In the next several months, Scotty’s horns were even larger and more spiked, but, just because he was growing into a big boy didn’t mean he was as strong in spirit. Besides Edgar’s dad talking to him, he just seemed lonely—standing alone in the middle of the pasture, the two sheep each other’s company across the field. Scotty’s loneliness precipitated another present for Gay for her birthday in May.
On her birthday of May 23, 1986, Edgar again prodded Gay to take a walk down to the old farmstead. She knew something was up—another animal of some kind, most likely. She mentally prepared herself: Could it be a kind of fowl this time? Perhaps a goose or a few ducks or maybe a swan or peacock, which Gay had hinted she’d like having?
But no feathers did this present wear.
When he opened the door to the same stall wherein he had first introduced his wife to Scotty, she gasped. It wasn’t fowl, that’s for sure. It was small, just like Scotty had been, but it was not another Scotty. It was something far more exotic with black, tightly curled hair. And behind its low-carried head, a small lump protruded on its back.
“Okay,” Gay said, staring at the creature before her, “I give up. What is it?”
“She’s a buffalo,” Edgar said, smiling as grandly as when he had shown Gay Scotty. “How do you like her?”
“A buffalo? What do we need a buffalo for? Mowing grass again?”
“As a friend for Scotty.”
“What if he doesn’t want a buffalo for a friend?”
“I think they’ll get along fine. They just have to get used to each other, you’ll see.”
“Thanks for the birthday present. Sandals would’ve been more practical.”
Buffy, too, had come from the Game Preserve where she had been part of a herd of twenty-some buffaloes. Edgar discouraged our trying to tame her—buffaloes were instinctively wild and fairly untamable. After acclimating the buffalo to the back stall for a week, Edgar decided to let her out with Scotty. The sheep were already way out in the pasture, and Scotty was in the barnyard sniffing at the last dribbles of hay. His horns were still just five-inch stubs, but he had taken over as king of the pasture. The sheep were peasants in his kingdom.
Edgar opened Buffy’s gate, and the small buffalo roared out of the stall, head down like a battering ram, and skipped down the ramp and into the barnyard where Scotty, eyes wide, took one look at her, spun around, and barrel-assed right through the barnyard gate. He ran as fast as he could to the safety of the sheep. Buffy hadn’t meant to chase him; she had only wanted to run and be free. When Buffy stopped in the barnyard to take in her surroundings, she just stood there, pawing the ground and sniffing it, evaluating her environment and the animals she would share the fields with.
Though Scotty’s initial reaction to the alien caused the destruction of the barnyard fence, once he found that Buffy was no threat, they quickly became friends. And, then, once friends, they became inseparable buddies, walking the pasture together, coming into the barn in the evening together, basking in the sunshine together. They had grown so close that they were virtually inseparable, like a couple of closely-planted sweet potatoes grown into one another.
Though buffalo may look lethargic, tankish, with hardly energy to move let alone jump a fence, they are hardly sedentary or clumsy. As Buffy got older, looking every day much more like a TV buffalo, with that big, blocky head, the small muzzle and large expanse between the black eyes, and as her hump grew larger and her rump smaller and more compact, she became more athletic as well. Now, with a Scotch Highland steer, two sheep, and a buffalo munching all day on the pasture, the grass was becoming thinner and scarcer. Suddenly the grass on the other side of the fence was looking much tastier.
Seeing the lush grass on the other side of the fence got Buffy devising her escape to greener meadows. One day, in an effortless manner, she leaped the fence. She flew through the air and over the barrier with the agility of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Seeing her hopping the fence, Scotty was, at once, both impressed and agitated; his buddy had left him. Scotty was so afraid of being left behind he backed up, put his huge head to the ground, and charged the fence where, beyond it, Buffy was gorging on the high grass. He bashed into the wooden fence, and it gave way under the bull-dozing weight of the Scotch Highland steer. Once through the fence, he and Buffy stood for hours grazing in never-before-grazed-on grass—until Edgar’s dad went for his daily walk. When he saw the fence down and the animals on the other side, he ran after them, trying to get them back into their pasture.
