You GO CNN!
Dec 28 2009
Despite the gruesome subject matter, the fact that this is FRONT PAGE NEWS on CNN makes my day. (Warning: some graphic images)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/28/illegal.slaughter.farms/index.html
When I was a teenager, an issue like this would never have merited coverage. Â Now, millions of Americans will view this story and many of them will think a little harder about the plight of animals, where their own food comes from, and what kind of responsibility we have to the other animals we share the planet with.
I wonder who owned those horses in that lot…I wonder who bred them, what they thought they would grow up to be, who the person was who gave them up without following up on them, maybe through an auction…or are they stolen? Is someone going to see that video and go, holy crap, that’s my horse? Â It’s probably too late to save them – but I bet this story will make some Floridians think twice about selling their horse at auction or giving it away to “a good home.”
Nothing deserves to end up in those lots. Not the horses, not the calf, not the goats. Â Nothing.
ETA – OK, now I’m curious. Let’s see what kind of results we get to this question.
Would you eat meat if you had to kill it and butcher it yourself?
125 comments to “You GO CNN!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment. Not a member? Registering is free, and you do it here!
Wow… I honestly never knew there were slaughter houses (much less illegal ones) run in this way. Out of curiosity, do the owners sell directly to these illegal operations or are the animals still sold through kill buyers?
Thanks
Is this new? Because I *know* I’ve read the part about Freedom’s Flight before.
I don’t think I’d buy meat slaughtered outdoors in Florida off any animal, no matter how freshly killed. Nothing like heat and contact with dirt that never hard freezes. I wonder who the consumers are.
Generally the Hispanic population will buy meat like this.
They say in the video that buyers can go in and buy a pig or whatever and have it slaughtered there…uh….who would want to buy a diseased pig, cow or whatever and have it slaughtered in that unsanitary place with feces, dead animal remains and take it home to eat it! Nasty! I don’t care if I was someone who just hated all animals and could care less about them (which is not true about me by the way), I wouldn’t go into that filth and puchase anything with the intention of eating it. Ok, I need to go puke now!
I live in Miami and, I have to say, I am not surprised. The amount of animal neglect and cruelty down here makes me sick. And, I might get flamed for saying this, but it is part of the culture. People coming from third-world countries have no concept of animal rights or humane treatment. Heck, one of the girls who works at my vet’s office is Cuban and she said her father thinks it’s ridiculous that people take their animals to a “doctor.” I guess things are slowly changing, but it is not nearly fast enough.
And, let me tell you, this place is practically a free-for-all for criminals. Sometimes, it seems like it’s lawless. I feel for the Animal Control officers because they have a mountain of work, barely any funding, and little to no laws backing them up. I once picked up a dog off the street, called its owner (who didn’t answer), and ended up taking the dog home. Once I got there, I discovered huge, cauliflower-like growths in his ears. They were painful and itchy, so I took him to my vet. The vet said, “He has severe allergies. He’s at least 7 and he’s had them his whole life. If this had been dealt with years earlier, he would have been fine. But now, he needs surgery.” I paid for the dog to have a month-long allergy shot and took him home. Well, the owner started calling me and harassing me, so I took the dog to Animal Control. They told me that the dog was stolen property, I had to return the dog to its owner immediately, and that his case did not constitue neglect. He then told me, “If I go on to a property and there are dogs tied up in the sun with no water, all I can do is give the owner a 30 day warning.” Obviously, our laws down here need to be changed.
As for the little dog, I gave the officer the address where it lived because I know that they have at least 10 dogs and I’m sure none of them are well-cared-for, either. I then asked someone else to take the little dog back because I couldn’t do it myself. Well, it turns out that the owner was so happy to see him because the dog’s father had gotten loose out of the yard the year before and they never got him back. And guess what? It was a Jack Russel, that I picked up on the street right in front of her house. He had no tags on, was covered in fleas and ticks, and smelled like a rotten corpse. He had no hair on his back half and was covered in open, bleeding sores. Surpise, surprise, he had severe allergies that went untreated, as well. My vet told me not to put up posters about him because, “whoever owned him didn’t deserve to have him back.” Jack was well into the double-digits when I got him. He had a perfect 7 months with me before he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphatic Leukemia and put to sleep. At least I know that the last few months of his life were heaven on earth.
Sorry for the novel, but it is just a small glimpse into every-day life down here. I am constantly stopping for stray dogs in the street. I’ve seen more run-over, dead dogs than I could ever possibly count. And when you drive over train tracks, there are bags of dead chickens and other small animals that are animal sacrifices for certain religions. It’s a whole other world down here.
I will certainly be getting into contact with the gentleman who runs Animal Rescue Mission and see what I can do to help. Thank goodness CNN is persuing this — because, obviously the incompetent, lazy SOBs here in Miami aren’t going to do a damn thing about it until it gets national coverage and they’re embarassed (just like with the horse slaughters).
Savvy,
I would have to say you are right about the culture. I have never been to Miami. However, my husband has made several mission trips to Haiti. Considering that the Haitians are one of the cultures in Miami, the way these slaughter houses are run would be nothing new to them. The only thing novel would be the location as in Haiti, the animals are slaughtered right off of the main street. The dirt and flies honestly wouldn’t bother them because that is what they are used to. Same goes with the emaciated animals. With so many people starving in these countries, starving animals are nothing.
But that absolutely does not excuse the Miami-Dade authorities for doing nothing. I hope this CNN article does light a fire under them to get these places shut down and cleaned up.
I also live in South Florida about 15 miles from Miami, and I am a police officer. I see some of the most disgusting crap going on down here against human AND animal because of the pervasive third world country mentality. (BTW, they call it a 3rd world country because there’s no such thing as a 4th world country!!!) My boyfriend is a farrier and in the last six months of 2009 we have taken in FIVE OTTBs that the “new” owners did not want or could not afford to feed. All were under the age of 7 except one mare who was 12. The mare was the only one that wasn’t a 1 to a 1.5 on the body scale. Two were still owned by a “trainer” at Calder. One is his was in such bad shape it took us 90 days just to get him to “needs a few pounds” instead of “starving to death”. We ended up giving that one and a filly to Pure Thoughts Equine Rescue once they were not on death’s door. We found homes for two others with responsible customers of my BF, and we kept one. Our feed bill was running $1000 a month at for Sept/Oct/Nov to feed all of the TBs and our own.
When you do the math that one man was able to get FIVE free ex-racehorses without even trying, that gives you an idea of how much unwanted horseflesh is walking around down here. We have Calder Race Track, Gulfstream Race Track, Hialeah Race Track, and Pompano Harness Track within 30 miles of each other. That makes for hundreds of unwanted horses a month along with an unregulated island and immigrant population that pretty much does whatever the hell they want out in the boonies. There aren’t enough rescues and good homes for what is going on down here.
The animal auction up in Okeechobee has a sale every 2nd and 4th Friday and goats bring more than horses. Sometimes they can’t even get a $25 bid on the horses, so they take off the commission and sell them for $15 bucks just to get them out of the ring. No one one wants them when they can get racehorses for free. I’m suprised they havent started cutting off the lip tattoos on the carcasses that are dumped so the horses can’t be traced back. I think that’s the next thing that will start happening.
I HATE HATE HATE living down here, and if I could retire tomorrow I would be gone. At least I get the possibility of the satisfaction of being able to arrest someone for animal cruelty once in a while, and I can save a few horses on my own, but it doesn’t change the fact this area is a sh*thole for human and animals alike.
Its bad enough that its illegal slaughter farms, but what I don’t get is, why would anybody purchase an animal if they are kept in crap conditions, thin,sick, ect,ect,ect. Why would you want to eat it. I would really like to know who the buyers are. Also from the video it sounded like you could just go in and say you want a pig (ok do you get to pick out the pig?) You ask how much, they tell you a price. If you want them to kill it, it cost more. (also why would you want them to kill it in those conditions). If not I assume you take the live pig home.
Question does this apply to the cattle and horses. Can you go in there and buy a live horse and bring it home. Does anybody know how much it is for a live one?
As above, I would say most of the buyers and probably most of the owners, are immigrants from very poor countries such as Haiti and Cuba. These conditions are not unusual to them. Seeing malnourished and sick animals used for slaughter is their norm.
That’s exactly it – and as I’ve noted before, some parts of your culture DO NOT get to come with you here to America if they violate our laws. You can’t marry a thirteen year old, either, even if that was OK where you came from. It is not in any way violating someone’s culture to ask them to leave the horse tripping, illegal slaughterhouses, cock fighting, etc. behind them.
Thanks to the Politically Correct crowd, any part of ANY culture is alive and well in this country because no one wants to “offend.” Just look at the new rules for ALL passengers being put in place on foreign and domestic air travel because of the “alleged” activities of the bloomer bomber on Christmas Day. Profiling would handle passengers to be searched more efficiently and inconvenience fewer people, but that might hurt someone’s feelings. Try going to some of their countries and demanding THEIR laws be changed or ignored because they bother YOU.
Back on topic, one can only hope that the people who buy and eat the meat from one of these places get sick enough that they discover the benefit of buying “prepackaged meat in grocery store.”
Sorry TBDancer to disagree but Profiling does not work! It is considered a violation of civil rights and most law enforcement agencies strictly prohibit its use by their officers. Yes, there are no doubt officers who still profile and take it too far but overall profiling is frowned upon by their bosses. You mentioned the bomber on Christmas Day. By law of averages if you profiled for airplane terrorist bombers your profile would most likely be of a young middle eastern muslim male based on the 9-11 terrorists. IF you profiled for that you would have missed the Pan Am 103 bomber (young pregnant female who most likely did not know she carried the bomb), The AA63 shoe bomber (white american muslim), or the Christmas Day bomber (bloomer bomber) Nigerian male. A few moments of hold ups for everybody will in the end keep everybody safer. Have patience when you travel for Homeland Security and the Airlines are doing there best within very very difficult circumstances. The system may not work as well as we like but it is improving all the time and will hopefully improve even more with the lessons learned from this failure. Remember it is a work in progress – if terrorism was so easy to wipe out Israel would be the safest place to live in the world – they have been working on it for 50+ years. We have been working on it for less then 10.
