Dairy and Eggs
Order 12 Baby Chicks for Easter, Get 2 Dead Babies Free!
Published April 09, 2009 @ 03:28AM PT
Alternate title: "No Eggs for Easter Please"
The primary title isn't a joke. The exclamation-mark excitement is sarcastic, of course. But the offer, though not worded in such terms, is quite real (and truly, it's more of a 1:1 deal if you consider what happens before your order ships out in addition to what you actually see in the box). For a couple months now, I've been sitting on a list of links and a plan to at some point write about the hatcheries whose Web sites provide all the details you could want about ordering live chicks, whether for your large-scale egg farm or for your backyard. And with Easter egg excitement and baby chick mania upon us, this seems like the time to have this discussion.
New Undercover Investigations: Chickens for Eggs and Flesh
Published April 07, 2009 @ 07:33AM PT
In case you missed it--it was reported on other AR blogs and newsletters in the last week--Mercy for Animals recently conducted yet another undercover investigation at an egg "farm," and as always, what investigators found was horrifying. And not long before this investigation broke, Igualdad Animal/Animal Equality released information on its investigation into a chicken slaughterhouse and rescue of three discarded, terribly injured and ill chickens there.
The overwhelming majority of animals killed for food each year are chickens. And they--not only chickens raised primarily for their flesh, but also and especially hens exploited and ultimately killed for egg production--suffer some of the worst cruelties that animal ag has to offer. (I'll admit that this is why I find it so sadly ironic when people tell me that they don't eat "red meat" for ethical reasons but still eat chickens, turkeys, and eggs.)
First, the Mercy for Animals investigation.
The Breaking of Bonds and the "Sad, Sorrowful Bellowing"
Published April 02, 2009 @ 03:11PM PT
Kelly of easyVegan.info wrote a post titled "A cow is so much like a woman" the other day. She wrote much in relation to Jeff Masson's The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (yes, it did occur to me as I wrote that just now that I plugged Jeff Masson's newest book already earlier today--you can go a head and call it Jeff Masson day around here, I suppose), but she also wrote about some personal experiences that struck me. And they are worth sharing.
When we moved to Kansas, we managed to find a house for rent on 80 acres of land; our landlord inherited the place when her father died, rusty farm equipment, horses, cows and all. She lived just down the street, so she and her husband decided to fix the house up, rent it out, and keep the “beef cattle” operation going. When you think of a small, family farm, probably you imagine a farm similar to this place.
The acreage was divided into three large grazing pastures, as well as a smaller “holding pen” which shared a fenceline with our fenced-in backyard. After the calves were birthed, the mothers and their young were separated from the rest of the herd, confined to that smaller pen, supposedly so the males wouldn’t attack the youngsters, I guess. I used to spend hours playing with the dogs in the backyard, watching the mama cows nurse their babies. Many of the cows were accustomed to human interaction, so they’d usually watch me back. (The newborns, of course, were understandably skittish.) Some of the older cows took an interest in the dogs, and would come over and sniff at them as they ran (or, in Ralphie’s case, dug) along the fenceline. To say that they enjoyed playing together wouldn’t be a product of my silly, sentimental wimmin’s imagination.
Other times, when cows were sold (whether to other farmers or slaughter operations, I know not - I was afraid to ask), the unlucky “merchandise” was placed in the pen a day or two beforehand. Many times, the calves were the ones slated to be sold off; it wasn’t uncommon to see a dozen youngish calves sequestered in the pen together, all of them wailing for their mothers. Meanwhile, a dozen females might be gathered along the perimeter of the nearest pasture, bellowing right back at their babies, trying in vain to lure them back into their protective custody. This would go on for hours on end, with few breaks - even during the night. The scene dragged on - slowly, sadly - until the calves were ferried away; usually, you could still hear a few plaintive bellows days or weeks later.
And I was only an observer of the abuse, not a victim. I can only begin to imagine the depths of the grief suffered by the mothers and babies alike. It’s heart-wrenching. To this day, I can still recall - quite vividly, mind you - the sad, sorrowful bellowing.
We live in Missouri, now, and a cattle farmer rents the pasture on one side of our house. I don’t have the pleasure of watching the mothers with their children anymore; this herd is more wary of humans, and rightfully so. But I can tell when he’s separated the mothers from their children - during these days and weeks, the long, low, mournful, melancholy bellows echo up the valley and through the treeline.