Knowing that far tastier grass lay just feet from their own scruffy pastures, Scotty and Buffy didn’t want any part of going back. They much preferred munching the virginal grass. Panic-stricken, Edgar’s dad ran back to the house to call his son for help, but Gay was the only one home.
“Buffy and Scotty are out of the pasture!” he yelled into the receiver.
“I’ll be right down,” Gay said. Only a week before, Gay had had liposuction done on her hips grown so large over the years she looked like a pack llama carrying two overstuffed sacks. Now, trim and slim, no longer wider than she was tall, she was recuperating at home while the bruising and pain dissipated, and her doctors had ordered her to wear a nasty-looking surgical garment. Though the doctors also ordered her to take it easy for at least two weeks, rest she would not have—not with a buffalo and a Scotch Highland on the loose.
Gay had been dutifully wearing the long-legged white surgical girdle she was to wear non-stop for at least two months, and she wasn’t about to screw up the surgery by taking it off in favor of cooler-looking duds. So, overtop the girdle, she slipped on a baggy pair of pink shorts that happened to be handy, threw on some sneakers, and bolted out the door. She ran down the driveway to the country road bordering their property, the dividing line between her in-laws’ farm and their place. She stopped dead as she saw the road backed up with traffic—a road upon which only a few cars passed every few minutes. Everywhere cars were stopped dead in each direction.
Then, feeling very much exposed and vulnerable in her white knee-reaching surgical garment with baggy shorts over top them, she ventured out into the middle of the road. Down Cherryville Road and across from the old farmstead’s house, Gay saw Buffy was standing in the middle of the road halting traffic like an employee from a PennDot road crew. The only thing she lacked was the flag, but, being a buffalo, she didn’t exactly need to get anyone’s attention. Every car was stopped dead. Buffy’s faithful partner, Scotty, stood a few yards away munching plants in the Balliets’ vegetable garden.
Forgetting all about her strange, semi-hospital-looking apparel and the fact that her doctor would’ve had a hernia knowing she was running back and forth, up and down Cherryville Road after a buffalo, Gay raced down the middle of the road toward the wild beast. While Edgar’s father held open the pasture gate for them, Gay flew at the buffalo, hooting and hollering, her arms flailing, trying to scare Buffy back into her pasture.
What the people in the cars were thinking was anyone’s guess. One thing they all did realize, however, was that there was a wild buffalo in the middle of a road with a woman dressed in a very silly outfit, yelling and gesticulating in its face. They weren’t getting out to help for no amount of money.
And what Gay was thinking as she ran after Buffy, who, then, skipped out of the road to join Scotty in Edgar’s parents’ vegetable garden, was, “Why aren’t any of these people in all these friggin’ cars helping me herd the buffalo and the steer back into their pasture? What’s the matter with everybody?” For at least fifteen minutes Gay first ran after Buffy, and Buffy, prancing lightly into the air, leaped away and galloped on tippy-toes up through the garden, mangling tomato plants and zucchini plants as she went. With Scotty right on her heels, he plunged, not nearly as light on his feet as she, clomping at a gallop, over the garden. Then, spying a particularly lush patch of grass, they both stopped to eat.
Gay was frantic, running another quarter mile to get to the patch of grass at which the two stopped. Meanwhile the cars and trucks, many of which she had noticed as she raced past them, sat stock-still. And most of the pick-ups had men in them—MEN! Why in the world wasn’t anyone helping her round up the animals? Were they afraid? She couldn’t believe no one would help, but she didn’t have much time to ponder the questions.
In an effort to keep weight gain, a hereditary trait born to most all of Pennsylvania Dutchmen and women, to a minimum, Gay had long ago taken up running. Daily she put on her sneakers and headed out along the woods where Edgar kept a mowed path for her to run and ride the horses. At last her stamina came in handy in a practical sense: for chasing down escaped animals. The main trouble was, with very little effort the two animals could bound away as soon as she ran up to them, and while their steps were three times hers, they covered more distance with less effort. Herding them on foot seemed futile: why would they ever go back into their comparatively barren pasture when all this wonderful grass was outside their pasture. The task was daunting.
