cows and milk

[Guest guest]

You are absolutely right - it is a horrible life for almost all cows, goats, sheep, chickens, etc. that have raised on most any type of farm - big or small. Living next to beef cattle, I always know when the babies have been rounded up and are going to the sale barn or slaughter.....the mommas cry for days on end for their babies. These animals are then sent on cattle trucks sometimes far away (in freezing cold or boiling hot trucks without food/water/rest), terrorized, many are injured or sick and may fall. They then become trampled by the rest of the (maybe 1200 lbs plus) cattle in the transport. If they cannot get out of the truck on their own because of broken legs or worse AND an electric cattle prod does not stun them into getting up and out of the truck in spite of their injuries, then a chain is wrapped tightly around their leg and they are dragged out of the truck by a winch, sometimes right into a dumpster. These animals are called 'downers' and the haulers don't want to mercifully put them down (kill them) in order to end their pain, they want to keep them alive as long as possible because they will get a better price for an (almost!) alive animal than a dead one. Again, it doesn't matter if it is chickens, goats, cows, or even unwanted horses and donkeys, too - for the most part, it all ends the same for them and, unbeknownst to many people, we become these animals' perpetrators as well, by purchasing parts of their bodies. I won't even start on the plethora of chemicals that are dumped in and on them for lice, worms, flies, diseases, etc. which people end up ingesting, as well, or the effect it has on our environment.

Farming of animals has to consist of torture, deprivation, cruelty, etc. in order for farmers to try to make a profit - for them, there is no other way around it!

AstridFarmersville, TX

 

"Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to a man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one want to live and not to die, so do other creatures." - Dalai Lama of Tibet, His Holiness, The XIV