@Pinky–El Al is a HELL of a lot safer to fly than any US airline, precisely becuase they don’t strip-search everyone, they are allowed to use their instinct, including profiling, to detain, search, and interrogate anyone they damn well feel like. You can bet any young Muslim male gets looked at VERY closely, and ought to be. Sorry, but if young Muslim men don’t want to be searched, they’re going to have to start doing something about their coreligionists. (And you cannot include Lockerbie in the calculations because that would not have been found by ANY passenger screening–it was a luggage bomb, and we still don’t know for certain who planted it, except that it was probably NOT the men thrown under the bus for it.) Right now, the score from 9-11 on is Terrorists 4, US Airlines 2 (from SHEER DUMB LUCK, not effective TSA.) While the lifetime score against El Al is terrorists nil. And believe me, it’s not because they’re not targets. (No, I don’t have a problem with Mossad’s method of dealing with terrorist cells, either.)
TB Dancer–obviously I’m with you. And I agree–there are some cultural elements you don’t bring with you, and condition of animals is one of them. I don’t REALLY have a problem if people put themselves at risk by eating things in bad conditions–hey, it’s your life, you want to take a chance on that meat that’s been hanging up in Florida for three days, go for it. But the conditions animals are kept in and commercial distribution of the product makes it a public-safety issue.
When I get paid I am going to send this man a donation. He is truly an angel in human form. I come from South Florida but never knew this existed.
I agree. And he has true courage, to go in there personally and try to shut them down – he could wind up sledgehammered over the head and left for the alligators, and I’m sure he knows it. I am in awe of people like that. I can honestly say that the one person I felt MOST honored to meet in my entire life – and I’ve met politicans, actors, etc. – was the guy who went undercover for the “Dealing Dogs” documentary. I never saw his face, he had to have a bag over his head even among friends because of the personal risk, but I shook his hand. He could have gotten shot doing that undercover job, wired up with a hidden camera. Instead he shut down one of the most horrific kennels in the U.S. Amazing, and oh so admirable.
I second that. I’ll be sending him a little christmas money
Good for him! Congrats for being persistent and doing the right thing!
wow i never would have guessed that there were places that did that. i mean i dont get how some one could sale there horse or any liveing thig to a kill buyer. but then again some people have no idea that the person buying(place what type of animal here) is a kill buyer. i found some time this year that they have kill buyers and the enumclaw sales barn. the only reason i found that out is cuz i almost had to take my horse there. but thank god i had a angel call me and tell me i could bored him there. i know i know im a bad person for concitering taken my horse to a sales barn just cuz i was loseing the place i was boreding him at. every where else i looked was more then i could aford at the time. but now that i saw that video it made me think that could have happened to lakota.
im still greatfull to the person that let me bored my horse at their place till i could get back on feet. if you read this blog thank you so very much. i still have him he is fat and happy and broke to ride now.
I’m so glad to see something like this get out in the open. Nobody can deny it now and they will hopefully be forced to start taking action especially after it getting out about how all of those horses were stolen and found butchered. I hope they tracked down Freedom’s race owners and gave them a “what-for” too.
Ok, I’m sorry here, but I have to say this– how can anyone look at an animal and think of it as food? Here, you see these poor souls, the conditions they’re in and you think “why would somebody want to eat that,” meaning a thin, diseased or whatever animal. Shouldn’t people be more concerned about the quality of life these animals have, and not so much if it would make them sick eating it?
And honestly, the conditions the animals come from in factory farming (where most of america’s meat is from) aren’t much better. They live in filth, in small, confined areas that nobody out there for any animal welfare would even consider putting any animal in, nevermind ones destined to be somebody’s dinner.
I’ll never understand how humans who eat animals can turn such a blind eye to the horrors of eveyday slaughter.
Well, you and I are of the same mind set but ultimately I don’t care WHY someone thinks this is wrong…I just care that they get on board and put the pressure on to make it stop.
There is an old saying that if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everybody would be a vegetarian. There’s a lot of truth to that. I knew that I grew up eating meat and just not thinking about where it came from, and I think that’s fairly common.
Hmm, no, actually, glass walls would not make people vegetarian, not at all.
It would make sure that animals were slaughtered humanely, though.
BBC ran a programme a little while back where animals were brought in, in front of the audience and, on the other side of a glass screen, humanely dispatched for meat. They were then “proceed” in front of the audience, and made into recognizable meat which was then cooked and served.
As a “spin off” a few people were asked to take it further, to actually be involved in the dispatching, the dressing and preparation of animals they were going to eat.
One man summed it up (and I paraphrase) “I think killing and dressing and helping to cook the “food” gives me the ultimate right to eat it”
I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.
I have raised, killed dressed and eaten my own food animals many, many times. They had good lives right up to the moment that they died.
This, I feel, gives me the right to eat them.
NOTHING gives anyone the right to abuse, beat, mistreat and generally act in the way that only one animal, man, ever acts towards other animals, nothing.
I think eating meat should be seen as a privilege, not a right.
We have no god given right to eat animals, we do have a god given responsibility to make sure that every piece of meat that goes in out mouths has been treated with respect and killed with compassion.
Sorry, I cannot link you to the programme as it will be impossible to view outside the UK
Different cultures and religions obviously have differing views. In the Christian faith Genesis 9:3 gave mankind the right to eat meat. That verse says “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.†(King James Version)
But never not to torture or neglect animals… I have always liked the sentiments at Proverbs 12:10: “A righteous [man] regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked [are] cruel.†Wesley’s notes on this verse say that “Regardeth – He will not destroy it either by labour beyond its strength, or by denying it necessary food or rest. Cruel – There is cruelty mixed even with their most merciful actions.â€
When my brother was working on his Ph.D. in Ruminant Nutrition he wrote a paper on the history of the treatment of animals for slaughter… I know he researched all of the way back to Biblical times and looked at how that relationship has changed with modern agriculture. It was interesting to see how it has changed as people have become more removed.
God didn’t write the Bible. God’s decipels did. I’m fairly certain that in biblical times, seeing aimals abused and slaughtered was the norm making it seem perfectly acceptable for it to be in the Bible that eating meat is okay.
Since those times much research has been done in the field of animal sciences and their ability to feel, things that were not known before. It could be thought that because of this, there would be more awareness about these issues, but instead, many religions continued to stress that it was ok, because it was in the Bible and and thus “God’s word.”
Think what you will, but do some reasearch into it first, and don’t just act because “that’s how your parents did it.”
Kirri said, “…to abuse, beat, mistreat and generally act in the way that only one animal, man, ever acts towards other animals…”
I beg to differ. “Mother Nature” is not kind, at all. Animals can be cruel to each other. Predators eat their prey when it is still alive. When food is scarce, both herbivores and carnivores keep the weak away from food, condemning them to death by starvation.
The difference is that they don’t have morals or ethics, and we do. We can choose to be humane. They can’t, because they don’t have the concept.
Other than that quibble, I agree with you totally. I’ve skinned & dressed raccoons and deer. And, yes, I’d “grow my own” if I could.
Ruthie
Have you watched Food, INC? Just saw it and thought it was great- not too much animal torture shown for the faint of hearts!
Honestly? I think meat tastes good. So I eat it. It doesn’t bother me that we have to kill a cow or sheep or whatever to get that meat. I used to volunteer at my local zoo’s Birds of prey program and had to chop up mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, etc. At the time I had rats and mice as pets. It bothered me for about a day, and then I got over it. I would drink coffee and chop up mice at the same time, with the blood and guts on my hands. That didn’t gross me out either. (what did gross me out was the BOP processed diet we got from Zupreme, that stuff was NASTY) I honestly think that seeing animals being slaughtered wouldn’t stop most people from eating meat, they might be bothered for a day or two, but they would go right back eating meat. Nothing wrong with that. That’s what people have done since before we were human.
mmmm… interesting argument. So if I follow your logic as long as I like doing something and it’s been done in the past, it’s okay? Wahoo! Good to know. People have been raping and killing each other since the dawn of history too but that doesn’t make it right. Here’s the thing- we can choose to promote killing or not. By supporting slaughter, we support the industry that goes with it. if there is $ to be made, you can bet we humans will find a way to maxamize profit and as a result animals will get the bad end of the deal. It does make a difference what happens to the bodies after they are dead. A horse that is eaten as meat helps create profit and a market for that meat. If your neighbor’s horse was say, hit and killed by a car and they gave you the meat, then that wouldn’t matter. If humans want to do something, we’ll find a way to justify it (myself included). I grew up on a farm slaughtering cattle I raised from bottle babies and hunting. I enjoyed it in a sick way (good lesson in anatomy for a fam kid). But I also saw a steer that took 15 bullets to the head and was held down with a tractor bucket before dying. Even “humane raised” animals suffer grately. There is no way around it. If you eat meat there is suffering. the best way to ensure that the suffering is minimized is to raise and kill the animal your self. In my opnion, If you can’t kill it, you have no buisness eating it. We all make our own decisions, and (thank god) we can’t tell each other what to do. I don’t think opening slaughter houses are the answer. They will never be humane- it’s not profitable. Full disclosure- I’ve been vegan for the last 14 years and I try to grow much of my food. I can sleep at night knowing I’m healthy, strong and my diatary decisions aren’t hurting others .
Protip, the moment you compare eating meat to rape most people will stop listening. It lessens the evilness of rape and is insulting to rape victims. I’m an omnivore. Meat tastes good. If I had the means to raise it myself I would, but, you know, not everyone lives in house or on acreage, so I get my meat from sources that are humane (yes, there is humane slaughter, just because you think different doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!) If you want to be vegan, fine. But don’t compare what I do to rape because it isn’t.
It’s statements like yours that give vegans a bad reputation. I don’t care what you want to eat and don’t I compare your foods to rape, so be respectful and do likewise for me.
Let us compare it to slavery then. The animals depend on us in all entirety and must follow the path we have set out for them much like slaves. Saying that slavery is wrong is generally accepted by everyone, and as such has been outlawed in most cases. These animals are our slaves and we kill them.
Though I know the emotion surrounding animal abuse and slaughter may make you want to compare it to the worst thing you could possibly consider, ie. ‘rape,’ please don’t. I’ve been there, it’s a sensitive subject for some and don’t even mention it unless it is the topic of discussion at the time. Please.