By some stroke of luck, however, Gay charged up to Buffy, arms out and spitting syllables Buffy found distasteful, “Git awt! Sh—sh—sh—shh! Sh—sh—sh-shht! Sh-sh-sh-sht! Go on! Get back!” Buffy obviously didn’t liked being “shushed,” and she, with Scotty lumbering behind, finally trotted indifferently into the pasture with Edgar’s father closing the gate behind them.
When the auto audience saw the animals finally locked into their pasture, Gay got a horn-blowing ovation from the cars backed up on Cherryville Road. Drivers tooted their horns, and Gay heard a couple others cheer. Exhausted, Gay raised an arm to acknowledge their support then disappeared, acutely aware of her silly garb, behind the farmhouse until the traffic had disappeared. She locked the animals out of the pasture with the torn fencing, and that evening Edgar fixed it.
Buffy continued to leap the fence a few times a month, and each time Scotty barreled down the fence so that he could be with her. But the neighbors and travelers in this area, ones that used the road regularly, soon got used to driving slowly on that stretch of Cherryville Road where on any day Buffy could be standing in the road or out in the middle of an unfenced alfalfa field. The Balliets received many nonchalant calls from people on their way to work, “Your buffalo and steer are standing by the side of the road again. They must’ve escaped.” And then Gay and Edgar would go down to the farm and herd them back into the pasture.
Part Five coming tomorrow.
Showing posts with label humane treatment of farm animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humane treatment of farm animals. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Part Three--Lost But Not Forgotten
This author hopes this memorial may awaken readers to the horrific practices of animal farming and factory farming and that, together, people will demand their government pass laws to safeguard these animals who have only suffering to bear on their way to the slaughter. Each one of us must bear the shame the farmer refuses to bear, for we are of the same species, and we are the consumers that demand the farmers to raise these animals. But we can unite together by passing humane laws prohibiting farmers from treating these animals abominably.
I encourage each reader to demand our government enforce laws protecting these animals when they are born, give birth, are raised, and transported to the butcher. The least any consumer of meat can do is assure that a doomed animal is treated with respect and kindness before it is killed. Not only does the meat-eater owe this to the farm animal, but he owes it to himself as well, for if he cannot respect and protect an innocent animal, then he cannot respect himself or another human being. At the very least he should help the farm animals so that he can save himself and humanity.
The author has included here, in memory of the billions of farm animals who give their lives for the human dinner plate, one animal, the author’s own, who escaped a horrible existence and an early death.
One Who Lived to be Buried and Remembered
Species: bovine—Scotch Highland steer
Name: Scotty
Born: 1985
Died: 2005
Human companion: Edgar Balliet, III, VMD
One Christmas morning in 1985 after they had opened a few presents beneath the tree, Edgar asked his wife to go along down to his parents’ farm to feed the two sheep. The day was crisp, a thin layer of snow lay on the ground—a beautiful morning for a walk. When Gay and Edgar stopped at the barn, and Edgar began throwing hay and feeding grain to the animals, a strange sound erupted from one of the barn’s back stalls.
Gay looked questioningly at her husband, and then a huge smile erupted on his face. “Here--I have another Christmas present waiting for you.”
“Oh, boy! Let me see. What is it?” Gay said, bouncing like an excited kid.
Then he motioned to the far stall, opened the heavy door, and introduced the animal. “Gay, meet Scotty.”
Gay looked, tip-toeing to the open door, and she saw a younger version of something she didn’t recognize. The animal stood as tall as and as long as a golf cart. His head looked cow-like, but what was puzzling was his coat. The baby animal had bright, long red hair.
“What is it?” Gay said. “He looks like Sasquatch.” The calf looked at Gay and bellowed. He sounded like a baby steer.
“It’s a Scotch Highland bull calf,” he said, smiling widely. “He’s your Christmas present.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Just what I’ve always wanted. Wouldn’t a pair of snow boots have been more practical?”
“Well,” he snickered, “I really did get him because he was going to be auctioned off by the Game Preserve and probably bought for meat. Since he was born at the Game Preserve, and I’ve been his vet since he came into the world, I didn’t want to see him butchered. And, anyway, I really needed another animal at the old farm here to help keep the grass down. Two sheep don’t do the job. Hey, you remember the Scotch Highlands over at the Game Preserve—the two red, long-haired cattle? Well, those were Rosie and Brutus, Scotty’s parents. He was to be auctioned off in September, and I told Tony I wanted him. I bought him for fifty bucks, and he’s been at the preserve waiting for Christmas Day.”
