Factory farming?

Question

do most people think that animals live lovley lives before they are killed or do they know what the animals go through?

if you think that animals get to graze in lush fields and live the sweet life before you eat them you need to read this:

http://www.idausa.org/facts/factoryfarmfacts.html

and try to watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeempD8cJDE

Answer 1

Many people do not stop to think about what meat is and where it comes from. Some people just don't care. This is coming to the attention of more and more people so that ignorance can not be claimed as an excuse anymore. The times are changing and people are beginning to take note of the abuses and are starting to question their role in healthy food choices and the impact of factory intensive animal farming on the environment. There are those three main reasons to make a change so if one chooses to ignore the suffering of animals because they want a fast food burger, then they may choose not to hurt their bodies by clogging their arteries with fat. They may be self destructive anyway and at least they may wish for a clean beautiful environment so the view from the intensive care unit at the hospital where they undergo angioplasty will be a nice one. I gave up long ago trying to get people to understand that it would be awful to be caged and stacked, to never see the sun in your short life (being killed for meat as a baby) and to have your lungs constantly seared from the fumes of your own waste, to be literally an insane animal in a world of pain and misery. People have a lot to be accountable for and if I were those people I would pray there was no God that they have to answer to. If that sounds extreme to some then I think you may want to think threw your actions a bit more; take off the blinders.

Answer 2

Thank you for bringing up the ills of industrialized farming methods.

Answer 3

i gave up eating meat and dairy for several years after i wised up to the factory thing, but over last 10 years or so small places, and even supermarkets, have started selling free range local meat around here, and i now have a wide choice of meat from humanely reared animals. lucky me.

Answer 4

The technology  of invitro meat production will eventually replace our primitive meat production techniques.

The genetic bomb is coming ...the animals will have their revenge.

Answer 5

You also need to realise that not all animals are factory/battery farmed.  Where I live, all pastoral animals are raised and live their life on PASTURE - yep, out in the fields, grazing!  No, I do not agree with battery farming, but it's not the only type of farming there is - and it should not be used to taint the agricultural industry by implying that it is.

Answer 6

I am not clear on whether it is your objective to stop having all meat eating stopped or only to have only animals that have lived ideal lives eaten.

I observe that some people find it barbaric to go out and use a rifle to hunt and kill wild animals, or to leave those same animals where wolves can tear them apart, or to kill off the wolves so they will not tear up the nice deer, and then have the deer starve when they are too many for the available pasture.

Life is really tough for wild animals at constant risk of being run down and eaten by carnivores, or of starving when pastures are inadequate.

There does not appear to be any way to make that a kinder life unless we manage the population and protect them from other predators. But have no illusions, on average the same number of them will die and be eaten either way.

To make this a useful program, we need to have you point out what farms are the good and what the bad factory farms, so that people will not assume that most or all farms are in the bad category.

Why? If there is no difference in the way you deal with good and bad, you remove any incentive to be good.

Answer 7

For the most part, I'm against farm rescues.  They are not rescuing an animal from a factory farm, and turning the animal over to a humane small farmer to raise.  Nope...they are rescuing the animals and turning them into giant, expensive pets.

The chickens they showed rescued on the video....I believe some of them were commercial broiler chickens.  By the time they are 10 weeks old, they will be so big, their legs will be unable to support their bodies.  

Where they showed the lady saying "Awww," and removing the tag from the lambs ear....that was completely illegal.  There are laws, that everyday consumers signed pettitions to get passed, which makes removal of most of the tags in livestocks ears completely illegal.  Google the word NAIS some time.  The NAIS has the very real potential to drive small farmers like myself out of business....yet the very consumers who would like to see livestock humanely raised signed pettitions to get such laws enacted.

I'm a small farmer, on a permaculture farm.  My live stock actually does live on pasture, and in their herds, with their mothers, their entire lives.  The bucks (I raise meat goats) get to live with their "wives" 99% of the time.

Every single animal I raise is butchered here on the farm.  My customers come to me.  I do not ship my animals out.

Instead of running expensive petting zoos for rescued farm animals, these people should put their money into purchasing from, and supporting small farmers like myself, who do actually raise animals humanely.

Those video clips showed only white people, who were all fuzzy wuzzy about the rescued animals.  I've been raising meat goats since 1999, and meat rabbits about 5 years.  Know how many white people I've sold to?  Two....they both purchased breeding bucks (goats) from me.

My farm is beautiful, clean, friendly, looks nice, and smells nice.  Instead of all those white folks on the video going to a glorified petting zoo of rescue farm animals, I'd rather see them come to my farm.  I'd like to see them walk out in the pasture, with their children, and pick out a nice grass fed lamb (which would still be with it's mama, because I do not sepparate them).  I want them to explain to their child, that they came to this farm, because of the way the animals are raised.  Because it is so clean, and so humane.  I want them to explain to their child they are there to pick out a lamb fine pasture raised lamb, because THIS is how meat should be raised.  

They can have the mobile butcher come out to slaughter the lamb, they can slaughter it themselves, or I'll drive it to the butcher for them (the same one who does the mobile slaughter).  I'll do that, because they are a small butcher, and I can show up at a specific time, and the lamb will go from the back of my truck, and IMMEDIATLY be slaughtered.  It will not spend hours in a pen, stressing about being away from it's mama and herd.

Then in a week, they can go and pick up the lamb all cut and wrapped.  Best of all, they will have supported a small farmer who ACTUALLY does raise livestock the way it should be raised.  

People shouldn't teach their children to go to glorified petting zoos and say, "Aww poor widdle animal," and hug them.  They should take them to real farms, and teach them how, and where to pick out real animals for their table.  How to judge animals and see if they are healthy, and not too fat, or too lean.

All of my customers are ethnic.  My customers drive 60 miles round trip (80 for some of them) to come to my farm, in order to get the animals they desire.  I'm moving from Idaho, back to Washington state.  

My customers are extremely upset about this.  I've spoken to my customers, because I was not able to find a farmer as close, or closer to turn their business over to.  I found my customers are willing to drive even further.  So I'm currently speaking with a farmer who will be a 100 or more round trip drive for my customers.  

These are people who know what they want.  They want quality animals, humanely and naturally raised.  They are quiet use to picking out their own live animals, in their countries.

I've had them show up with their young children, and teach them how to butcher and cut up the animal.  I've listened to them telling their child stories about, "this is how my grandfather (the childs great grandfather) taught me to do this."  These are people (from many, many countries and culture) who are rich in tradition, and value food, and family time.

How many of those average white folks in that video do you suppose hit McDonalds, before, or after going to the glorified petting zoo?

Really want to make a difference?  Buy your food from a small farmer, and teach your children from the time they are babes in arms the importance of such things.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years