And the only way slaughter could be humane is through euthanasia (not possible because it is for consumption) or a bullet to the head (apparently they’re too expensive?). Just because the animals lived a good life before being killed does not make the slaughter any less brutal, regardess. It’s still murder.
I wans’t comparing eating meat to rape. I’m sorry if you feel that way. I was trying to make the point that just because something has been done and we like it doesn’t make it right. I’m not trying to convert people so I really don’t care if you or anyone else thinks of me. if that was the case I would follow the herd like the rest of the sheep I see walking around blindly. And I’m sorry but I have to disagree- there will never be humane slaughter as long as it’s profit driven. The need to go fast to generate more money will result in suffering for the animals. I’m speaking from experience. Even when we did the killing ourselves you can’t tell me it was quick and painless as they lay thrashing on the ground gasping for breath. Yes we knew what we were doing. That’s life. it’s not perfect. I do what I think is right so I can sleep at night. i trust all of you to do the same.
Well, besides the argument that we’ve always done it, it tastes good, and other animals do it, there’s the inarguable biological fact that Homo sapiens is built to be an omnivore. Our dentition and digestive tracts are “designed” (so to speak) to process animal matter and certain kinds of plant matter (we are not equipped to deal with high-cellulose plants as anything but insoluable roughage.) All the great apes WILL eat animal protein if presented with the opportunity (gorillas and orangs will eat insect and egg if they have the chance, despite being called “vegetarian.” And ironically, the captive gorillas who suffer cardiovascular disease are almost exclusively on all-vegetarian diets.) Chimpanzees in particular have the gruesome habit of eating their prey (sometimes birds, frequently small monkeys) while the animal’s still technically alive. There are certain nutrients that are better-absorbed from animal protein sources (most notable iron–you lose much of the iron content of plants, sometimes because other vitamin and mineral content interfere with iron uptake. You should still eat your spinach, though.) The only effective source of the B vitamins, in particular B12, are animal products–we weren’t meant to get it from soy or artificially supplimented grain products. (This can get especially messed up when it comes to breast-feeding for second or third-geneartion vegans.) As a species, we evolved to eat everything, including meat and animal products. Modern science means we can avoid it, but it’s not consistent with our biology.
Personally, I don’t MIND butchering, but I’d prefer someone else do the killing. (Especially birds, for some reason. And honestly if someone else wants to deal with the feathers that’s fine too.) And I don’t especially want to raise my own, as I know myself and know I’d get too attached to kill them, unless I managed to have room and money for a large commercial opperation and kept contact to a minimum and didn’t name animals. I know that I can butcher if I need to (heck, I can do disections and necropsies, for that matter–cat, fetal pig, shark, eyes from sheep and cows, fish, so many amphibians and invertabretes I’ve lost count including pithed frogs–we were NOT allowed to do the pithing, though), but I really have other things to do with my day.
What I cannot get past is the fact that where these places are is (at least now) known. We are going to wait HOW long for them to be busted??? This is absurd-even if this were not an issue of abject animal abuse and cruelty, it represents a big (human) public health hazard. It is absolutely unacceptable. Savvy, I always ask myself why anyone would live there. Sad, sad, sad.
Lol, yes, I do sometimes long to move back to civilization. But, if there weren’t people here standing up for animals, their plight would be even worse. And, heck, if it weren’t for me, there would be a lot more stray dogs around here. I really should start charging people for chasing their dogs around and taking them back home (hhhmmm, maybe not keeping track of your dog is a “cultural” thing, too?).
I grew up in Ocala, Fl in the 60′s and 70′s when Thoroughbreds were more plentiful here. Everyone knew about the illegal slaughterhouses back then and that was when there was not so many laws. Plus legal slaughterhouses were open then too. I always wonder how as a teenager, I knew about these things and people who live in the area where it’s always been prevelant, don’t know about them. The islanders have always been coming here and have always eaten horsemeat. There are even dozens of restaurants and b-b-q places all around Florida that are not licensed or subject to any kind of inspection. It’s a really sick practice but it’s nothing new in Florida. There is a whole sub culture based on the economics of illegal slaughterhouses here. The laws have toughened up but there is no one enforcing them. They are a dangerous culture. It’s very commendable that this man has taken this on as his crusade. It’s not only a very dangerous cause to be involved with but a very horrific one, to see. Prayers that he will be able to make a difference and shed light on this dark hole of torture.
If you read his website, it explains that many of these places go to local restaurants and pick up all of the leftover garbage, food from people’s plates that they didn’t finish, etc and feed that to their animals. In exchange, they provide cheep meat to these restaurants. So, it is likely that many people are eating this without knowing where it came from. Which, to me, is not surprising. Most burgers don’t come from cows who graze happily in the sunshine on lush pastures with a shiny gold bell around their neck and butterflies fluttering all around. Unless you grow your own, you really don’t know if you’re eating this or not. FUGS, I think this is my FAVORITE blog entry EVER! Thanks for posting it. I wish I knew some way to get active in this type of work. I’d love to do undercover investigations and bust these places. BTW, did anyone else look at his website and see the pictures of Oreo the pig? OMG how adorable!!! Thank goodness he’s outta there, but so sad for all the other Oreo’s that didn’t make it out alive.
Rollhursucks, these are not…hhmm, how do I say this…your typical “nice” restaurants that you and I would eat at. Again, it’s a cultural thing. People coming from impoverished countries are used to animals being brutally treated and looked upon as strictly food sources and not as sentient beings. I have a Cuban friend who told me that, in Cuba, if you have a horse, you have to keep a VERY close eye on it because someone might come along and chop a couple of its legs off for meat. I would be willing to bet good money that a lot of the restaurants buying the meat are Cuban restaurants. And, no, I am not being racist — that’s just the way it is. I really feel that these cultures need a wake-up call that their cultural standards of animal treatment are NOT acceptable here in the US. And I do see positive changes, because I know a lot of Hispanics who adore their animals and treat them just as well as I treat my animals. The changes are happening, but just not quickly enough.
“I really feel that these cultures need a wake-up call that their cultural standards of animal treatment are NOT acceptable here in the US.”
Okay, but is the average opinion of what is acceptable in the US much better in terms of meat production? I’m not being a smartass, I’m actually asking because I would be curious of the statistics (and most likely disappointed). Here we’ve got a big long discussion of different opinions, most of which seem to be that people are okay with the idea of eating meat as long as it was raised naturally and humanely up until all of a sudden WHACK and it never even saw it coming. But, of course, I wouldn’t consider the readers of Fugly blog to represent the opinions of all of America (or even of all horse owners, unfortunately!). I honestly think that most Americans either don’t care where their meat comes from, or they close their eyes and put fingers in their ears and sing “la la la la la I don’t want to know” anytime someone talks about it. Ignorance is bliss, even if the ignorance is actually just denial… But if even half the stories I’ve heard about American factory farms are true, and there continues to be no shortage of people buying it at McDonalds, criticizing these other cultures is sorta like, I don’t know, saying “we don’t accept your methods of abuse, so you’re going to have to learn how to abuse them OUR way if ya wanna stay!” (…I’m so greatful that I’m able to have pets and know that they’re safe and happy and will never know that things like evil and hatred even exist…)
I am certainly not saying tha slaughter here is perfect — obviously, there are a WHOLE lot of problems that need to be dealt with. It’s sickening that it took so long to pass laws like the one that states chickens have to be in a crate big enough for them to stand up and turn around. But, at least the goal is to make things as humane as possible. We’re slowly working towards that goal.
I am a vegetarian myself and have been ever since I was a child — I just always hated the idea of eating animals. I would certainly never tell someone else that they shouldn’t eat meat, but I personally do not feel that it is right. But, I realize that ensuring that working towards humane treatment of slaughtered animals is at least a step in the right direction.
Like I said, of course there are many slaughterhouse horror stories. However, it isn’t like we as a culture have no problem with animals being held in dirty conditions with no food or water and then made tro suffer a slow, brutal and torturous death.
nothing but the guy that runs it..
Kudos to CNN
Can I make a totally OT rant????? Along the lines of “oh we can’t afford to feed our animals because [insert random excuse]” what is UP with horsey employers and their inability to PAY THEIR WORKERS, either?! I have been employed at three stables now (typically part time) and BOTH of them have screwed me in one way or another with wages! Incidentally, the place where I had the least issues was a small, privately run breeding stables, while the two fancy schmancy huge eventing stables which paid the least were the most difficult to deal with! The first was a SW Va farm where I (STUPIDLY) agreed to farmsit for their 30+ pricey show horses (alone!) for 7$/hr then wrote me TWO rubber checks which (of course) caused me to bounce at least two OTHER checks as I wrote them. Mind you, these people live on some massive, massive old farm with a gorgeous old farmhouse and really nice facilties… but can’t even pay a decent check (and the amount isn’t even THAT high, we’re talking $300 or less total!!!). Then, another fancy place up in central Mass where I did chores daily has yet to mail me my last paycheck (from Thanksgiving week) and I finally email her and she “didn’t have my correct address” [false] and it has yet to show up. This is also an employer who got livid at me for giving her a three weeks notice that I would be leaving (for a salaried job that involved health insurance and actually USED my college degree….) telling my it was “not cool” of me to leave because I had given her a one year committment (there was nothing signed, and I was also applying to grad school, so she assumed I was taking a whole year off, but COME ON she didn’t even have to expend any effort to hire me since I sought her out OR to train me since I picked up the routine within the first day and she knew I had a COLLEGE DEGREE, WHO would pass up a real job in this economy?!?!?!?!?).
SIGH!!! so I thought this might be a decent place to rant about this subject. What is the deal?!?! Just like you can’t buy/breed 15 horses and then act all surprised that they eat constantly and cost monnneeeyyyy you can’t hire people to do extremely menial labor (ie, shoveling siht, dumping siht, sweeping siht, etc!) and then act all surprised that they might want to be COMPENSATED!!!
Take it from someone who’s boarded at a zillion upscale places and general pit-holes. It’s pretty much all the same or eventually ends up that way. With that in mind, you may want to re-think a different line of employment if you wish to be paid on a regular basis. If you stay in this line of work, expect many more disappointments. Believe me, it never changes.
