Dumbest Things People Have Said About Your Chickens/Eggs/Meat - Part 2 : Chicken Boogaloo.

[ShrekDawg]

I think most people who think of factory farms thinks of battery hens, the meat bird in the ventilated houses packed so tightly together they peck and trample each other to death, the feed lots where cows and pigs do nothing but stand around on bare dirt or concrete eating high calorie grains to grow out as fast as possible.  Animals treated as machines and expected to be produced the same way as a car on an assembly line. Thankfully a lot of people, especially around my age (30-ish), are turning away from it.  They've grown sick and tired of watching the animals live miserable lives before the slaughter, and watching their parents and grandparents struggle financially with the reality of corporate control that post world war II mechanization gave them instead of the fantasy of easy and effortless work it promised them. They're taking back the old family farms, keeping the amenities that did work, and going back to the old ways for the rest of it.

Of important note however,  PETA and the HSUS make no distinction between these.  They deliberately feed misinformation and conflate the practices as being the same to sway the public against ALL forms of livestock based farming.

Here's PETA claiming that meat and dairy animals are constantly raped in order to produce food for us, complete with human women tearfully describing their experiences with sexual assault. (massive trigger warning if you're sensitive to that)

Here's an add campaign they paid for and ran claiming that sheep are slaughtered for their wool (warning for a bloody lamb carcass).

Another add campaign claimed that drinking milk causes autism.

And more on topic for this thread, they treat keeping chickens for eggs as part of the struggle for gender equality, even going to far as to hijack twitter tags, just so we're kept informed about those hens we're oppressing by feeding them, sheltering them and eating the eggs... that they already laid... and had no intention of hatching...and probably weren't even fertile to begin with. 

The good they do is incidental.  It's like if someone got shot and while they were in the OR trying to be not dead, the doctor found and removed a minor tumor.  A good thing might have happened, but you wouldn't say "oh hey, well maybe it's okay to get shot, they can find cancer that way!"  

Millet is a nice feed but yes, he needs something else there. That doesn't quite fill the bill there. Some people aren't meant to have animals...I get your jist when you mention his past experiences.

I was wondering what it means in the relation to size...lol. We have a fair amount of land and pasture and have had140 head of cattle...but we are super small compared to a lot of people. We have neighbours who have 800 cattle, but its 3 families looking after everything and they have the land base to support everything without it being squished into feedlots and such. I don't think of them being a factory farm. I'm sure they know every cow like we do...they're all about husbandry as well. Our cattle get vaccinations to protect them but they don't et antibiotics unless say, a cow has a retained placenta or something like that. Antibiotics are expensive. It's much better to have happy healthy livestock than to have to treat with drugs. But beyond the point of sale of feeder and slaughter animals we don't have any control what the corporations do with the animals. I have a friend who's parents wintered in Arizona...and somewhere close to there she told us about seeing a feedlot that was as far as the eye can see. That's hard to imagine.



I don't have experience with chicken farms other than some of the ones I've seen on You Tube. I have worked at a hog barn. Being a "franchise" of the company...our employers did not have control as to how the barn was built or how selections were made for breeding stock and such. But as far as the care for the pigs...all of us, small town people from farms or the nearby town took very good care of the pigs and there was never any of the things you see on the shock and horror videos put out by groups like Peta. We all very much cared for the pigs and how they did. We had names for them...just like pets at home. I understand, unfortunately that not all places are taken care of like that...but just like some people shouldn't have pets...some people shouldn't be in charge or take care of livestock. I grew up on a farm that had pigs and I had pigs and our neighbor had 200 pigs on a loose scale in a large biotech. At one time we could take our hogs to the auction mart. That got phased out where if you didn't have a large contract with a company...you had no place to sell your hogs. My employers had a loose facility initially but found they couldn't continue to market their pigs in the way they had. They made the choice to go big to survive. I don't think they would have if it was possibly to do otherwise. From grain to livestock...as a farmer...we get squeezed by corporations if we want to survive to make money. We don't get any say in the rules.

