The Emotional Lives of Farm Animals video

The welfare and well-being of farm animals has always been a concern of mine. When I explain to meat-raising farmers that they owe their animals kindness, a clean and social physical environment, and a safe way of being transported and then killed in the slaughterhouse, they look at me as though I'm nuts. But doesn't it make perfectly good common sense for a farmer to treat the animals he exploits for his and his family's livelihood and for his and other persons' food with as much kindness, happiness, and safe treatment as one can? When I talk to farmers, they shift uncomfortably and explain that the cost is too high to treat a steer or pig destined for the slaughter in such a way as to ensure its health, safety, and contentment. But I tell them that the cost to not be humane is much higher. I try to explain that providing the animals with decent and kind living conditions can only serve to enhance the farmer's own sense of what real value is: the profit line or the ethical treatment of animals plus a decent profit. I try to make my discussion real and avoid the extreme argument of suggesting he switch over to raising vegetables or get into another business other than animal husbandry. Extreme tactics only serve to alienate. I can help the animals better if I ask in moderation and according to reason.

So, I ask Farmer Everyman, "If raising and slaughtering animals provides you and your wife and kids with a nice life, don't you think you owe these animals, many of whom are slaughtered at six months of age, as nice and as natural a life as you can provide? That's a reasonable plan, don't you think? " My ideas is do-able, right? Allow animals time to socialize with each other outside every day. Let them play. Allow them to sleep and enjoy the sun on their backs outside in a barnyard kept reasonably clean. Allow them to lead the most natural, happy animal life possible until their doomsday. And when that day comes, don't load them into double decker, tractor trailers for days' shipping. Transport them in uncrowded trucks out of nasty weather. And kill them in the most humane way--in such a way that they don't realize they have premonition of their imminent death. Isn't it only right that you do this for the animals you raise and who provide you with a decent living?"

Please view the following video on the emotional lives of farm animals. It's a wonderful, telling documentary--not depressing--but very enlightening. After seeing this video, you just might want to curl up and cuddle a cow or a pig, instead of your dog or cat.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-emotional-world-of-farm-animals/ =

Suzy the warthog--Part V

Says Suzy the warthog,

"Winter is such a positive boar--I loathe it. Except for my rooting box. I just love all the lovely colors of the balls--reminds me of my beautiful New Guinea impatiens. I play for an hour until I tire whence I retire to my mother's bed or my favorite chair. Warthogs know how to while away the winter willies, I say."

Suzy the warthhog--Part IV

Says Suzy the warthog:

"My dear mother knows how to occupy my time during the winter. She has bought me a rooting box in which I can exercise and toss balls to and fro. Winter is such a bore (or is it "boar"?) that I can't bear to have a moment without something to do, for warthogs are such Type A pigles. I say, I believe I've created a portmanteau for 'pig' and 'peoples': 'pigles.' Warthogs are so BRILLIANT."

Suzy the Warthog--Part III

Says Suzy the warthhog:

"Summertime makes me giddy. If I can't find a patch of flowers to complement my beautiful skin, then I often have to plant my own. This year while I perused the backyard, I found the most delightful pots. I have decided to plant New Guinea impatiens, for, living in the United States has left me slightly homesick for flowers of my homeland. They shall provide me undying comfort through the long, hazy summers of New York."

Suzy the Warthog--Part II

Says Suzy on brilliant summer days,

"I do so love the warm weather. But I am simply not content to lie about on the grass. It's much too cold for my delicate skin, and I can't bear the thought of insects touching my hide.

"What I truly enjoy are flowers! Flowers of every kind: geraniums, tulips, peonies, and grand roses. My favorites, however, are purple petunias, against which my coat looks so rich."

Suzy the warthog--Part I

Pig people stick together. They sniff each other out, are simpy hog-wild for the company of other pig persons.

I am one of those people. I seek out others who appreciate porcine personality, porkish passion, and pig perspicacity.

We pig enthusiasts belong to a cult that admires flat noses resembling electrical outlets, sympathetic tendencies, and gourmands.

In my search for piggish people like myself, I have met and become friends with a wonderful, creative, fun pig person named Carol Eiswald of The Tusk and Bristle Farm in New York state. But Carol doesn't simply devote her energy to the more simple pet pig such as the pot-belly. She's a hard-core pig fanatic. She has as companions at least one bearded Borneo pig and--Ta-Ta-a-a!--a true, blue warthog named Suzy.

Suzy enjoys living outside when it's warm, and she is able to dig holes in the yard with her ample snout. In cold weather, however Suzy lives indoors with Carol. While she has her own quarters within Carol's home, she prefers to spend her afternoon snoozing between the sheets in Carol's bed.

I've received numerous emails over the past year from Carol--all describing stories about Suzy. Suzy the warthog can be a love-bug, a busy-body, a brute, a comedianne, and a perpetrator of naughty deeds.