“Here, you see these poor souls, the conditions they’re in and you think “why would somebody want to eat that,†meaning a thin, diseased or whatever animal.”
Would you honestly feel better eatting an animal that was happy and healthy, enjoying it’s life, raising it’s babies, then WHACK…putting it on your table and eatting it? True, it might have had a happier life up until that point you decided to kill and eat it, but it’s just as dead. It’s gone from it’s life, gone from it family, just so you can have a 10 mimute meal that you really didn’t need, but wanted to satisfy a feeling your get from your taste buds. Seems like a sad and horrific thing to do to any animal – healthy or sick, fat or thin.
Yep, I would. I’m an omnivore, and that means critters are going to die to feed me. I’d rather eat an animal that was treated well and was happy and healthy when it died than one that was sickly. Not only from the standpoint of healthier meat for me, but also because I don’t want to support people/businesses who treat animals poorly.
Talk about double standards….you’ll let someone else kill something inhumanely for you rather than going to the bother of finding a place that kills them humanely (Did you not even bother to find out that it is actually possible to kill lobster and crab humanely????)
Kirri – who the heck are you replying to? Did I say anything about where I buy meat? Or about eating shellfish?
I’m a city girl, but realistically, if you farm animals, you are going to end up with too many of them. If you farm cows for their milk, you end up with male calves. If you farm chickens for their eggs, you end up with rooster chicks, if you raise goats for milk, you end up with male kids, etc etc. The roosters will harass your hens, and fight with eachother, not to mention the male calves or kids. If you don’t eat them, you’ll end up selling them to someone who will.
Or you could euthanize them. But that costs money, sorry I forgot. You make money when you slaughter them.
Follow the money. Always just follow the money…
This probably isn’t going to make me popular here… but, I worked slaughter in college at the research abattoir. We slaughtered and processed beef, sheep, goats, hogs, etc for genetic or feed trial testing and retail sale. Granted we didn’t move at a commercial pace! Commercial cattle plant chains move at a rate typically around 1,000 to 3,000 head a day. I did intern with one of the “Big Three†beef plants and took many clients on tours of the plant. So I’m fairly well familiar with the process and the laws around it. Commercial plants are infinitely cleaner than you think; as someone who has spent substantial time in them and still eats meat!
There was nothing in that video that would pass an inspection. Multi-species slaughter is strictly forbidden; in fact, all of the equipment must be broken down and cleaned completely for a species change (that rule is what makes it difficult to find someone to process deer in most states during hunting season). Open air slaughter is not allowed at all for obvious sanitation reasons. And I also saw a shocking lack of refrigeration especially if they intend to slaughter something as large as a horse. Those carcasses commercially would be moved into a blast freezer immediately to cool all the way through before fabrication. Unless I guess they were hot boning the carcasses? That is primarily done in hog plants for sausage… Anyhow, I digress. I have seen people slaughter goats and sheep without adequate refrigeration but the shallower tissue depth means that they can be thoroughly chilled fairly quickly in a small residential size freezer (I actually was friends with a student from Africa that slaughtered a goat in his apartment every so often for his family). The laying around in mud/manure is an issue only because that is where E. coli contamination comes from. And the story of Oreo is just SICK!
I doubt the livers would check on any of these animals due to disease and drug contamination. I would say that buying some liver from them for testing should be pretty interesting to the USDA! Or better yet at the restaurant they are sold at to prove that the contamination was present that far. If the liver is bad, commercial operations can be forced to condemn the entire carcass or parts. That is a huge motivation to the feedlots to deliver healthy animals since they are generally paid on the rail. The USDA inspector checks every animal coming through a commercial plant for that reason.
Just to make myself even LESS popular… I am pro-horse slaughter. And I do believe that the slaughter ban was the worst thing that we could have ever done to horses in the US. But I believe that it pointed out a serious problem in the industry that had gone completely un-noticed for decades… over production. If we take this opportunity, as an industry, to fix those issues we could greatly reduce the supply of horses for slaughter. Slaughtering horses on a smaller scale would be much more feasible and humane. I can imagine that a horse would be a very difficult animal to slaughter; especially a wild horse and with facilities that were at best designed to accommodate cattle. If horses were slaughtered on a smaller scale at greater cost but for higher prices, more controls could be put around the process and facilities designed to handle horses in a more stress free manner could be implemented.
Sorry for the long post! Great topic and I’m glad someone is stepping up to take this issue on!! I would definitely fight it from the risk to human’s side rather than the animal welfare side… you would be a lot more likely to get a reaction from authorities. In my opinion.
Actually, I appreciate your reply because it sounds like you know what you’re talking about.
I have never been totally and completely against horse slaughter – just the way it was practiced before it ceased in the US. The descriptions people have given of European butchers – small shops, skilled kill, etc. – would make it acceptable. *I* probably wouldn’t eat it, but if the business was properly regulated and managed, I wouldn’t object. But there’s the rub – it wasn’t properly regulated or managed – and I don’t think it ever will be.
I think it says something for our society that we are affluent enough that we can be picky about animal welfare, sanitation, the meats we prefer to eat, and that there is enough nutritional food around that we can choose vegetarianism without worry. Our ancestors generally did not have this luxury.
For what it’s worth, based on my experience (my background: BS in Microbial Food Safety & MS in Applied Economics/Statistics and history working in the slaughter industry) I can’t help but think there has to be a way to develop a model around equine slaughter that would be humane and profitable. We would need to think all the way through the financial drivers and avoid unintended consequences. The LAST thing the horse market needs is a mechanism to prop up prices the low end of the market.
Here’s the problem as I see it.
There is nothing at all intrinsically evil or bad about eating horse.
I have had horses that I swear I could have eaten………not being dead was just a small problem, some days!
Anyhoo, there are now almost no human grade horse slaughter houses in the UK…there are actually now, thanks to foot and mouth and the LUNATIC way it was handled, virtually no human grade slaughter houses, full stop.
And so what is the problem?
The problem , O best beloved is, as you are just starting to realise, banning something in a specific place only means it moves elsewhere.
Back in the days when we had an abattoir in my village that took horses, the horses would be shipped a few miles.
The ILPH put a safety net in place preventing, effectively, the export of horses, alive, for slaughter.
So, if you wanted a horse put down you had three options.
1) You called the Vet.
2) You called a knacker/ local hunt
3) You took the horse to an abattoir/ called an abattoir to pick it up.
If you did the last, which was not acceptable to most people, the animal was at least treated humanely, even if it did not receive the kindnesses it was used to.
It travelled a maximum of fifty miles, tops.
It was dead within hours of leaving you.
Yes, of course, there were exceptions, but not that many.
You had a choice, you see, and if an abattoir had a bad name, you would not use it.
Nowadays, when it costs over $2,000.00 to have a horse shot and disposed of (of course you do get a box of somethings ashes back with Dobbins name on it!!) the route out of the country has reopened and horses are again going, alive, for slaughter somewhere on the continent.
Just as you have found that horses are still selling for slaughter, they are just having to go a lot further to get to a death they must be begging for by the time it comes.
What can we do?
Seal the borders.
This would take legislation of the kind that can be stopped or delayed at every turn, and will be.
Re-open the slaughter houses BUT enforce the laws ,and make sure that they are enforced , put more money into AC and give them more power.
Although this would also mean legislation, as there would be money to be made out of it, people would be more inclined to support it and less inclined to delay it for the sake of it.
If animals are treated with kindness and dignity, I really cannot see what difference it makes if they are eaten after they are dead.
If they are treated with cruelty and abuse I really cannot see what difference it makes what animal they are. What is cruelty and abuse to a horse is cruelty and abuse to a cow, end of story.
I cannot stand dual standards, and Daisy the cow can be every much as much a pet as Dobbin!
Animal cruelty and abuse is wrong and I am glad CNN is bringing the issue to the forefront. But I fear that the end result of this type of story will be a call for more “regulation” for farm slaughter (as opposed to enforcing the animal cruelty laws). I would not be surprised to see some calls to “outlaw” on-farm processing of our own animals which would be a shame because that is much more humane than driving animals to a commercial slaughter plant.
I do need to take issue with the statement that open air slaughter cannot be sanitary. When done right its actually VERY sanitary. Check out the movie “Food Inc” and Joe Salatin’s story about how he tested his on-farm, open air slaughtered chickens and Tyson’s USDA certified slaughtered chickens for bacterial count. His open air chickens had 10 times LESS bacteria than the commercial chickens from the store.
I’ve never commented before, but this topic made me want to share my story.
For several years, I have been horrified by the conditions/methods of slaughter that are employed at our nation’s slaughterhouses. However, since I loved eating beef, chicken, etc. I put the issue out of my mind, probably like many people. One day, my husband suggested we raise our own beef and chicken. That was three years ago, and we’ve had a freezer full of natural, free-range beef and chicken ever since. If you have a little extra land (we do it on four acres with three horses), it’s really quite simple… especially if you’re used to owning horses (cattle are soooo low maintenance!) Our steers pretty much eat anything the horses won’t, like weeds or the gross “bottom of the haystack bales”. We raise two steers, keeping one for ourselves and selling the other. We are lucky, however, that we still have a local butcher that comes to our property and kills the steers. Even though it’s sad (they’re like pets at this point), I remind myself that it’s so much better than the life they would have had at some agri-conglomerate feedlot. If the killing part bothers you, find a local rancher or check out craigslist/local want-ads for people selling cattle by the pound. It’s a little more work than picking up a package of t-bones at Safeway, but well worth it.
There are many local ranches that are offering this now and it’s a great option. You can’t get any better than natural, farm raised beef! You can fill out the fabrication form and have all of the meat cut to your specifications… thickness of steaks, size of roasts, number pounds in a hamburger package, which cuts you want, everything can be customized to your specifications. Steers are all humanely slaughtered on the ranch and processed locally. And you get the best beef knowing that the animals were bred to produce high quality beef (in my family’s case we have owned the maternal lines of the herd for generations), handled well, hormone free and processed humanely! Plus the money that is paid for the meat goes directly to the rancher and NOT to the beef industry infrastructure!
Part of the problem in the beef industry is the lack of accountability due to the layers of transactions between the person that owns the momma cow and the end consumer… Calves are sold to stockers then to feedlots then to fat buyers then to a processing plant. The only records that survive the transactions are the brands. So many ranchers who do things right on the momma cow operation are nominally rewarded for the extra effort they put into keeping a healthy herd.