Gay looked at the calf dripping with long, red dreadlocks, and said, “Hey, that was a steal. Can I feed him something?”
“Well, he’s pretty wild—not too used to people yet—been out on the range for some time and isn’t really used to being hand-fed. We can try to tame him while he’s penned up in this small stall for a couple of weeks.”
So, all bundled up in his puffy winter jacket, Edgar sidled over to the young steer with a grain scoop full of oats. He crouched down to make himself look little and unintimidating, and the calf snorted, his hot breath steaming when it hit the frigid air. Then, in a few minutes, with the smell of the oats lingering, the Scotch Highland bull calf took a couple steps closer. Minutes later he was eating from the scoop.
Though he wasn’t ready then to accept another person into his stall, he tamed up well enough in the next two weeks so that Gay could go inside and hand-feed him, too. At that time, her first reaction, as he licked the oats from the scoop, was, “Geez, he stinks. Smells sort o’ sour.”
“Yeah, cows and steers always smell that way. It’s their rumen and ‘cause they chew their cud,” Edgar said.
“Other than his bad breath, he’s kind of cute. What are we going to do with him?”
“Nothing. Let him live his life here as a pet. He’s my lawn mower for the pastures here at the farm.”
Just the year before Edgar had purchased the old Balliet farm from his parents. While his parents then became renters in the house they sold to their son, the farm was his to maintain, and that was just fine by them. Edgar and Gay had built their house across the street in a patch of woods. They also built a barn and seven horses, so having two properties to keep up was quite a task. Scotty’s helping with keeping the grass down in the pastures at the old farmstead would help with the chores.
For the first three weeks Scotty wore a calf halter so that if he escaped from the pasture, he’d be easier to catch and lead back to the barn. But it wasn’t long before his big hairy head out-grew it. By that time Edgar was fairly certain Scotty wasn’t going to try to escape the pasture, so he took off the halter.
Over the next several weeks Scotty tamed up pretty nicely. Edgar’s father visited him on nice days when Scotty was on pasture, and knowing that people always had snacks for him, Scotty trotted up to them and put out his big tongue, which, like an elephant’s trunk, wrapped itself around the tasty morsel. And from the first that tongue served as his own built-in dishrag. He used it to clean his mouth after eating, and he used the tip of it to clean the boogies from his nose. “Oh, that’s really too gross,” Gay would say as the tip of Scotty’s tongue disappeared into his nose.
“Well, he can’t very well use a Kleenex, can he?” Edgar said in defense of the little guy.
Scotty loved any snacks: lettuce leaves, carrots, apples, and even dog biscuits. And, in just a few months’ time, he was perfectly tame and friendly.
At four months old his horn buds were just starting to peep from his head. Scotch Highland cattle are known for their long horns that stretch, between the points, to four feet. At six months of age, Edgar thought it best to castrate the bull calf. So, he retrieved Scotty’s baby halter and stuffed Scotty’s head into it. It was way too small, and his red hair stuck straight out from the tightness of the out-grown halter, but Edgar popped him a little sleepy juice in order to castrate him. Though Scotty was cute and personable, keeping him as a bull might turn him into a real butthead. A few minutes later, using the Berdizo cattle castrator, Scotty was castrated.
With his manhood removed, Scotty became a more sociable animal within a few months’ time, and he definitely preferred the company of people over the two sheep in his pasture. Edgar’s dad fed him biscuits on his daily walks around the farm, and Scotty always followed behind like a pup, walking right up to him, nudging him a little from behind until Edgar, Jr. turned around, gave him a knuckle-rub to his forehead and stuffed another biscuit in his mouth.
I encourage each reader to demand our government enforce laws protecting these animals when they are born, give birth, are raised, and transported to the butcher. The least any consumer of meat can do is assure that a doomed animal is treated with respect and kindness before it is killed. Not only does the meat-eater owe this to the farm animal, but he owes it to himself as well, for if he cannot respect and protect an innocent animal, then he cannot respect himself or another human being. At the very least he should help the farm animals so that he can save himself and humanity.