My readers deserve to learn and see a bit of what one animal, a domesticated wild animal has up her tusk. So, with Carol's permission, I am posting pictures of Miss Suzy, Warthog of the Year.

Spring Has Sprung

"C'mon, Pussies!" I yelled opening wide the front door. Elliot and Li'l Ralphie galloped to the threshold and put on the brakes as the cool, invigorating air whipped past their whiskers. The overwhelming smell-mix of moisture-laden ground with rich-crisp air joined the sounds of crows scolding cats beneath the birdfeeders. The forces of nature beckoned the kittens beyond the gates of their familiar home.

Elliot put one paw on the porch, Li'l Ralphie, cautious, right behind as if to say, "Go ahead, Elliot. Don't be afraid--just go; I'm right behind you." With trepidation and for the first time in their lives, they entered the great outdoors.

Cautiously the kittens strode in slo-mo across the deck. Lyla squeaked through the door opening, too, just before I closed it. Evelyn, however, more the homey type, just peeked outside and turned her back on it--not in the least impressed.

I wasn't going to let my kittens, with their first taste of the woods and the other cats, explore unattended, so I sat down on a step and observed them. Their unadulterated awe at the outside resembled kids upon discovering their first Christmas tree all adorned with glitter and gleam. The kittens' faces were rapt, fixed on all and everything at once. Once assured that I would stay--just in case they ran into trouble--they became more bold, running to the edge of the deck where beyond loomed three foot piles of snow and from which spread the struggling pachysandra beneath a stand of oak and hickory trees.

Lyla, however, had stopped in her paw-tracks, and for a moment I considered the world from Lyla's perception. She had, after all, eyes the size of golf balls--eyes so big and unblinking that she looked almost alien. Lyla's head swiveled from side to side taking in the clean air, the older cats relaxing on the sun-deck, me, the guardian, in my winter coat. Her face skimming the woods as an up periscope looking for enemy ships, she surveyed every detail around her. I wondered just how keenly Lyla saw this new world around her, for nature was as new to her as it was to the kittens; afterall, she had been rescued from a shelter in North Carolina and had been taken from an irresponsible breeder before that. She had probably never even seen a tree other than through a window.

I watched Lyla survey her surroundings as the kittens leaped onto the snowpile in front of the deck. They picked up their paws delicately, flicking the wet from their toes like beach-children throwing sand off their feet. While Lyla stared up a sixty-foot oak tree, I wondered how those eyes--giant marbles--playthings for a leviathan, interpreted those images to her brain. And suddenly I burped a laugh. Of course! Her eyes allowed her to see everything in high definition. I envisioned the idea: Lyla was seeing everything in extraodinary clearness--in high definition. When I told Edgar later that night how I was certain Lyla's vision had to be super clear, he laughed and said, "Okay. We'll call her Lyla HD from now on."

For over an hour and a half I guarded the kittens and Lyla as they explored the woods and stalked the older and wiser cats: Kenny, Little Eggie, and the Deans: Regular Dean, Spitty Bottle Dean, and S.S. Dean. Elliot acted the trail blazer while Li'l Ralphie followed, rarely letting himself out of brother Elliot's and my sight. Then Elliot suddenly erupted with a burst of speed, leaping over stumps and downed branches. His body lengthened as he galloped, soared, over the melting snow, past Kenny who was watching complacently, and over the old wooden bench. But his finale was yet to come.

This youngster of a Siamese, who had never before seen the light of the outdoors, suddenly transformed into a beast of the jungle. He raced, hunkered down, stream-lining himself, and then he leaped onto the side of a two-foot-in-diameter oak tree. And there he stuck like an arrow into its target. I hiccuped a giggle: Elliot was as shocked as I that he had run vertically, instead of horizontally.

"Wow! Good job!" I yelled to Elliot, still clinging to the side of the tree. "C'mon . . . come on down now before you get yourself to high and can't get down." He looked at the ground and climbed another four feet until he reached a branch. Then he sat pondering the earth beneath.

My fingers danced over my cell phone: for sure Edgar would have to get the tractor to extricate Elliot from his tree. But just as my call went out, Elliot began his descent, head first, claws and paws stretched out awkwardly before him.

I cringed. He wasn't coming down the right way! I couldn't let him fall over ten feet! "Elliot. Turn around and come down backwards," I yelled running, arms out-stretched. Of course, he couldn't understand me, but to my complete surprise he did turn around. Then first one back foot stepped down--he looked at the ground, surely estimating the distance--and then the other placed next to the other. "Okay, Elliot," I shouted. "Now the front feet!" But I didn't have to advise him; he had his first descent from Mount Evertree well under control.

I put the phone down, and as I did, Elliot plopped to the ground. I clapped and hooted my congratulations, and Elliot raced past me, a victory lap for sure.