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 slaughterhouses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slaughterhouses. 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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Part One--Our Farm Animals
This chapter was pulled from my ms. THE CELEBRATED PET: HOW AMERICANS MEMORIALIZE THEIR ANIMAL FRIENDS because editors insisted a farm animal didn't qualify as a pet. I supposwe that's true but only because they've never been given the chance. The first two sections of this chapter are factual. The last two are factual as well but funny. I will post this chapter in aproximately four parts. Today is part one. I hope that all of you will look at your dinner plates with a bit more compassion and appreciation for the animal who sacrificed his or her life. And my personal request to all my friends is to refuse pig meat, as I have, out of respect for a species that humanity has treated with complete disregard. Thanks everyone.
Lost But Not Forgotten
Species: bovine, ovine, porcine, avian.
Names: none
Born and Died: daily
Human companions: none
Our Farm Animals
Though this book pays tribute to the dear and beloved pets that share Americans’ lives, this chapter honors those animals processed by the small farms and the factory farms. While our dearest pets who have played with us, conversed with us in hard times, and slept beside us or in our laps, deserve special tribute at their passing, the farm animals are dispatched with little empathy, understanding, or caring by humans, let alone any remembrance of their having existed at all.
This chapter pays tribute to the millions of farm animals who are maltreated, abused and tortured on their way to the slaughterhouse: the 205 million pigs killed each year for American appetites; the steers; the dairy cows; the billions of fryer chickens and egg-laying hens, as well. Americans need to honor, too, the lambs, the veal calves, the ducks, the geese, the rabbits, and the goats, all who sacrifice themselves to our dinner plates. These animals, in their journey to the slaughter, race to define themselves within their doomed group. They find a part of themselves amongst each other because that had never been allowed the opportunity to show people how charming, endearing, and affectionate they could be.
Farm animals occupy a unique and frightening place within American society. As unique beings with blood pulsing warm in their veins, they breathe and react like humans, their specialness evident in the pure magic of life itself: the complexity of cells organized to operate bodily systems, and the innate divination of instinct and desire. When a calf and mother nuzzle each other, humans remark on the emotional depth of the maternal bond. When a pig squeals for help, onlookers marvel at his brothers and sisters who come running to assist. Like humans, farm animals have feelings and sensitivities that astute humans can recognize.
Though most farm animals are mass-bred, raised, and grown; each, given the opportunity, possesses a unique personality with quirks, needs, and a desire to live life as evolution defined him. The farm animal, despite the factory farms’ reducing him or her to anonymity, is an individual; each and every one is a character, though his number be “34712” or “58703.” The numbered tags hanging from a steer or pig’s ear mean nothing to him because as he lives his days, which are numbered as well, he tries, under the poorest circumstances, to communicate, play, and nuzzle other animals bearing identification tags just like his own. He knows nothing other than to be what he is—a feeling, sensitive, discerning, and gregarious individual. The farm animal is the truest representative of an existentialist because he defines himself as he knows himself to be, not as humans have defined him as an object destined for the human dinner plate.
Many Americans view farm animals, not as individuals with species-specific needs and goals, but as they wish to see them. From the human perspective their value lies, not in their companionship, not in the conversation they could have with us, if given the chance, but only in their relationship to our taste buds--for their presentation on dinner plates everywhere, everyday, every hour, every minute. A situation in which people view a living, breathing, sensitive animal as a commodity or a thing to be consumed is frightening, not only to a minority of humans, but more so, especially, to the animals who suffer by that blurred vision. If people cannot understand or fathom other values for a farm animal other than as a producer of sirloin or rib-eye steaks or chops, then we become devalued as the intelligent, sensitive beings we have historically defined ourselves as. Our limited understanding limits ourselves as a super species.
Among all the animals humans may associate themselves with, from domestic pets, to carriage horses, to zoo animals, to miniature farm animals that can share people’s laps and pillows, the farm animals are the most unselfish of all—sacrificing themselves for human appetite. From the day they are born in the factory farm or even in the rural farm their end point to the slaughterhouse and to our plates is, from the human perspective, their only value. Farmers, despite sharing fleeting moments of sensitivity and conversation with these animals as they grow and live alongside them, deny the animal’s personality, their reaching out for attention, and their need for touch. The farmers deny the feelings of the farm animals because to admit these gentle beasts have feelings and endure suffering that would make most of us cringe would be too shameful. Denying the suffering is avoiding it. Avoiding it dismisses the shame.
One farm animal who suffers terribly during her lifetime is the dairy cow. Unlike our domestic pets who bark and meow for treats and attention, the dairy cow seldom complains she would like more time than just a day to spend with her calf. Her calf, no sooner has she given birth and licked its face dry, is whisked away after the first twenty-four hours so that the milk, meant for her baby, can be drunk by people. Then, instead of her calf suckling on its mother’s soft udder as human babies suck at their mother’s breasts, the cow stands for hours, enduring the hard, metal edges of the vacuum-robot, a sucking machine powered by computers.
Yet the dairy cow endures, deprived of her newborn which all her instincts are urging her to find and protect. She does not complain, not because she doesn’t want to call out to her calf, but because it is discouraged by a stick, a shovel, or an electric fence. Neither does she look to the dairy farmer for attention--to be stroked on her head or scratched behind an ear--because she already has felt the human’s detachment, and she can feel the numbered tag in her ear.