The author has included here, in memory of the billions of farm animals who give their lives for the human dinner plate, one animal, the author’s own, who escaped a horrible existence and an early death.
One Who Lived to be Buried and Remembered
Species: bovine—Scotch Highland steer
Name: Scotty
Born: 1985
Died: 2005
Human companion: Edgar Balliet, III, VMD
One Christmas morning in 1985 after they had opened a few presents beneath the tree, Edgar asked his wife to go along down to his parents’ farm to feed the two sheep. The day was crisp, a thin layer of snow lay on the ground—a beautiful morning for a walk. When Gay and Edgar stopped at the barn, and Edgar began throwing hay and feeding grain to the animals, a strange sound erupted from one of the barn’s back stalls.
Gay looked questioningly at her husband, and then a huge smile erupted on his face. “Here--I have another Christmas present waiting for you.”
“Oh, boy! Let me see. What is it?” Gay said, bouncing like an excited kid.
Then he motioned to the far stall, opened the heavy door, and introduced the animal. “Gay, meet Scotty.”
Gay looked, tip-toeing to the open door, and she saw a younger version of something she didn’t recognize. The animal stood as tall as and as long as a golf cart. His head looked cow-like, but what was puzzling was his coat. The baby animal had bright, long red hair.
“What is it?” Gay said. “He looks like Sasquatch.” The calf looked at Gay and bellowed. He sounded like a baby steer.
“It’s a Scotch Highland bull calf,” he said, smiling widely. “He’s your Christmas present.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Just what I’ve always wanted. Wouldn’t a pair of snow boots have been more practical?”
“Well,” he snickered, “I really did get him because he was going to be auctioned off by the Game Preserve and probably bought for meat. Since he was born at the Game Preserve, and I’ve been his vet since he came into the world, I didn’t want to see him butchered. And, anyway, I really needed another animal at the old farm here to help keep the grass down. Two sheep don’t do the job. Hey, you remember the Scotch Highlands over at the Game Preserve—the two red, long-haired cattle? Well, those were Rosie and Brutus, Scotty’s parents. He was to be auctioned off in September, and I told Tony I wanted him. I bought him for fifty bucks, and he’s been at the preserve waiting for Christmas Day.”
Gay looked at the calf dripping with long, red dreadlocks, and said, “Hey, that was a steal. Can I feed him something?”
“Well, he’s pretty wild—not too used to people yet—been out on the range for some time and isn’t really used to being hand-fed. We can try to tame him while he’s penned up in this small stall for a couple of weeks.”
So, all bundled up in his puffy winter jacket, Edgar sidled over to the young steer with a grain scoop full of oats. He crouched down to make himself look little and unintimidating, and the calf snorted, his hot breath steaming when it hit the frigid air. Then, in a few minutes, with the smell of the oats lingering, the Scotch Highland bull calf took a couple steps closer. Minutes later he was eating from the scoop.
Though he wasn’t ready then to accept another person into his stall, he tamed up well enough in the next two weeks so that Gay could go inside and hand-feed him, too. At that time, her first reaction, as he licked the oats from the scoop, was, “Geez, he stinks. Smells sort o’ sour.”
“Yeah, cows and steers always smell that way. It’s their rumen and ‘cause they chew their cud,” Edgar said.
“Other than his bad breath, he’s kind of cute. What are we going to do with him?”
“Nothing. Let him live his life here as a pet. He’s my lawn mower for the pastures here at the farm.”
Just the year before Edgar had purchased the old Balliet farm from his parents. While his parents then became renters in the house they sold to their son, the farm was his to maintain, and that was just fine by them. Edgar and Gay had built their house across the street in a patch of woods. They also built a barn and seven horses, so having two properties to keep up was quite a task. Scotty’s helping with keeping the grass down in the pastures at the old farmstead would help with the chores.
For the first three weeks Scotty wore a calf halter so that if he escaped from the pasture, he’d be easier to catch and lead back to the barn. But it wasn’t long before his big hairy head out-grew it. By that time Edgar was fairly certain Scotty wasn’t going to try to escape the pasture, so he took off the halter.