Isn’t this a horse blog?
Yeah, but we do wander off topic at times
I’m not trying to influence anybody one way or another on this topic. What I try to do is encourage people to THINK about what they do. This is a pretty good discussion that shows that people DO think about it and weigh their options and are not just mindlessly stuffing Whoppers into their mouths.
The farm that I use for my 29 year old’s retirement care sells natural beef, for those who are interested.
http://www.webbfamilyfarms.com/buy-natural-beef.html
Yes, I think that’s the main problem- mindlessness, and huge corporations having monopolies.
Agreed. We live in a very rural area in the midwest. Cattle, sheep and hogs are everywhere. We buy all of our beef and pork from a local farmer, who delivers it to a local processer for processing. The farmer we use is a free range organic farmer (because they had children with health issues). We know how the animals are cared for and how they are slaughtered. We are supporting a local farmer and a local business, which needs to be done more. The meat is much better quality that what is in the stores, too.
Absolutely. We raise our own beef, one or two at a time, and buy our pigs from a great rancher. There is a local source for “free range chicken” but it’s over $4/lb so we have decided we’re ok with Albertson’s for that. Our fish have come directly from a high altitude, uncontaminated mountain lake. The rest of our our meat could not be more organic or local – wild game. Deer, antelope, elk… local, organic, healthy.
I was once completely against hunting, but that was when I knew next to nothing about the realities of it. I thought of it as a trophy “sport” and was slightly disgusted by the “rednecks” that were out to take down their next wall hanging. In truth, the people out hunting encompass the entire socioeconomic scale and the vast majority of those hunters do use the entire animal. Since one clean shot ensures the best and most flavorful meat, they hone their shooting skills, making the entire process much more humane than a captive bolt sometimes is.
Many do process their own deer, etc., to maintain quality control and cut down on the cost.
In short, you have humane rearing, no chemicals or hormones, and humane slaughtering. If that were the case throughout the country and for every species, I’d have no problem with Albertson’s beef or pork and I’d have no problem with the slaughter of horses. Sadly, that’s not the case.
What you are doing with your stock sounds just like what I hope to do when I get some land again (stupid economy)–raise my own animals humanely for my own consumption. Course, I had a lot of trouble actually getting to the humane killing and eating part when I had chickens–most of them lived to be very old chickens that died in their sleep. We always had lots of eggs to sell though. We ate the mean ones first, the one that went around pecking at eyes–no one missed that evil hen, and hey, they had shorter lives, but they had good ones, they always had food, and could go out and hunt bugs and take dust baths and other things chickens enjoy, rather than being stuck in a cage being crapped on by the birds above them, with their beaks and toes cut off cruelly. And chickens aren’t really bred for longetivity, their legs aren’t meant to hold up all that meat for very long on the heavier breeds. Letting them suffer was far crueler than a quick death for our dinner.
But the other thing you said was good–there are places around me that raise rare breeds of cattle on grass organically and sell the meat and have USDA certification, and are actually about the same price as the meat in local chain stores. Though in quality, the meat raised on tiny farms by a family is soooo much better. And you can drive by and they are grooming the cows, and they all look healthy and shiny and roaming free on grass, and not stuck hip to hip with their heads chained over a trough like the feedlots I can also drive by. Plus you have to wonder what all those antibiotics and hormones fed to the animals are doing to us!
I really can’t go vegan, so raising and butchering my own meat is the only way I can NOT feel guilty about eating animals.
I grew up in the country, and my mother had chickens, Rhode Island Reds because they could be butchered. There is a term chicken farmers use for “meat birds” though I don’t think that’s it. But RIRs are substantial birds and have enough “meat on their bones” to make them good for eating.
My mother chopped off their heads, and I helped pluck off the feathers. It was just “what we did.”
The key for me was not to NAME any of the chickens. Once it has a name, that’s it. It becomes a pet and will live a long and happy life, sharing my address ;o)
Oh we had a gander named Eric, one year.
I killed him for Christmas.
Christmas day we had Roast Eric.
Boxing day we had cold Eric and ham buffet.
Next day we had Eric Soup, then Eric sandwiches.
This, btw, was the kids ,doing this, not me!!
I kept my head down and tried to smile at all the people they insisted on telling…….
Yep, we have had Boo-Boo burgers, Walter burgers, T-Rock burgers, and will now have Stanley and Skully burgers. Our guys are very well taken care of, and are as much a pet as a 1200 lbs un mannered animal can be. They are raised with love and yes, consumed with love. We make sure they do not consume anything we would not want to eat. You would be AMAZED at what is considered foodstuff for beef. The beef pellet that my grain mill carries, contains BEEF-BYPRODUCT, ANIMAL FAT and RUMINATE BONE MEAL….GROSS. What do Stanley and Skully eat? Alfalfa, corn, soy and minerals.
I’d be much happier if I had the time, knowledge and facilities to kill and butcher my own meat animals. Then I could be ABSOLUTELY SURE that they had a humane, painless, and respectful and dignified death.
Eating animals dosn’t bother me. The animal doesn’t care what happens to its carcass after it dies. It’s what happens BEFORE that death that’s important to me. I want those animals to have a good life and a merciful and painless death. And then yep, I’ll keep on enjoying my burgers.
My grandparents had a one-acre farm. On that one acre, they managed to raise enough fruit, veggies, meat, milk and eggs to feed a family of five. I don’t expect to ever do that, but I’ve been trying to figure out where to fit a second freezer so that I can buy meat from small farms (I’ve already got one freezer full of raw meat for my dogs). I already pay a premium by shopping at a local natural foods co-op that carries fresh foods from small farms.
As there seems to be an approaching critical mass in the US and other developed countries of “knowing where your food came from” and “the hundred mile diet” (e.g. “locavore diets”) and increasing vegetarian/vegan plus organic (either organic vegetarian or all-organic for omnivores) I’d share this. I am mostly organic vegetarian with the occasional foray into wild-caught fish but my SO is definitely a meat eater. We compromise by buying poundage from the same local farmer who raises our horse hay; he is “transitioning” to organic and is in I believe the final year before he hopefully gets his Oregon Tilth certification, one of the best organic certifications available as the rules are very, very stringent. I can’t believe the wonderful lives his cows lead (but he does not name them, that’s a slippery slope….)
Organic or close-to: costly.
Strictly organic vegetarian: even more costly and oh so time-consuming (added expense: wonderfully addictive organic vegetarian cookbooks!)
Guilt free consumption of food from known / excellent sources: PRICELESS.
I would like to add another option to your poll. I would raise and slaughter the animals myself because I would know that they were raised and treated in a kind and healthy manner. No unnecessary suffering, no drugs or chemicals that could be harmful to those consuming the meat.
I have to say there are a lot of things I would never do myself but this won’t make me stop having it done. Surgeries, drawing my kids’ blood, giving them shots.
I grew up pretty poor, I remember my father shooting deer illegally out of season because we were so hungry, of course I don’t condone this now! But my family does eat meat and I am an animal lover, I do want to know that the animals lived a good life and were killed humanely. For this reason we have a freezer filled with a cow that came from the place we board out. They live a very good life, very healthy. We also have a pig that was raised by a friend. I know in vegetarians eyes this still isn’t any better, but I believe it is.
As for the cultural thing, having lived in areas with Filipinos and Vietnamese, along with having Hispanic in laws, yeah, this is pretty much the norm. And now they get to hide behind “it’s our culture!” When they beat dogs to death because it makes their meat taste better because their adrenaline is going crazy, and just steal dogs from neighbors because they see it as food and not a pet. Until we define that you move to this country, you live by our rules, I think this sickness will continue. But God bless the organization CNN covered! Except in the case of my family starving, in which case I will euthanize my old boy (the equine one that is!), my horses are with me for life.
Delurking to add that the best way to vote with your dollars, if you feel that the way animals are raised for meat is inhumane, is to find a small farmer that you trust and buy your meat from that family. I totally respect people who feel they cannot eat another animal, and in fact I was a vegetarian for ten years (and vegan for part of that time as well). I came to feel that the reason I didn’t want to eat meat was not that I had a belief that eating meat was wrong, but that I couldn’t live with the environmental and animal welfare consequences of buying meat from a huge commercial producer.
I have found folks in my area that I agree with and am happy to purchase their food. In some cases, our family has been to the facilities and has seen that cows eat grass, chickens live outside with places to scratch and forage, pigs have their tails and a place to wallow, etc. It’s not just meat, either. Vegetarians are NOT SAFE EITHER. Food safety is a serious issue with all types of food. I switched to buying produce from a local organic producer after I recovered from e coli 0157:H7, which I contracted from commercial bagged spinach. I was one of the very lucky people who got that infection and did not die. I used to be the kind of person who ignored food warnings, but now I never will.
I would never condemn a person who has an honest belief that they could not eat another animal. Those people should be and usually are vegetarians and they are living a healthy lifestyle with which they can be comfortable. BUT, if you are a staunch meat-eater who doesn’t like how their food is raised, or if you are flirting with the idea of vegetarianism because of environmental issues and animal welfare, the best way to change the system is to support small farmers who treat their animals humanely.
Most small producers, like most good horse breeders, will allow you to come to their facility, ask them questions, and look around. And they appreciate your business MUCH MORE than your area Wal-Mart.
OK, even if im living under a bridge eating my last can of cat food and some one offers to give me one of these animals I wouldnt take it….Well not to eat anyways. The bleeding heart in me would try to rescue it and turn it over to a real rescue. But they dont know what kind of immunizations these animals have had or if any testing has been done on them….they could have been injected with some weird disease and you are eating it to save a few bucks!!!
I have killed chickens for food, the right way is so quick that the body doesnt realize its dead yet. It still makes me squeemy, but I love chicken. I also love crab, but I cant bring myself to put a live thing in a pot of boiling water. I make red lobster do it for me, LOL!
