves? Part 2
Published May 21, 2009 @ 12:14PM PT
This is part 2 of a two-parter. If you haven't seen the first part yet, read it here.
Two questions: (1) Do you know where leather, especially "high-quality" leather, comes from? and (2) Do you know what fetal bovine serum or fetal calf serum is and what its connection to dairy, "meat," and leather is? For most, the answer to both--especially to number 2--is no. So here are the answers.
When pregnant cows go to slaughter, in addition to the trauma of still being alive inside their mothers during the latter's death, fetal calves may also be cut from their mother's womb while still alive--so that their hearts can be punctured and their blood drained for use in science, without anesthesia. From the Australian Association for Humane Research:
Pregnancy at Slaughter: What Happens to the Calves? Part 1
Published May 21, 2009 @ 08:14AM PT
What happens when a cow is pregnant at the time of slaughter? I almost wish I didn't know. From the calves experiencing their mother's death from inside her, while they too suffer or die their own terrible death, to live calves being cut from their dead mother's womb, so that their blood can be drained for science while they're still alive--it's all horrific, and none of it is ever talked about, even though it's a part of the dairy and beef industries and a part of how people get their "finest" leather. There's enough to cover here that two posts are required. This is the first.
Animals Are Mothers and Have Mothers Too
Published May 10, 2009 @ 04:30AM PT
It's Mother's Day. The animals people will eat today as they celebrate the women in their life? Those animals had mothers too. Some of those animals were mothers too. Love between mother and young is not unique to humans. The mother-child bond is real and deep and strong in the animals we forcibly separate, abuse, and kill. In particular, today, please think about the cows (and calves) being used and killed for dairy; the pigs being used as birthing machines so that humans can eat their children; the hens being put through hell so that humans can eat their unfertilized eggs and the hens being put through hell as breeders for hatcheries. They are all mothers. And they are being exploited and killed as mothers.
In particular, remember the bellowing and grief of mothers that accompanies not only flesh consumption, but also and especially consumption of dairy--all dairy, conventional, organic, whatever. Remember the frightened, slaughtered babies.
Is any taste worth their suffering? And is there anything more horrible you can do to a mother than tear away her babies, over and over again, while she cries out and looks helplessly on?
Celebrate your mother today, but please do it without contributing to and sanctioning the suffering of so many other mothers. They loved and were loved too. For the love and respect of mothers, go vegan.
Photo above from Farm Sanctuary. Original caption: "A mother cow refuses to leave the side of her dead calf at a California dairy."
A Side of Rotting Baby Carcass with Your Morning Milk?
Published April 28, 2009 @ 06:53AM PT
Reports of dead dairy-byproduct calves being unceremoniously dumped aren't entirely rare. Remember the "Your Dairy Dollars at Work" post from February? It's short. I'll wait here while you go read it.
The story there--of dozens of calves being dumped "to avoid rendering costs or hauling them to auction" because they weren't worth enough money--isn't an anomaly. Examples from just the last few days:
"Dead Animals Dumped Beside Water Supply"
"35 Dead Calves Found"
Calves are an inconvenient factor for the dairy industry, especially when the industry is having a tough financial time. Damn those mother cows for having to give birth to annoying living beings in order to keep pumping milk, am I right?
But hey, that's okay. Dairy "producers" know that most people don't know about, don't want to know about, or just don't give a damn about the countless babies torn away from their bellowing mothers every year and dragged to slaughter when they're still babies or even just newborns. Dairy producers know that most people don't want to be bothered to try out products like soy, rice, almond, and hemp milk, that dairy cheese is apparently a requirement for good life, that the enormous variety of nondairy ice creams available just aren't good enough because plant-based foods aren't as "natural" as products based on the breast milk of another species, intended for that species' young. So like the 250 million baby male chicks suffocated and ground alive for the egg industry each year in the United States alone, dairy cows' calves are trash. Sometimes, farmers can get paid for that trash. And sometimes what they'll be paid for that trash just isn't worth the effort.
When they can make a few bucks off the wobbly, crying, four-legged inconveniences, producers know they can take them to auctions and slaughter without much of anyone caring. And when they're not worth enough money to be troubled with, dairy producers can kill them cheaply and dump them on the side of the road or in a field and know that all people will care about is that the rotting bodies might infect the water supply--that, or people will express outrage for a couple days, and then they'll get over it because, hey, they're just baby cows, right? And they were going to be killed one way or another anyway, right? And we want their our milk. We just wish someone would have taken the calves whose deaths we demanded "to the landfill and disposed of them properly" so that we didn't have to see and smell their rotting carcasses while drinking that morning glass of milk. And someone tell those bellowing, mourning mother cows to shut up too, OK? They're souring the cream in people's coffee.
Top: Alamogordo News
Bottom: tylergreenphoto.com
Eating Goats with Glee, Rescuing Them with Compassion
Published April 14, 2009 @ 06:38AM PT
[Note: Animal lovers who may be dismayed by the first half of the post, stick with me until the end, OK? There's something you'll want to see there.]
In my roundup of recent posts from around the animal rights and vegan blogosphere last week, I left out three intentionally--because they deserved a post of their own: "How I Learned to Dislike Henry Alford" from Animal Person and "The joy of discovering a new species to slaughter and consume" and "letters, letters, letters" from the Reformed Fast Food Mascot. Both bloggers were writing in response to a New York Times article titled "How I Learned to Love Goat Meat."