The dairy cow, treated as a commodity the day she fell from her mother’s womb, has only the habitualness of her life to rely on: every year having her baby taken, producing ten times more milk than that intended for her calf, bearing the dull ache of an udder with mastitis, and hobbling lame to the milking stalls. Her only relative calm is being able to stand next to and touch the nose of the next cow as their udders are sucked dry. Only the ritual, the sureness of the daily suffering, the sucking out of the udder, offers the dairy cow a perverted feeling of dead calm. The tedious, demeaning routine of dairy life becomes the only balm in the cow’s world. And so each day repeats itself, practically, predictably, habitually, until when she has ruptured herself delivering her fifth calf, she is dragged off to the slaughterhouse.
Species: bovine, ovine, porcine, avian.
Names: none
Born and Died: daily
Human companions: none
Our Farm Animals
Though this book pays tribute to the dear and beloved pets that share Americans’ lives, this chapter honors those animals processed by the small farms and the factory farms. While our dearest pets who have played with us, conversed with us in hard times, and slept beside us or in our laps, deserve special tribute at their passing, the farm animals are dispatched with little empathy, understanding, or caring by humans, let alone any remembrance of their having existed at all.
This chapter pays tribute to the millions of farm animals who are maltreated, abused and tortured on their way to the slaughterhouse: the 205 million pigs killed each year for American appetites; the steers; the dairy cows; the billions of fryer chickens and egg-laying hens, as well. Americans need to honor, too, the lambs, the veal calves, the ducks, the geese, the rabbits, and the goats, all who sacrifice themselves to our dinner plates. These animals, in their journey to the slaughter, race to define themselves within their doomed group. They find a part of themselves amongst each other because that had never been allowed the opportunity to show people how charming, endearing, and affectionate they could be.
Farm animals occupy a unique and frightening place within American society. As unique beings with blood pulsing warm in their veins, they breathe and react like humans, their specialness evident in the pure magic of life itself: the complexity of cells organized to operate bodily systems, and the innate divination of instinct and desire. When a calf and mother nuzzle each other, humans remark on the emotional depth of the maternal bond. When a pig squeals for help, onlookers marvel at his brothers and sisters who come running to assist. Like humans, farm animals have feelings and sensitivities that astute humans can recognize.
Though most farm animals are mass-bred, raised, and grown; each, given the opportunity, possesses a unique personality with quirks, needs, and a desire to live life as evolution defined him. The farm animal, despite the factory farms’ reducing him or her to anonymity, is an individual; each and every one is a character, though his number be “34712” or “58703.” The numbered tags hanging from a steer or pig’s ear mean nothing to him because as he lives his days, which are numbered as well, he tries, under the poorest circumstances, to communicate, play, and nuzzle other animals bearing identification tags just like his own. He knows nothing other than to be what he is—a feeling, sensitive, discerning, and gregarious individual. The farm animal is the truest representative of an existentialist because he defines himself as he knows himself to be, not as humans have defined him as an object destined for the human dinner plate.
Many Americans view farm animals, not as individuals with species-specific needs and goals, but as they wish to see them. From the human perspective their value lies, not in their companionship, not in the conversation they could have with us, if given the chance, but only in their relationship to our taste buds--for their presentation on dinner plates everywhere, everyday, every hour, every minute. A situation in which people view a living, breathing, sensitive animal as a commodity or a thing to be consumed is frightening, not only to a minority of humans, but more so, especially, to the animals who suffer by that blurred vision. If people cannot understand or fathom other values for a farm animal other than as a producer of sirloin or rib-eye steaks or chops, then we become devalued as the intelligent, sensitive beings we have historically defined ourselves as. Our limited understanding limits ourselves as a super species.
Among all the animals humans may associate themselves with, from domestic pets, to carriage horses, to zoo animals, to miniature farm animals that can share people’s laps and pillows, the farm animals are the most unselfish of all—sacrificing themselves for human appetite. From the day they are born in the factory farm or even in the rural farm their end point to the slaughterhouse and to our plates is, from the human perspective, their only value. Farmers, despite sharing fleeting moments of sensitivity and conversation with these animals as they grow and live alongside them, deny the animal’s personality, their reaching out for attention, and their need for touch. The farmers deny the feelings of the farm animals because to admit these gentle beasts have feelings and endure suffering that would make most of us cringe would be too shameful. Denying the suffering is avoiding it. Avoiding it dismisses the shame.
One farm animal who suffers terribly during her lifetime is the dairy cow. Unlike our domestic pets who bark and meow for treats and attention, the dairy cow seldom complains she would like more time than just a day to spend with her calf. Her calf, no sooner has she given birth and licked its face dry, is whisked away after the first twenty-four hours so that the milk, meant for her baby, can be drunk by people. Then, instead of her calf suckling on its mother’s soft udder as human babies suck at their mother’s breasts, the cow stands for hours, enduring the hard, metal edges of the vacuum-robot, a sucking machine powered by computers.
Yet the dairy cow endures, deprived of her newborn which all her instincts are urging her to find and protect. She does not complain, not because she doesn’t want to call out to her calf, but because it is discouraged by a stick, a shovel, or an electric fence. Neither does she look to the dairy farmer for attention--to be stroked on her head or scratched behind an ear--because she already has felt the human’s detachment, and she can feel the numbered tag in her ear.
The dairy cow, treated as a commodity the day she fell from her mother’s womb, has only the habitualness of her life to rely on: every year having her baby taken, producing ten times more milk than that intended for her calf, bearing the dull ache of an udder with mastitis, and hobbling lame to the milking stalls. Her only relative calm is being able to stand next to and touch the nose of the next cow as their udders are sucked dry. Only the ritual, the sureness of the daily suffering, the sucking out of the udder, offers the dairy cow a perverted feeling of dead calm. The tedious, demeaning routine of dairy life becomes the only balm in the cow’s world. And so each day repeats itself, practically, predictably, habitually, until when she has ruptured herself delivering her fifth calf, she is dragged off to the slaughterhouse.
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