I actually am working on learning to hunt and will then be butchering my own meat. I think it’d be great if everybody had to at least walk through a slaughterhouse and see animals being slaughtered in order to continue eating meat. Personally, I don’t have much of a problem with the animals dying — they are designed to fit into the food chain, after all — but I have a big problem with the way in which they are kept and bred. Wild game is much healthier for you to eat and IMO, having to hunt for your own food makes you not take it for granted so much and would probably make us cut down on the amount of meat that we eat. First-world countries consume an incredible amount of meat — we seem to feel that we need a slab of animal with every meal — and if everybody just cut their consumption of meat in half, we’d all be better off.
Sixty years ago people ate to survive. Today we survive to eat, and just about anything we want, when we want. That’s where I have a personal issue. If your chowing down on animal flesh for basic nutrition/health, I don’t have a problem with that. If your sitting in some quaint, snazzy, up-scale restaurant for your forth meal of the day chomping down on horse thigh, sipping wine. That, in my view, is wasteful. Sixty years ago we gave thanks for the food we ate, today we Supersize it.
I can’t explain it but there’s a gut gnawing feeling I get when I know animals are killed on assembly lines for excessive consumption. It just doesn’t sit well.
Meh. Ok, so I know how upsetting some of the shots were in this video, but really, several of them showed normal weight, fairly clean animals lounging about. There was the one really dirty lot in there, but several OK looking facilities. Don’t be fooled into thinking that large scale, legal operations are always much better. And do you really think that animals at *any* slaughterhouse have these mythical pain-free, respectful and merciful deaths we dream of? Or that supermarket meat is any more safe?
Nonsense.
Having said all that, I eat meat. I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford meat from small nearby farms, one of which I work on one day a week. The pigs there have a decent enough life. They grow up in groups of four to six in indoor/outdoor pens big enough for them to root around and stay clean. The farm manager knows how to slaughter and butcher his animals, but he can’t due to USDA regulations. When the day comes, they have to load up into a trailer for the first time in their young lives and head off to a regular slaughterhouse, which can be many, many hours away. The same slaughterhouses that the factory farmed pigs are processed at, in the same industrial, fast-paced, imperfect way. So I’m delighted to know that the meat I eat spent 95% of its life in relative comfort, but have no illusions about the end.
What we really need government to do is to allow, license and inspect small scale facilities. Decentralize, allow people who know what they’re doing to process animals so they don’t have to be trucked for 10, 24, 48 hours to meet their fate, so that more people can actually be connected to the process, the farmer and the animal. There’s always going to be an underbelly, but at least give people a chance to do things right, clean and legal. The rules as they are now just strengthen factory farming, discourage small, sustainable production and are in general, asinine.
Agreed, decentralize.
Clearly, you have never lived in Miami! It’s a whole other world down here.
Agreed on the regulations. Read “The Onmivore’s Dilemma”. I’m pretty sure it was in there that the author told the tale of a small farmer who built a state-of-the-art processing setup for slaughtering/processing his own livestock. He followed all of the rules about materials, cleanliness, etc. But found out when it was done that he could not use it to process livestock that would be sold to the public – because the gov requires that all such facilities be inspected, and will only inspect facilities over a certain size.
Agree so much. But so-called animal rights leaders are not for some reason I just don’t understand. Here is an effort from a local group in Northern California to establish a
Link did not come through <a href="http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/eat-local-kill-local"
here.
I only eat poultry and seafood. Grew up in family that raised and killed own meat. Don’t think I could or would kill another mammal, but not as warm and cuddly further down the evolutionary ladder! I just read The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend, a Christmas gift from my vegetarian daughter. Author raises sheep, argues we have a moral obligation to seek meat that has been humanely raised and slaughtered. Her letter to her lambs (prior to slaughter) is touching and well-thought out. Basically, there would not be as many domestic animals if we did not eat them. Temple Grandin used the same argument. And I am so over “honoring other cultures” when it comes to basic common sense. If you are here, you follow American laws. Which should be enforced for all. Reading Joe Shelton’s description of Mexican Rodeos really reenforces my outrage on this point. And the latest terrorist plane attempt, this guy is on a watch list, buys a ONE-WAY ticket with CASH, has NO LUGGAGE, EXCUSE ME!!! I could have figured out he needed aggressive security minimal, if not an outright “no plane flight for you”.
Check out the NYT Sunday Modern Love section. A horse crazy Mom’s story, told from her non-horse crazy son’s point of view. Sorry for long post.
Oh, I’d learn to do it all right. Man, nothing like a nice juicy burger!
And oh, gosh, I hate to disagree so much but I do know of one creature that deserves to be there! The Weinie Bomber!
this just makes me so sad and outraged.. most of the people who buy from those markets supposedly came here looking for a better life. Why do they try to re-create the misery and suffering they fled from? You can go to the grocery and buy porkchops, you don’t need to drive out into some hot, dirty swamp and buy a diseased hog from a bunch of heartless criminals. You don’t need to slaughter a horse that YOU KNOW was probably someone’s pet. I’ve been reading and hearing stories out of Miami of horse owners finding their animals butchered in their pastures. Its disgusting.
I know times are tough, but christ.. not an excuse.
Great point- they come here for “a better life”, then why do they insist on having their “culture” and re-creating poverty ways of life?
There’s no poll option for “I’m a vegetarian now but would eat meat again if I could afford to get it from a reputable small farmer or was in a position where I could control the life of the animal myself from birth to humane slaughter.”
You need to see this ad on craigslist: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/grd/1528469715.html
Some idiot is selling a symptomatic HYPP N/H mare IN FOAL, which is bad enough, AND is claiming it’s just fine to ride her! Here’s the text of the ad:
AQHA Halter Mare in Foal – $1800 (sonoma)
——————————————————————————–
Date: 2009-12-28, 8:26PM PST
Reply to: sale-unptd-1528469715@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
——————————————————————————–
2000 sorrel AQHA mare in foal to Jack Brizendine’s stallion Sierramus for 2010. Mare is an own daughter of Ace High Cool out of the proven mare Miss Wallaby Tardy. She is HYPP N/H and is symptomatic on Alfalfa when not pregnant, although she manages well with 10cc Lasix 2x month. Good mare, loves attention, GREEN BROKE and has tons of potential as a riding mare. Contrary to what some people will tell you, riding HYPP N/H’s is actually good for them as it allows them to work the potassium out of their system. Management of their diet (no Alfalfa) also limits their chances of episodes. The stud fee for Sierramus alone is $1,500. You can sell her baby when the market comes back and pay for the mare altogether. Asking $1,800 OBO, will trade within reason, but prefer to deal with a breeder with experience with HYPP mares. This is a good horse, she deserves a good home.
I love that “when the market comes back.” But you’re supposed to pay too much for the mare NOW!
It may be that exercise is good for the horses. I’m just not sure hitting the ground when they have an attack is good for the riders!
This is one of the reasons I don’t eat any meat besides the animals we raise ourselves, and 4-H projects slaughtered in respectable LEGAL slaughterhouses. It is just so wrong, I just can’t comprehend how people can purchase meat just by looking how miserable looking the animals and how unsanitary the whole place is. Just watching this video makes me want to become a vegetarian.
CNN finally did something right. I commend the man fighting these illegal slaughterhouses and hope that something gets done. And I hope that he stays safe with him being on tv like that–cause now they know his face.
One more thing to add, I’ve seen animal markets and butchers in person in Mexico, Morocco, China and in several countries in SE Asia that are open air, yes, but just as clean as any in the USA. I have pretty right-leaning ideas on immigration, but there are plenty of born-here Americans doing the same damn thing.
One of my neighbors growing up had a herd of cows. They had two barns near the rode that were clean and well-kept. But they also had barns well off the road, behind a stand of trees that were dark, falling down and were NEVER mucked. You walked uphill into them to find cows and veal babies who’d never been outside wallowing in filth. And most of us probably know people who have illegally dumped or buried carcasses and guts (deer season, anyone??).
Don’t get me wrong… Mexican rodeos, cock fights, horse meat, dog meat, whatever… you want that, go back to where you came from. Don’t let the door hit ya.
Honestly everyone should check out the movie “Food Inc” It’s avaialble as a live stream over the internet from Netflix. It really makes you think about where your food comes from. Be warned that there is a sequence of scenes of chickens being slaughtered, but I didn’t find it overly graphic, and the slaughter was very humane. They were slaughtered under tents, and the guy running the place said when the USDA tried to get him shut down for “unsanitary conditions” becuase there were no walls, he had them tested and his chickens had less contaminants on them than commercial chicken from the store had.
I’ve been veg since the age of 3, when I realized that turkey was a turkey. My parents were confused but ultimately supportive.
My parents buried our first equine casualty, and one years later. Others were sent to the renderers after humane euthanasia (or in one case sudden death). Old, unrideable, crazy, or otherwise unsuitable horses were not sent to slaughter, were not sold along, were not dumped. My parents aren’t rich but they worked hard to do the right thing. Every animal lived out its life, and nobody had to face the double-decker to Carvel. We lived in a state with two equine slaughter plants. Sending our equine companions to slaughter was unthinkable. I didn’t speak to my parents for days when they sent my beloved pony to the renderer. I know why they did it, but I have never been comfortable with it.
For a while, we had chickens and rabbits. The chickens mostly killed each other – they were too damn mean to fall to hawks or coyotes. Our chickens never crossed our table. Eggs seldom made it to the table either, since I was super fussy about “killing” fertilized eggs. The progenitors of our chicken flock were Easter mall display chicks. Our first two rabbits (both male) were Easter mall bunnies. The rabbits died of natural causes or got eaten by local predators.
I get that people eat animals. My husband drools while watching Animal Planet. He wants to know how everything tastes.
I get that some slaughter methods are less traumatic for the animal, and apparently less trauma equals better taste. Less trauma also means more expense.
I’m anti-slaughter. I think eating animals is wrong. I feel that eating semi-intelligent animals which have bonded with people is super extra wrong, but I can’t give you a rational reason why. I’m grossed out and sad when people eat cows, but I’m horrified when people eat dolphins and horses (especially since dolphin meat reportedly tastes foul and is often toxic – what a waste). I suppose if you are going to kill animals for food you should do it with the least amount of suffering, though the whole idea is repugnant to me. If you are comfortable with killing and eating pets, then I’m not going to stand in your way. I’ll just have to do my best to keep my pets safe and help out where I can.
