[prakruti] Downer Cows: Whose Fault?

May 9, 2008

At 09:24 PM 5/8/08, you wrote:

cohensmilk1

05/05/08 11:34:11

notmilk

NOTMILK - Downer Cows: Whose Fault?

Downer Cows: Whose Fault?

What is a downer cow?

A downer cow is a cow that falls down and cannot get up.

A cow that has walked in the evening, and cannot walk again

the next morning.

A downer cow is an animal in pain. She lays down for one

of two reasons. Either her bones no longer support her

weight, or her brain is unable to send the proper signals

to coordinate her movements.

When a cow goes down at her dairy farm, the dairyman can no

longer send her to auction or to commercial slaughter. His

choices are to slaughter her, euthanize and bury her, or

call the renderer.

Each year, more than 200,000 dairy cows become downer

cows, according to the New York Times (May 1, 2008). Many

people are familiar with downer cows as a result of recent

publicity surrounding the 143 million pound meat recall

resulting from video footage filmed by Humane Society

employees working undercover. See:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SWmAJlwLnQI (53 seconds)

Some (not all) cows that become downer cows do so because

their brains are infected with an encephalopathy called

bovine spongiform encephalalitis, or BSE. BSE is also

known as Mad Cow Disease.

USDA should ban downer cows from being used for meat and

for pet food, but they refuse to do so, despite petitions

from the cattle and dairy industry. Bills have been

introduced in Congress to accomplish that ban, but

those bills are now in committee, and may or may not

ever be enacted.

Whose fault is it that cows become downer cows? Many people

would blame the slaughterhouse, but that would not be fair.

Downer cows result from inhumane treatment of cows at

dairy farms. There are no California Happy Cows, despite

the lies told in cute television ads.

Slaughterhouse workers can easily identify an animal that

has been treated long term with the genetically engineered

bovine growth hormone. How? He can rip apart her porous

pelvic bone with his hands.

In 1760, the average American cow yielded just one quart of

milk per day. By 1960, the average American cow produced

8 quarts of milk each day. In 2008, the average cow will

produce 25 quarts of milk per day. That's a lot of milk,

and these are severely stressed animals.

Milk is rich in calcium. Where does that calcium come from?

From her feed, of course. From the grass turned to hay and

from mineral supplements added to her daily rations. Where

else? From her own bones.

Drink cow's milk and you drink her life. You deplete her

bone density. Let the truth be known. Downer cows are cows

whose bones dissolve from within until they become too

weak to stand.

Dairy farmers see the warning signs. It is a race against time

to milk the cow until she can be milked no more. To stress the

animal until her milk production wanes. To get her to stand

and walk onto the truck to be taken to auction. To get her

from the auction ring back onto a truck and to the slaughterhouse.

Many animals just do not make it. Sometimes the dairyman waits

a day too long.

The bones rot from within. The cows go down and become downer

cows. They are sometimes unloaded from trucks with machines,

unable to stand and walk the final ramp to her own death.

Are they downer because of Mad Cow Disease or because of

stressed bones? Do they have leukemia or tuberculosis or

Johne's Disease, or are they just tired?

Slaughterhouse workers do not create the situation, but they

must deal with it. They carry stun guns and cattle prods to

urge the animals to first stand up and then be put down.

There ought to be a law. Yes. There ought to be a law.

But what is a law? A law is a legal principle which must

be enforced by the threat of punishment because men have

sacrificed their moral principles.

So who is really at fault for the downer cows? It is not

the slaughterhouse worker who is there to do the cleanup.

It is not the dairy farmer whose agricultural practices

lead to downer cows. It is the consumer, who eats the pain

and digests the abuse and must take responsibility for the

wretched life and horrific death of each animal to satisfy

a lust for flesh and body fluids.

Robert Cohen

http://www.notmilk.com

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May 9, 2008

Hmnm, the milk I drink does not come from places that have downer

cows...except when they get old, like anything else. they/we also

don't use hormones, etc...so how are we abusing the cows?

the Bible tells me I can drink it, so I do, raw and tastily, from cows that

are healthy and content.

more BS from the radical AR movement. not ALL cows are treated that

way, not ALL cows receive hormones...not ALL cows are used up...most I

know and see, are well taken care of, use no hormones, and keep cows on

the line, till they are no longer as productive, then sell them off as family cows.

anywhere from 8 to 15 yrs old. where they do on to raise a few head of calves

for the homestead families, and provide milk for their families...

there are other ways, then eliminating milk from your diet.

www.westonaprice.org

http://www.realmilk.com/

downer cow is simply a term for a cow that's down...it can even be a broken leg...

it can be old, it can be sick, it can be used up, it can be, very unlikely, bse...and

there has to be a lot of factors in place, for you to even catch that...a cow that

bloats, is *down*...and on and on...it's simply a term.

Theresa

Bob, Theresa & Benjamin WegnerNovelty FarmSt James MO

www.noveltyfarm.com

May 9, 2008

Ah yes, Christians have but one source of information, the Bible. No other "real" word of God, the Almighty.

The Bible has also been corrupted over the centuries to what it is today.

True (?) that the Bible is the word of God. The bible was then written into book form by man and then re written and rewritten and rewritten many, many times over. Man has the most corrupt system of well, everything this planet has ever known, and with that in mind, the Bible has been modified from the original to what you read today. And for God to let this happen is just as corrupt, well... you can see where I am going.

My point is that the Bible you so treasure says so much and I see people doing so little. Either you are living what the Bible says or you are living what man says.

Then again, they are both one and the same, aren't they?

..

If you are going to flame me (I am sure I will be!), then do so outside this group as they don't deserve the commentary.

Any other responses from me (on this subject) will be directed towards the individual only and not to this group.

I guess I will burn in Hell for how I feel, that is if I believed in all that Christian theology.

the Bible tells me I can drink it, so I do, raw and tastily, from cows that

are healthy and content.

May 9, 2008

I agree completely. And for the REAL Christians out there, one of the MESSAGES (from 2,000 years ago-if you believe it) and you bring it up to date, would be maybe the preachers have drifted a little from what really happened.