If I weren’t already a vegan, these cries of despair surely would persuade me.
I ask that vegetarian readers please remember that this terrible breaking of bonds between mother and child on farms raising cattle for their flesh takes place in the dairy industry as well; indeed, the dairy industry is built on this breaking of bonds, over and over throughout the cow's life: you have to rip the calf away from his or her mother (and most often send that calf to almost immediate slaughter) if you want the mother's milk for yourself. What you've just read is just a much milder version of what cows exploited for dairy and calves killed for veal suffer. And whether we're inflicting this heartbreak and sorrow on animals for their flesh or for their milk, it's all just so wrong.
Photo courtesy of Kelly
BREAKING: BOCA to Eliminate All Eggs by 2010!
Published March 19, 2009 @ 07:53AM PT
This is fantastic news! As I mentioned in yesterday's post, BOCA was due to give a response to the campaign asking it to stop using eggs by tomorrow. And the answer is in: "BOCA brand will be eliminating eggs in all of its products by the end of this year. We anticipate all BOCA products will be egg free in 2010." Did you catch that? Not go "cage-free," not "reduce"--eliminate!
See the campaign Web site for more.
Jeremy and Lenny: Rescued from Death at a Small Local Dairy
Published March 03, 2009 @ 06:13AM PT
Jeremy and Lenny came to the sanctuary when they were just a few days old, rescued from a goat dairy. At the small local dairy, they were considered garbage. That's true of babies at all dairies. It is the way of business.
A woman visiting the dairy, a believer in buying local and from small operations, witnessed the treatment of the babies born in front of her eyes and was horrified. The baby goats had value to her - not as an investment, not as commodities, not as food, but because they were alive, and she believed they should be allowed to live free of harm, free to be themselves. Simply because they were alive, because they were individuals, because they wanted to live, as we all do. This realization opened her eyes in an instant.
-Continue reading after the jump-
Researchers: Even "Organically Raised" Cows Are a "Climate Bomb"
Published February 25, 2009 @ 07:42AM PT
OK, I wish the title of "The Cow Is a Climate Bomb" had been worded differently. Cattle themselves are not at fault here. Animal agriculture and humans are, for forcing into existence so very, very many of them, just so that we can then kill, eat, and wear them. But still, this study and article are saying what most people have been refusing to acknowledge: "Whether cattle are reared organically or with conventional farming methods, the end effect is bad for the environment, according to a new German consumer report."
-Read on after the jump for more on this important, first-of-its kind study-
Your Dairy Dollars at Work
Published February 16, 2009 @ 09:07AM PT
The bodies of dead baby calves, whether they're dumped in fields or hacked to pieces in the slaughterhouse, are the price of your morning cow's milk, your specialty cheeses, your dairy ice cream, and of course, your veal. In today's news:
Some dairymen have become so desperate that they are not even bothering to haul to feedlots the newborns whose births keep milk flowing at higher levels.
Investigators in San Joaquin County are trying to determine who dumped 30 dead bull calves on country roads to avoid rendering costs or hauling them to auction, where they fetch $5 each but cost hundreds and hundreds more to bottle feed special formula. The group Farm Sanctuary is offering a $2,000 reward for the culprit.
"Apparently it was someone trying to save money who just dumped them," said Susie Coston, the group's national shelter director.
And something else that continues to bother me, enormously, about articles such as the one from which the above extract was pulled is that they keep featuring remarks such as this: "Hundreds of thousands of America's dairy cows are being turned into hamburgers because milk prices have dropped so low that farmers can no longer afford to feed the animals." This should read like this: "Hundreds of thousands of America's dairy cows are being turned into hamburgers a little earlier, a little younger, than usual"--all those dairy cows are going to face horrible slaughter and become hamburger at some point regardless of the current economic woes, and it drives me mad that so many keep ignoring (or conveniently forgetting to acknowledge) that. (See "The Slaughterhouse Is Always the Only Exit for Dairy Cows," a related earlier post on this topic.)
Thanks to Tracy for the alert to the article.
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Photo of calves on conveyor belt, killed during slaughter of pregnant dairy cows: Viva! UK