Just want to add that a lot of the land used for animal use...such as cattle...is lighter land and land unfit to grow grains or use for other uses. Some of our land is on a creek, it's light land and it's never been broken up to grow grain or drain. It' basically good for only cattle or some other grazing animals and wildlife...and we keep it so. In my area there's more cattle, less grain acres sowed because the land is not suitable for other uses. Also what they never tell people...a certain amount of the grain that is produced is not suitable for human use. It doesn't have the right "stuff" for making breads or beer  or whatever and it's only suitable as a livestock feed.  That's just a few points I wanted to mention...lol.

Oh my...I never read all the stuff put out from Peta because frankly it angers me with all the misrepresentation. There's a lot I don't agree with coming from a small farm. I like loose housing and a lot of room given for animals to be healthy and happy. But there are reasons for some of the things they are misrepresenting.

Artificial insemination is no different than with chickens. That hen that squats in front of you expecting you are a rooster...pretty much the same for other animals. They have to be in heat to be bred...they have a cycle just like us. Breeding a cow at the wrong time is a waste of time. They don't mention the breeding methods of race horses...that's just as artificial. They only present the mare to the stallion to the mare when she's in heat. A female pig stands for either the boar or the human (for IA) when she's in heat. A weighted band is placed on her front shoulders to emulate the weight of the boar. I worked in that side of the barn when they needed help. Animals are not raped.

The pigs don't nuzzle one another...they're territorial and try to savage each other when new pigs are introduced. That's why they are in separate pens during gestation. It can be done in loose housing...but people have to know what they're doing or pigs will kill other pigs...just like chickens can pick on new chickens. What would Peta say then...Pigs are being fed to other pigs!

Sheep aren't slaughtered for their wool...that's absurd. Sheep are sheared for their wool...the wool keeps growing. Many products are made from the lanolin that is separated from the washing of the wool. Sheep ARE slaughtered for their meat and the hides are used for lambskins. Just like cattle skins are used to make various products when the finished cattle are slaughtered. Where would all that end up otherwise??  My sheep shed...so no shearing...but I sell the finished lambs for slaughter. No different than raising a meat chicken.  If Peta shot video of a person slaughtering a few of our backyard birds...can you imagine what they could come up with??  Or if they even saw an egg with a bit of blood on it. They are very real. When I used to show my sheep I remember being warned that there could be protest the one year and to watch for the safety of your animals. I tell ya if someone tried to hurt one of my animals...    I name most of mine and they get hugs and spoiled; chickens, sheep, cattle.  Most people have animals because they love them and have the greatest respect for them. The few people who give livestock keeping a bad name taint all of us who care deeply for their animals.  

I forgot to mention that while the sows are in the smaller farrowing crates...we would do turns with each row and let them out to exercise.

Yeah, PETA is full of crap.  And even with the big feedlot operations, I don't blame the farmers or their employees.  They're usually just trying to do the best they can with what they're allowed.  It's the corporations that want to squeeze both people and animals for every dollar they're worth that need to take a hike.  The newer generations of farmers are going smaller to compete rather then larger.  They don't like the rules, so they decided to stop playing the game entirely and make up a new one.  Instead of auctions they direct sell to consumers by word of mouth, in CSAs, at farmers markets, or directly to restaurants that will pay for quality.  And rather than the consumer driving the demand, they're driving the consumer.  Saying, "Look, this is the product I have this month.  It's a great product and if you don't want it, someone else does," and people will buy it.  It's really interesting to see how new farmers are breaking out of the old cycles.

And yeah 150 head is tiny!  I mean it's no backyard homestead, but I know folks who graze two or three thousand at a time, but they rotate their pastures and move their herds constantly to keep their land and animals healthy.  Factory farms are just that.  It's less the size, and more the method and manner of their land and animal management, treating living things as cogs in a machine.

I agree with everything. PETA is so full of ****. And it really pisses me off how they say they kill lambs for wool.... it's just like brushing your dog or shaving your cat lol

 

[ShrekDawg]

Oh she is as never a coffee drinker and no one in her house did but she made sure if I came that she would go get me some at the store. She knew that I was hooked on the stuff

Ohhh that makes sense. I hate coffeee too tbh lol i thought maybe i was missing something and coffee wasn't vegan

 

[lilwildrabbit]

I'm hooked so bad on coffee I can't sleep without drinking a cup before bed

 

[ShrekDawg]

Oh wow! Usually it keeps people up right!?