If you feel that you’re doing the right thing then by all means carry on. If you are squeamish or unhappy when you think about slaughter but are happy enough to eat meat or send animals to slaughter then it might be time to face some tough choices. A dear friend of mine recently switched from omnivore to vegan after watching a slaughterhouse video. He’s not a tree-hugger, he just saw something he could no longer support.
Thank you CNN and Cathy for getting the word out. I’ve often wished I could believe in Hell so I could be sure Very Bad Things would happen to people who abuse animals.
My husband often likes to discuss vat-grown meat and its suitability for vegetarians and observant members of various religions. I say it’s a step in the right direction but I’m still not gonna eat flesh.
Snarkysnark, I am a demon for food safety. I wash everything, use separate knives and cutting boards for raw and cooked foods, and am careful what I buy. I’ll probably get tainted greens at some point, but it won’t be through inattention.
To address a few other points … I believe in respect for the dead even though they’re no longer present, I don’t visit mummies or human remains at museums, I got my Environmental Studies (Marine Mammals focus) degree without dissecting anything, I ate a variety of critters when I was young, I think the horse overpopulation problem should be addressed by breeding less and injecting birth control in mustangs, I don’t cook or buy flesh for others, I do feed my carnivorous pets the appropriate foods, I do not feed my herbivorous pets animal-derived foods or supplements, I do eat eggs and non-rennet dairy products (though I’m lactose-intolerant), I’m not a member of PETA, and I don’t try to force my beliefs on others. I hugged a tree once. It was scratchy.
ZebraNeighbor, I just wanted to let you know that your post was truly enlightening. From someone who isn’t a vegetarian, I must say that was a very well thought out post and it really made me think. I will also mention that it is so nice to actually read people’s views without others criticizing or being nasty to each other.
To those of you who are able to purchase from small local farmers, I envy you. Many of us don’t have that luxury, and I only wish I did. I’m from the interior of Alaska and I am no hunter by any stretch of the imagination
Go figure eh? Though I have enjoyed the labors of my hunting friends from time to time, it’s not the norm. I am now thinking to myself..really..if I had to shoot a moose..could I? I don’t think I could. I really don’t.
Thank you for giving me something to really think about.
Zebraneighbor, I love your comments =) You said “A dear friend of mine recently switched from omnivore to vegan after watching a slaughterhouse video. He’s not a tree-hugger, he just saw something he could no longer support.” This reminds me of one of the most touching and memorable things I’ve ever heard face to face. I was relatively new to being a vegetarian at the time and I met this guy (I can’t remember how, friend of a friend or something) who was a vegan and had a few other vegan/vegetarian friends. He invited me over for dinner one time and he and his friends fixed up a few vegan recipes for me to try and gave me a few books on veganism to read. They were the first other vegetarians I had met since I’d become one. Something felt weird about the situation; he was an engineer student, clean cut executive type, everything in his apartment was very, hmm, contemporary looking? And then I realized– no pets, no animal related anything, no incense burning, no psychodelic peace signs, etc. I asked “so why are you a vegan, do you just really like animals, or health reasons, or what?” He got an awkward look on his face like he gets asked this a lot, and his friends smiled and laughed, and he said “No, actually, I am really not fond of animals. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t enjoy being around them. But, just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I should feel okay about it having to suffer.” That’s something I will never forget. So many people choose to advocate for things that hit close to home for them based on their own personal experiences, but how many people make a lifestyle change for something they dont even like, just because they know it’s the right thing to do? When he told me that, it actually inspired me to start considering other controversial topics that I’d never had any experience with and educate myself. I was friends with him for about a month and then left for college and lost touch. I wonder if he has any idea that one statement in our month long friendship would have such an impact! Ha! =) BTW my husband is also curious about lab meat. He’s a vegetarian but eats fish but he told me as soon as they come out with a lab meat burger he’s getting one! Me? Nah… I’ve done fine without them for the past 13 years, they don’t even smell good to me anymore…
My nane is Kudo and am fighting the slaughter farms in miami…wanted to thank all of u for saying such nice things about what im doing…not getting much support in Miami…Thank You again
Thank you for stopping by – it’s an honor!
Anytime you need some support, come on by. We all love what you are doing and respect you enormously for getting involved.
Kudo, I’m in Miami. Let me know what I can do to help.
And thank you so much for the fighting the good fight! Goodness knows we need it down here.
I’m going to have to say it here as it insists the poll has ‘expired’ for me.
I would absolutely learn to kill and process an animal for my own consumption. I have fed animals and then eaten them later, but never actually taken part in the slaughtering and butchery. But I would.
I feel there is nothing wrong with eating meat, but I do worry about the methods used to mass produce meat. And I think that a lot of Americans could stand to eat less…not just meat, mind, but less period.
I would love to buy my meat from small farmers, but it’s not a cost issue for me. It’s a time issue. I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s market when it’s 60 minutes each way, and that’s too long to carry the stuff without ice. I’d have to buy a car…
I guess we all make our compromises.
My family and I already raise our own beef, pork, and chicken and we have for years (since before I was born). I’ve never had store-bought meat except for when I eat at restaurants.
You’re my hero. Seriously, I wouldn’t have the nerve or stomach to do what you do, but, I’m very very respectful and supportive that you’re doing it.
You might be unpleasantly surprised if you attend a cattle auction locally here in Washington or Oregon. Some of the old crippled and dirty Holsteins coming off the dairies and being bought by slaughterhouses to be made into meat pies and the like are just as bad. They are jammed as tightly as possible into the trailer and ride that way sometimes hundreds of miles. Many cows, pigs and chickens do not survive the trip to the slaughterhouse and those are processed and used for something too, dog food? If we knew and SAW all the horrendous practices that are a part of the meat industry and the filth and contamination that the meat is subject to, I doubt many would be left to eat it. Buying from small farms makes more sense all the time.
The dairy industry is its own special kind of hell.
The statement that “Many cows, pigs and chickens do not survive the trip to the slaughterhouse†is flatly wrong. I have spent a good deal of time in large commercial processing plants for all species. The transport loss is very low. Which makes sense if you follow the financial drivers, most feedlots are paid for fat cattle they ship on the rail based on carcass weight. This motivates them to make sure that animals survive transport and are in a healthy condition when they are harvested so they yield well. I think the image you have in your mind is of a “salvage plant†that is taking in old or crippled animals. I still doubt that *many* fail to survive transport (I have been to a few “cow plants†and I have not seen this). Animals that are too ill to slaughter or are condemned are processed into several by-products that end up in all sorts of feed. Bone, blood and feather meal are used in many feeds, EVEN HORSE FEEDS! Read labels if you want to avoid those because it’s a quick cheap protein. I can go into more detail of the process if you are intersted…
Again I know and have seen (and participated in) these “horrendous practices†and I think most people would be amazed at how clean and efficient commercial slaughter really is.
But I am totally in favor of the vote with your dollars practice and supporting small family farms is MY preference. I appreciate the financial drivers that are created by this practice. When you buy most items at the grocery store less than one penny out of every dollar goes to the farmer that grew the crop and practiced the sustainable, humane agriculture. If you buy from a family farm you are rewarding their good behavior and often getting a better more healthy product in return.
I’m curious, what is the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan? I guess I could google it…
In a perfect world, I would be hunting and gathering as nature intended. Factory farming is, in my opinion, the root of all evil. There’s just something so very wrong with nurturing another creature with the absolute intent of eating it.
Small, organic, free-range farming is a step in a better direction, and this is how I try to buy meat and produce. But it still just strikes me as wrong.
And lest vegans and vegetarians feel too self-righteous, even plants possess what you might think of as “the will to live”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?_r=1
Just tossing this up here in case anyone is interested, another case of a free uncatchable animal though this one is a donkey
http://austin.craigslist.org/grd/1529545807.html
If anyone is interested, here are some books I recommend that might help you learn more about food animals.
Animals in Translation by Temple Gardin (although I MUST be honest–I had to put the book down and walk away from it when she said that all horses with blue eyes are crazy. That is a LOAD OF SHIT, and it totally ruined my respect for her. Two of the safest riding horses I know have blue eyes. But now that I’ve thought about it, it’s probably because of her autism that she thinks this way. My mare has two blue eyes and she’s crazy, but only because her sire was the same way. He had brown eyes.)
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (I haven’t read it yet, but am excited to!)
For the poll, I already don’t eat meat and haven’t for 11 years. It’s because I love animals too much to eat them. But I don’t mind if others want to. I just think that if we went away from the typical slaughterhouses that scare the cows and produce chemicals that we end up eating and stop pumping the animals full of hormones then we’d have a healthier society overall. And no animal deserves to suffer the way chickens do when they’re processed.
Temple is an amazing person. I have been fortunate enough to hear her speak on several occasions and spend some time with her… She has been a miracle worker to the cattle slaughter industry. Her ability to walk through the plants and identify areas that need to be adjusted is truly a gift.
The blue eye comment has nothing to do with her autism! OMG that is an ignorant statement! That sentiment has been around for AGES. It’s an old west culture thing but I know many people who still harbor that sentiment. I know trainers that won’t take them on. And I know paint breeders that have to sell top end bred paints at considerable discounts simply because of blue eyes. The old western theory was that the vision in the blue eyes was impaired.
Temple Grandin may know cows – but she doesn’t know horses or dogs. I also have a copy of “Animals in Translation” and was horrified by some of the absurd “facts” that she quoted in there. I didn’t chalk the errors up to her autism, but to lazy editors and no one wanting to question her.
Sounds like someone didn’t like the facts…maybe a pit bull fan. BAWW.
Kind of OT but I’m really interested to hear people what people have to say about about lab grown food, it is a field i’m currently in school for. and in fact next week my tissue culture II class is trying it out, chinese hamster steaks anyone?
Aquila,
It’s interesting theoretically, but I’m not at all interested in eating anything that comes out of a petri dish. Chemicals, fillers, by-products and freaking corn-syrup have gotten us where we are today–too many overweight and unhealthy people. Why bother trying to re-create what nature already does perfectly on her own?
We have more than enough food on this planet for everyone, it’s the distribution that’s broken by war, governments and the greedy.
Heres a spin on things…
Id be more happy to own animals, feed them up and slaughter them myself or use a home kill person that had a really good shot.