Over the next several weeks Scotty tamed up pretty nicely. Edgar’s father visited him on nice days when Scotty was on pasture, and knowing that people always had snacks for him, Scotty trotted up to them and put out his big tongue, which, like an elephant’s trunk, wrapped itself around the tasty morsel. And from the first that tongue served as his own built-in dishrag. He used it to clean his mouth after eating, and he used the tip of it to clean the boogies from his nose. “Oh, that’s really too gross,” Gay would say as the tip of Scotty’s tongue disappeared into his nose.
“Well, he can’t very well use a Kleenex, can he?” Edgar said in defense of the little guy.
Scotty loved any snacks: lettuce leaves, carrots, apples, and even dog biscuits. And, in just a few months’ time, he was perfectly tame and friendly.
At four months old his horn buds were just starting to peep from his head. Scotch Highland cattle are known for their long horns that stretch, between the points, to four feet. At six months of age, Edgar thought it best to castrate the bull calf. So, he retrieved Scotty’s baby halter and stuffed Scotty’s head into it. It was way too small, and his red hair stuck straight out from the tightness of the out-grown halter, but Edgar popped him a little sleepy juice in order to castrate him. Though Scotty was cute and personable, keeping him as a bull might turn him into a real butthead. A few minutes later, using the Berdizo cattle castrator, Scotty was castrated.
With his manhood removed, Scotty became a more sociable animal within a few months’ time, and he definitely preferred the company of people over the two sheep in his pasture. Edgar’s dad fed him biscuits on his daily walks around the farm, and Scotty always followed behind like a pup, walking right up to him, nudging him a little from behind until Edgar, Jr. turned around, gave him a knuckle-rub to his forehead and stuffed another biscuit in his mouth.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Part II--Lost But Not Forgotten
Statistics show that 50 million cattle and calves are slaughtered in the U.S. for food each year. Each American consumes approximately 80 pounds of beef and veal. Cattle have just as mind-numbing and suffocating lives as those of dairy cows. Many of the male calves, stolen from their mothers and placed in veal crates, are never allowed to nurse from their mothers. Veal calves are forbidden to touch the ground with their feet or lick minerals from the ground because the veal farmers fear the absorption of iron may taint the ultimate product: white meat, whose cosmetic appeal comes from an animal kept anemic.
Humans would certainly not enjoy a life lived in an anemic state, and neither do veal calves, forced to live their short lives with iron-poor blood. Such calves feel weak and too tired to do little more than lie, wasted, in their compartments. Calves allowed to develop as nature intended would have energy to romp and play with pasture mates, not wither away in a tiny box The only escape veal calves find from their prison-cell is when the tops of their backs hit the ceilings. Only then are they released to the slaughter.
So, too, the piglet, born on a concrete floor to a mother deprived of straw for making a nest and unable to stand up or turn around in the farrowing crate, is viewed by the farmer as an entity to be processed, not appreciated for any inner spirit or personality. The moment he is born he begins his journey at the tender age of three weeks when he is put into a iron-barred nursery. At six months of age he is moved to a growing, then a finishing pen, and then, shortly thereafter, it’s on to the slaughterhouse. In that six-month lifespan, the pig is reduced to an aberration of what nature intended him to be. His teeth are cut out; his tail removed, and he is fattened under artificial lights in a building rife with disease. Sick with salmonella, gastric disturbances, and arthritis, all causes of overcrowding, the market pig never sees the light of day.
The pig, morphed into a monstrous version of his original self, cannot recognize any part of himself that resembles a pig: a curious, talkative, playful, ingenious, and clean animal. He is unable to muster any visage of himself as an honest, intelligent, protective, independent and happy spirit. All he has available to know himself is that which is reflected back to him in the other pigs sharing his tiny prison-pen. He sees himself in them: physical wrecks, so heavily muscled they can hardly move, with no tails, few teeth, and eyesight dimmed from lack of sun and stimulation. Sadly, he sees himself in them: lethargic, bored, dazed by their world’s lack of stimulation, neurotic, and consumed by dread--from a life so unnatural, so hard, so cold, and so unkind.