 

[heatherlaw]

Millet is a nice feed but yes, he needs something else there. That doesn't quite fill the bill there. Some people aren't meant to have animals...I get your jist when you mention his past experiences.

I was wondering what it means in the relation to size...lol. We have a fair amount of land and pasture and have had140 head of cattle...but we are super small compared to a lot of people. We have neighbours who have 800 cattle, but its 3 families looking after everything and they have the land base to support everything without it being squished into feedlots and such. I don't think of them being a factory farm. I'm sure they know every cow like we do...they're all about husbandry as well. Our cattle get vaccinations to protect them but they don't et antibiotics unless say, a cow has a retained placenta or something like that. Antibiotics are expensive. It's much better to have happy healthy livestock than to have to treat with drugs. But beyond the point of sale of feeder and slaughter animals we don't have any control what the corporations do with the animals. I have a friend who's parents wintered in Arizona...and somewhere close to there she told us about seeing a feedlot that was as far as the eye can see. That's hard to imagine.



I don't have experience with chicken farms other than some of the ones I've seen on You Tube. I have worked at a hog barn. Being a "franchise" of the company...our employers did not have control as to how the barn was built or how selections were made for breeding stock and such. But as far as the care for the pigs...all of us, small town people from farms or the nearby town took very good care of the pigs and there was never any of the things you see on the shock and horror videos put out by groups like Peta. We all very much cared for the pigs and how they did. We had names for them...just like pets at home. I understand, unfortunately that not all places are taken care of like that...but just like some people shouldn't have pets...some people shouldn't be in charge or take care of livestock. I grew up on a farm that had pigs and I had pigs and our neighbor had 200 pigs on a loose scale in a large biotech. At one time we could take our hogs to the auction mart. That got phased out where if you didn't have a large contract with a company...you had no place to sell your hogs. My employers had a loose facility initially but found they couldn't continue to market their pigs in the way they had. They made the choice to go big to survive. I don't think they would have if it was possibly to do otherwise. From grain to livestock...as a farmer...we get squeezed by corporations if we want to survive to make money. We don't get any say in the rules.

Just want to add that a lot of the land used for animal use...such as cattle...is lighter land and land unfit to grow grains or use for other uses. Some of our land is on a creek, it's light land and it's never been broken up to grow grain or drain. It' basically good for only cattle or some other grazing animals and wildlife...and we keep it so. In my area there's more cattle, less grain acres sowed because the land is not suitable for other uses. Also what they never tell people...a certain amount of the grain that is produced is not suitable for human use. It doesn't have the right "stuff" for making breads or beer  or whatever and it's only suitable as a livestock feed.  That's just a few points I wanted to mention...lol.

I dont really consider farms a "factory farm" based on size, just the treatment of the animals. People treating animals like machines in a factory verses people like you and your friends (and my grandmother who is a second generation cattle rancher) who treat their animals with kindness. Thats what makes the difference between a "factory" and a real farm.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I dont really consider farms a "factory farm" based on size, just the treatment of the animals. People treating animals like machines in a factory verses people like you and your friends (and my grandmother who is a second generation cattle rancher) who treat their animals with kindness. Thats what makes the difference between a "factory" and a real farm.

Yeah I agree

 

[ShrekDawg]

You could have 20 chickens and treat them like **** and be factory farm. Well, maybe not quite, and factory farms do usually involve big numbers, but still. I guess a better example would be that they may have big numbers but big numbers alone don't make you a factory farm. In the former example I guess the person would more just be a jerk than a FF haha

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I think the term factory farm is referring to CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations. The types you are thinking of where they have the maximum number of animals allowed in that square footage. Factory referring to animals being viewed as nothing more than a product and you imaging them metaphorically being pumped in and out on a conveyer belt.

 

[lilwildrabbit]

Oh wow! Usually it keeps people up right!?

Not me I am so used to coffee if I don't I wake up with a severe headache

 

[SilkieChickenLover336]

Someone I know who is a vegan tried to tell me that butter was actually just cow pus and milk is cow rape. I couldn't help but laugh