The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

I am seriously blessed to have a farm connection that has low-line cattle that are completely pasture/grass fed. The low-line makes them smaller so that purchasing a quarter at a time doesn't break the bank and their hanging weight price is the same as non-grass fed in our area.

Usually once a year they butcher one just for ground and sell it at the same price per lb. that I'd have to pay in the grocery for the lowest quality meat. When they do that I purchase as many lbs as are available then other friends and family that don't have larger freezers purchase theirs from me (not marked up) as they need it. (I actually primarily use ground myself.)

If I go to a grocery or butcher shop and see the prices for their frozen grass-fed beef it is as much as 2 - 2.5x higher in price. If I had to buy it at that price it would be unrealistic.

So I encourage people to keep their ears open and ask around to see if you can find that kind or source in your area. I actually heard about this particular farm from a friend that somehow found them. Not even sure how. And whenever I run into folks that are interested I hook them up with the farm for themselves.

I just heard Mr. Rogers' sing-song voice saying, "Won't you be my neighbor?". LOL That's great! There is a place down the road that sells pork and beef. Maybe we'll stop in and see what they have and what they charge.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Lisa, your cows were smart. They know what they should eat, right? I could almost be a vegetarian myself. I am fine with a burger once in awhile when out, but if my husband was not here, I would never buy a piece of meat or chicken to cook for myself. I am less and less in love with eating chicken after seeing how amazing they are, though that's just a personal thing, not something I'm crazed about, like the video I saw of the fruitcake in the coffee shop wailing at the top of her lungs about a battery chicken she saved named Snow. I have a Snow and she just wants to live and be held and petted, too, but I don't go all ape in public over it. That just made her look insane. Here it is:

And chickens ARE cannibals! They'll eat each other if given half a chance, seriously! Your brother should realize that egg yolk is a natural food for chickens....they absorb an entire yolk into their bodies when they hatch and it sustains them for as long as three days. Case closed, LOL.



I wish I could afford that, if only for my meat-eating husband. We can barely afford the cheapest beef in Walmart. Steak? Haven't had any in many years. He cannot conceive of a life without some sort of meat, though on occasion, we do have a vegetarian meal.

That woman is nuts. That's how my brother thinks too. Has she ever watched a nature show? Nature is set up for creatures to consume creatures, that can't be denied. Animals die. I agree that animals need to go back to being raised humanely. I got a feeling if Snow the chicken ever gets sick it's gonna be a long suffering death due to her views.

 

[speckledhen]

That woman is nuts. That's how my brother thinks too. Has she ever watched a nature show? Nature is set up for creatures to consume creatures, that can't be denied. Animals die. I agree that animals need to go back to being raised humanely. I got a feeling if Snow the chicken ever gets sick it's gonna be a long suffering death due to her views.

She sure didn't do anything for her cause, did she? That woman is a snowflake, no disrespect to Snow the chicken, hers or mine. I guess she's never watched National Geographic. Nature is brutal.

 

[kitkat5505]

Lisa, your cows were smart. They know what they should eat, right? I could almost be a vegetarian myself. I am fine with a burger once in awhile when out, but if my husband was not here, I would never buy a piece of meat or chicken to cook for myself. I am less and less in love with eating chicken after seeing how amazing they are, though that's just a personal thing, not something I'm crazed about, like the video I saw of the fruitcake in the coffee shop wailing at the top of her lungs about a battery chicken she saved named Snow. I have a Snow and she just wants to live and be held and petted, too, but I don't go all ape in public over it. That just made her look insane. Here it is:

And chickens ARE cannibals! They'll eat each other if given half a chance, seriously! Your brother should realize that egg yolk is a natural food for chickens....they absorb an entire yolk into their bodies when they hatch and it sustains them for as long as three days. Case closed, LOL.



I wish I could afford that, if only for my meat-eating husband. We can barely afford the cheapest beef in Walmart. Steak? Haven't had any in many years. He cannot conceive of a life without some sort of meat, though on occasion, we do have a vegetarian meal.

Wow. She’s definitely nutso. I do believe most commercial meat farms are unnecessarily cruel, but I’m not against eating meat.

 

[getaclue]

I eat meat, but that doesn't mean I advocate the abuse of livestock. I don't advocate feeding them things that are "unnatural" in their diet, or of the cheapest quality. I don't advocate not providing a decent environment for them to grow up in.

As to the lady in the video. She needs time with a mental health care provider. There is a time, place, and way to better do everything. She is way off the mark. She is equating the chicken to being her child, which is about as dumb as the lady saying that a hen abandoning the nest to care for her 2 chicks, was the equivalent of abortion.

 

[Pyxis]

Not to mention, she's hurting her own cause. Going into coffee houses and screaming about chickens isn't going to get people to not eat chickens or eggs, it's just going to make them think they encountered a crazy person and they'll disregard everything she said, whether it's true or not, as being the ramblings of a crazy lady.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Of course that was all staged and video taped so that she could post it and get ratings. I doubt she goes around doing that every day when she doesn't have a video crew to support her.

I did see that when it hit the popularity charts and the talk shows were featuring it. I just felt sorry for the people in the restaurant that may have had children. I guess you could just tell your kids that it was pretend - like when they make a movie.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Did any of you watch the other video? I would say she's definitely a person that's compassionate toward animals.

I remember reading that if (I think 25% if memory is correct but don't hold me to that number..I'll have to look it up) of households in America had just 6 chickens per person in the household, it would put the commercial egg industry out of business. They had another statement on meat birds.

Perhaps, if she could aim her compassion and passion on convincing people to raise their own meat and eggs humanely and feed in a species-appropriate manner, she could accomplish more toward helping the animals.

Here's the other video.

 

[speckledhen]

Though this is a touchy subject, I find that many of these animal rights folks are more compassionate towards animals than other human beings. They are complete conundrums. But, on the other side of the coin, those that are cruel to animals tend to be awful human beings and I want them far away from me.

Any animal raised for food deserves to have the best life prior to them meeting their destiny.

One of my favorite authors, Barbara Holland, in Bingo Night At the Fire Hall, was talking about going to the county fair, seeing a young girl with the bull named Handsome that she raised, and hearing the announcer say stuff about "lots of red meat in there" or something to that effect. Then, she said, she knew the child was aware of the bull's fate, saying he was going to get a good price at tomorrow's auction, making her seem almost a monster, but then she said something else that touched on the life of a food animal. She said that the next day, her perspective had shifted and "I can see him, not at the butcher's, but in a sunny field, knee-deep in sweet grass, waiting for a little girl to come running home from the school bus and rub him between the ears. A steer is not a household pet, and if no one ate hamburgers then Handsome would never have lived at all, to spend such a pleasant summer in such a green field. Joy is not measured in years, and the steer in the summer's field lives unshadowed by thoughts of the winter's steaks. Surely, if asked, he'd rather have had one sunny summer than no summer at all."


Book is really cheap now@Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0156006650/?tag=backy-20

 

[Leahs Mom]

Wow.