Raised as though he had a dollar sign tattooed on his back, a market hog never asks his farmer for a kind rub on the cheek, a scratch to the belly, for a pig, who possesses an uncanny degree of intelligence (pigs are as smart as a three-year-old person) understands he has been bred to be eaten, though he avoids thinking about this at all costs. A pig’s only consolation lies in the short-lived social climate created amongst his fellow doomed pigs with whom he shares a tiny box as a home--with whom he nudges and offers a friendly scratch, with whom he shares his daily meals, and with whom he communicates the same fears and regrets. When he comes of killing age at six months--at what should be the happiest, most playful time of his life--his enthusiasm for warm days and cloudless skies is literally sliced short--his neck draining his life-blood onto the floor where millions had bled before him.
Farmers deny the pig any equivalent human traits of personality, curiosity, intelligence, playfulness, sociability, and affection. Stripping the pig of individuality and feelings absolves the farmer of guilt: the guilt accrued from the mistreatment and butchering of a being that, in many ways, resembles his fellow humans. For an animal so similar to man in body mass and with organ systems characteristic of people’s, so much so that pigs sacrifice their own aortic valves for ailing humans, farmers and all those associated with this animal’s dispatching treat them no differently than a vegetable to be processed.
Chickens, too, just like pigs and steers, lead horrific, short lives in large, windowless sheds housing 25,000 broilers. Eating from trays worked by computers so that the food and drink are always at the chicken’s head height, the birds consume all day long without benefit of fresh air or sun. Packed so closely together, they are denied normal chicken habits: rolling in dust to keep parasites away, pecking the ground for grubs, insects, and sprouts. They are denied any behavior natural to a chicken: roosting in a tree, running in the outdoors, socializing with roosters and other hens. And after only one month of silent gorging, all 25,000 of them are slaughtered.
These chicken sheds are unknown to most people. Chicken farmers keep these sheds under tight wraps. Should anyone happen upon one and open the door, he’d see the sea of white animals, hear the equally shocking silence, and catch his breath at the suffocating odor. And he would be ashamed at the suffering his species has caused another.
Anyone can see these chicken sheds from the road as he takes a ride into the country. They usually are part of a farm including a nice farmhouse, a decent barn for some cattle or pigs or even horses. But in the back in a secluded area of the farm sits a long, usually green, aluminum-sided rectangular shed wherein thousands and thousands of birds languish. One should be on the lookout for these buildings--no less than huge torture chambers: long buildings with no widows, with giant fans on either end of the structures. Passing such a structure should make a person think about the feathered lives inside, lives that lack life as it was meant to be, life as it lacks any joy or freedom.
Not only do our farm animals receive no burial at all, but their bodies never can lie at peace in one piece. An animal’s body in the slaughterhouse, finds its way to a packing plant where its legs, rump, ribs, and other body parts are cut, quartered, and sectioned into manageable pieces. The pieces are then processed and packaged and distributed all over the country. One pig’s front ribs may be consumed by a family in Dallas, TX while the same pig’s back ribs may be eaten by a couple in Bangor, Maine. So, while a decent burial for a farm animal is unlikely, the idea of its finding solace somewhere as a single body is totally inconceivable. Taken to the final stage of the processing, one pig’s body, after being consumed by fifty or more people, would be expelled from those people in even more infinitely different places, finally finding their resting place in the myriad sewers and septic tanks below the many homes and apartments within many different towns and cities of many different states.
Humans would certainly not enjoy a life lived in an anemic state, and neither do veal calves, forced to live their short lives with iron-poor blood. Such calves feel weak and too tired to do little more than lie, wasted, in their compartments. Calves allowed to develop as nature intended would have energy to romp and play with pasture mates, not wither away in a tiny box The only escape veal calves find from their prison-cell is when the tops of their backs hit the ceilings. Only then are they released to the slaughter.
So, too, the piglet, born on a concrete floor to a mother deprived of straw for making a nest and unable to stand up or turn around in the farrowing crate, is viewed by the farmer as an entity to be processed, not appreciated for any inner spirit or personality. The moment he is born he begins his journey at the tender age of three weeks when he is put into a iron-barred nursery. At six months of age he is moved to a growing, then a finishing pen, and then, shortly thereafter, it’s on to the slaughterhouse. In that six-month lifespan, the pig is reduced to an aberration of what nature intended him to be. His teeth are cut out; his tail removed, and he is fattened under artificial lights in a building rife with disease. Sick with salmonella, gastric disturbances, and arthritis, all causes of overcrowding, the market pig never sees the light of day.