This way the animal would be well cared for, id know what was in it and id know that it died standing eating its favourtie food, never constrained to small paddocks or enduring abuse of any kind.
Ive had to kill some sick animals (calves, i worked on a dairy farm). Healthy animals would be abit harder, but all in all i eat meat.
I think its irresponsible to eat meat and think it only comes “from a packet.” It dosnt. I think that if you can eat that burger you should atleast go to a slaughterhouse and see how tha animal is killed. If you think its OK then keep eating it.
I had to go to a slaughterhouse, the only thing i can say thats bad about it is the holding pens. Theres various sexes of animals in there, crammed and often still trying to attain a pecking order. The actual kill (here in NZ) is so humane i thought id rather go that way than the possibilities that could happen to me ie. cancer, accident etc. I walked away absolutely serene knowing they went through no pain.
But then again my heels are sunken into the real world, unlike some fairies that think watching your food die means your a monster. Someone has to do it. If you dont like it, no-ones forcing you to eat it.
Ofcourse if you dont eat meat, thats up to you. I have no issues with vegetarions, vegans and the various other forms or a meat-free life.
What makes me sad is when meat is wasted and thrown away. I life was spent for that, use everything that you can.
What’s the killing process like in NZ?
It seems that it could be humane here in the USA too, but the pace at which the unskilled, low paid labor is forced to go at means there are many, many mistakes made. Cows aren’t yet dead when they’re skinned, pigs aren’t yet dead when they’re dunked in hot water to remove their hair and so on… Transportation is a nightmare because god forbid should a truck leave with even an inch of space on it.
The only thing I’ve killed so far was a rooster. He was a really friendly roo, but we can’t have them here in the ‘burbs, so he had to go. It was sad, that final transition part where he gave up and life left. I had no problem eating him afterward knowing that his life was OK, the end was quick and we were thankful for him and what he provided.
WTF you do realise that when an animal has been killed it can take a few minutes for the nerves to escape the body? Not one animal that has been stunned or bolted (correctly) is still alive.
In NZ theyr stunned, the floor drops and they roll onto a table where their head is instantly cut right back so theres just a flap of skin holding onto their head. They then get hung by a back leg and it took about 3 minutes until they went into the next room for processing.
When the cows head/throat is slip then they are dead. They still fidget around whilst hung but i can guarantee that thing is gone. Theres enough staff and the processs dosnt leave anything out. Also a licenced vet must be around to check the killings and to also check the carcass for any medications.
You need to harden up to the real world im sorry.
Death isnt the same as movies, theres alot of movement until the muscles and nerves give in.
Good lord, simmer down. I was asking a serious question about what the process is like in NZ. I don’t know if it’s as industrialized as it is here where we rely on low paid, unskilled immigrant labor in mega-huge processing centers. The insane pace of work that is set leads to mistakes being made including animals NOT being correctly bolted.
We have a severe shortage of food animal vets too, so there’s not 100% coverage at every facility. The labor is unskilled and these companies don’t spend a whole lot to train anyone. There’s no health insurance and as immigrants, they often don’t speak English and have no idea what labor laws are. If they get sick or injured, that’s fine, the companies just truck in more laborers.
I’m well aware of what death looks like, I just was inquiring about the situation in your country to you know, maybe learn something new. No need to be flippant.
OT:
Yet another craigslist special.
link: http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/grd/1530031462.html
Text: Andalusian horse for breeding – $800 (yakima)
White Andalusian horse for stud. His trail drags on the ground 2 feet and his main did go down to his knees but was trim to his chest. $800 for non Andalusian and $1,600 for full Andalusian mares. Also have Andalusian and Aztecas for sale, call for more info (509)985-2313
Location: yakima
Yeah, “white” studs with long “mains” and tails will get us lined up with our mares and our $1600 checks.
That’s quite the back-drop he’s got going with the spare tires and all. What a well thought out advertisement. Yep… Nice setup. You know your getting a quality breeding. Dare I say, right on the spot?
If it came down to it I would rather raise my own meat than buy things I -knew- were inhumanely slaughtered, but better half is a butcher so it would have to be him doing the killing. I just couldn’t do it. I mean, to me, if you’re raising this animals, and sometimes they die of old age, you eat them still, right? Why let it go to waste? So why not eat your cat when it dies of old age? Does cat just not taste good? It’s too logical a jump, for me, and one I would never be willing to make. I’ll eat “food” animals, as long as they’re taken care of. It’s an unfortunate result of my natural state of being an omnivore.
That being said, I don’t eat a lot of meat, and what we do buy is nationally reputable and/or local (better half being a butcher helps with that).
What I’d love to see is test tube meat. Oh hell yes! I have no problem with eating something that’s genetically engineered as long as it is comparably safe with what we have now, and it has a lot of possibilities… engineer meat to be just as bulky as cows grown with hormones without the hormones, make cuts leaner, all kinds of things. I have no problem with someone growing a side of beef in a lab. We could feed more people, and use less land.. to me it would be wonderful. Yes, there are some down sides, but there are some down sides to even humane/personal slaughter. Again, as long as it’s better/safer than what we have currently, I’m all for it.
If I was not married to my hubby, I wouldn’t buy any meat at all. Occasionally, when i was single and lived alone, I’d have some fish..but usually existed on vegetables and brown rice. I was much healthier then, and thinner, I might add. but the hubby jokes, if he wants a steak, he goes out to a restaurant for it. Visit the morgue..enough said.
Agree. I’m a vegetarian, myself, but I think subsistence (not sport) hunting is much more humane than factory farming.
My only beef with hunters is when the politics of predator “management”. Natural predators influence the ecosystem in much more different and beneficial way than humans do. Reintroduction of wolves at Yellowstone, for example, has been very positive to a wide range of species.
I digress. A wild animal killed with a clean shot by an ethical hunter has a much better life than a turkey, pig or laying hen.
ThoughtfulHorseman, I wish I could just eat fruit (which is pretty much begging to be eaten and doesn’t kill the plant). Unfortunately I am allergic to a lot of fruits and really the human digestive system isn’t equipped for the fructivore plan. I tried it for a while and it was really unpleasant. Instead, I tell people I just really hate potatoes as a species and they deserve to die one by one. Preferably in oil.
My core belief is this: Try not to hurt anything, unless you really want to. If I kill an organism it is with full intent. I deliberately kill a lot of bacteria and some fire ants. I drown a lot of dust mites in the washing machine. I try to avoid incidental damage to plants, animals, algaes, etc. I don’t eat yoghurt but I do use yeast. I am kind to houseplants.
I am not a righteous or holy person. I am cruel when I should be forgiving. I mock the stupid and the spelling-impaired. I forget to pay the utility bills on time.
Last night I butchered and ate five carrots and didn’t even apologize. I did thank them for being delicious though.
You mentioned owners who would see their horses in the video and know they’d been killed – here’s a happyish ending.
A trainer in Davie saw two horses she’d trained in the photos of the CNN article and went down there and took them back. One of the horses was later euthanized, but the other is recovering.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/emaciated-horses-rescued-from-miami-dade-farm-155185.html
Just thought you might like an update.
We raise and slaughter our own chickens. We did painstaking research before determining the best way to “off” them. We raise a steer every other year but we use a USDA certified slaughter facility so the butchering is done properly. It is difficult to kill anything larger than a chicken.
I agree that slaughter should be more humane. From what I know (not a whole lot), it’s the transport that is worst, then the killing chutes. I root for butcher trucks to come and slaughter on the spot; no more trailer rides. And it would be good to have slaughter plants on site at feedlots. And I reiterate that the steers on the feedlot that I pass every time I go to town look comfortable and happy. The feedlot looks and smells awful – but that’s a *human* point of view.
But beware of the propaganda.
I’ve seen one of the videos of abuse of cattle at a slaughterhouse. I looked at more than just the suffering cows, and figured out that a lot of selective editing was done. Lots of cuts and lots of changed shadows proved that the abuse took place over a much longer time than the editors want you to think it did. And there were shots of the same incident from different angles, to make you think that more animals were being abused. Shots of the same incident were cut up and edited to split them up, again making you think one steer was several different ones.
I’m not defending abuse. I am attacking the fundamental dishonesty of the “animal rights” movement. It’s not an isolated incident. I know of many others. I have no respect for them. They will use any means to get to their end, which is no interaction between humans and any animals at all. Think about that. Imagine turning our pampered pets out to fend for themselves. Result: “nature, red in tooth and claw” will take care of them, without euthanasia. And nature will revert to her usual methods of population control: the cycle of plentiful food, then overpopulation, then depleted food, then death by starvation and illness. For some reason the AR goons think that is better than the care humans can provide.
As for the small organic farms, they are not self-supporting in general. They mostly belong to people who have jobs outside the farm. America cannot continue to be the “breadbasket of the world” if we all go organic.
Real organic farming (growing food plants) uses about twice as much land as modern methods. This is because organic fertilizers don’t work as well as “chemical” ones, and pests take their toll, and so does spoilage. And if one uses modern machinery to cultivate, many small animals are killed, their “homes” destroyed, their habitat lost. Plus the produce is “dirtier,” since the only fertilizer is manure, which comes from critters with a good load of intestinal parasites, because worming them is inorganic.
Ruthie, ranting again
I am so glad this is being brought to national media. More people not in the industry need to know what is going on.
StPetersGal- Actually, yes, the butcher does come out to the farm but he uses the proper equipment and loads the carcass up in his freezer truck to age it out at the slaughterhouse. The trip would be tougher for the steers we raise because we only do one at a time.
We are an organic farm but we don’t sell anything publicly. Bartering or giving away is allowed but to sell, you have to jump through some odd hoops.
Here on California’s Central Coast, I know quite a few organic farmers who make their livings from it. The organic certification requires some record keeping and hoop jumping, but not so much that it prevents farmers from making that step if they desire. I do know a woman who is raising sheep for meat and dairy who is bringing her acreage, which was totally beat out from conventional farming, into organic certification. It’s a slow and expensive process, but in the end, those acres which were dumping tons of topsoil from run-off will eventually support her sheep.
As others have said, it’s all tied together: know where your food comes from, support local, sustainable, organic, and humane. Our local organic is a lot cleaner than conventional, maybe because more attention is being paid to the process, not just the end result?