The pig, morphed into a monstrous version of his original self, cannot recognize any part of himself that resembles a pig: a curious, talkative, playful, ingenious, and clean animal. He is unable to muster any visage of himself as an honest, intelligent, protective, independent and happy spirit. All he has available to know himself is that which is reflected back to him in the other pigs sharing his tiny prison-pen. He sees himself in them: physical wrecks, so heavily muscled they can hardly move, with no tails, few teeth, and eyesight dimmed from lack of sun and stimulation. Sadly, he sees himself in them: lethargic, bored, dazed by their world’s lack of stimulation, neurotic, and consumed by dread--from a life so unnatural, so hard, so cold, and so unkind.
Raised as though he had a dollar sign tattooed on his back, a market hog never asks his farmer for a kind rub on the cheek, a scratch to the belly, for a pig, who possesses an uncanny degree of intelligence (pigs are as smart as a three-year-old person) understands he has been bred to be eaten, though he avoids thinking about this at all costs. A pig’s only consolation lies in the short-lived social climate created amongst his fellow doomed pigs with whom he shares a tiny box as a home--with whom he nudges and offers a friendly scratch, with whom he shares his daily meals, and with whom he communicates the same fears and regrets. When he comes of killing age at six months--at what should be the happiest, most playful time of his life--his enthusiasm for warm days and cloudless skies is literally sliced short--his neck draining his life-blood onto the floor where millions had bled before him.
Farmers deny the pig any equivalent human traits of personality, curiosity, intelligence, playfulness, sociability, and affection. Stripping the pig of individuality and feelings absolves the farmer of guilt: the guilt accrued from the mistreatment and butchering of a being that, in many ways, resembles his fellow humans. For an animal so similar to man in body mass and with organ systems characteristic of people’s, so much so that pigs sacrifice their own aortic valves for ailing humans, farmers and all those associated with this animal’s dispatching treat them no differently than a vegetable to be processed.
Chickens, too, just like pigs and steers, lead horrific, short lives in large, windowless sheds housing 25,000 broilers. Eating from trays worked by computers so that the food and drink are always at the chicken’s head height, the birds consume all day long without benefit of fresh air or sun. Packed so closely together, they are denied normal chicken habits: rolling in dust to keep parasites away, pecking the ground for grubs, insects, and sprouts. They are denied any behavior natural to a chicken: roosting in a tree, running in the outdoors, socializing with roosters and other hens. And after only one month of silent gorging, all 25,000 of them are slaughtered.
These chicken sheds are unknown to most people. Chicken farmers keep these sheds under tight wraps. Should anyone happen upon one and open the door, he’d see the sea of white animals, hear the equally shocking silence, and catch his breath at the suffocating odor. And he would be ashamed at the suffering his species has caused another.
Anyone can see these chicken sheds from the road as he takes a ride into the country. They usually are part of a farm including a nice farmhouse, a decent barn for some cattle or pigs or even horses. But in the back in a secluded area of the farm sits a long, usually green, aluminum-sided rectangular shed wherein thousands and thousands of birds languish. One should be on the lookout for these buildings--no less than huge torture chambers: long buildings with no widows, with giant fans on either end of the structures. Passing such a structure should make a person think about the feathered lives inside, lives that lack life as it was meant to be, life as it lacks any joy or freedom.
Not only do our farm animals receive no burial at all, but their bodies never can lie at peace in one piece. An animal’s body in the slaughterhouse, finds its way to a packing plant where its legs, rump, ribs, and other body parts are cut, quartered, and sectioned into manageable pieces. The pieces are then processed and packaged and distributed all over the country. One pig’s front ribs may be consumed by a family in Dallas, TX while the same pig’s back ribs may be eaten by a couple in Bangor, Maine. So, while a decent burial for a farm animal is unlikely, the idea of its finding solace somewhere as a single body is totally inconceivable. Taken to the final stage of the processing, one pig’s body, after being consumed by fifty or more people, would be expelled from those people in even more infinitely different places, finally finding their resting place in the myriad sewers and septic tanks below the many homes and apartments within many different towns and cities of many different states.
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