What do you think about the way America is raising our food today???

[Katy]

Quote:
THERE ARE NO FACTORY FARMS.

The overwhelming majority (to use your term) of farms are not bad nor do they treat their animals poorly. What animals do you think are crammed in pens that they can't turn around? It's certainly not cattle and if you're referring to hogs....it's called a farrowing crate and they put sows in them so they won't lay on and kill their piglets. In my youth I worked on my neighbors egg farm. Yes, the hens were in cages and they didn't have a lot of space, but they could move and turn around with space to spare.

No acceptable source of food or water!? What sense would that make? Those of us who have livestock use them as our paycheck....what sense would it make to deny them the basics of life? Just how many instances of this have you seen personally? I'm betting not one.

If I have to watch one more of those old, re-run time after time video clips that "certain groups" show one more time I think I'll scream. They took the worst of the worst and show it time after time. It's really sad that the uninformed person uses those as their measure of how animals are treated by we farmers and ranchers. I haven't seen a new one in years and years.

I live every day of my life in the agricultural world.....it's my lifestyle and how I make my living. THERE ARE NO FACTORY FARMS......it's a made up term by people who've probably never even been a a real farm or ranch in their lives.

 

[easttxchick]

Seems a real shame to me that the farmers in this country are forced to defend themselves against this same kind of thing over and over to no avail.
Guess no one has given any real thought to what we'd do without the farmers...wouldn't be pretty.

 

[ShadowRooster]

I have started raising all of my own meat. I know there are lots of farms that are good with the way they treat livestock, but that is NOT the cheep penny a pound meat in the store.

I cant believe anyone who has raised chickens says that they are happy in a 1/2 foot of space. Or pigs in a small pen with thousands of other pigs. Animals love sunlight, fresh air, bugs and grass. We should be treating animals... like animals.. not like meat/egg machines OR humans. Just being able to "move around" is not going to make that chicken any happier, thats like saying you could keep you dog in its create its whole life with some food and water and it would be happy.

You can buy a baby turkey for the same price as a huge full grown plucked tukey at walmart. About $8. ???

 

[lorieMN]

Quote:

Now I'm not saying that all farms are bad, but it's an overwhelming majority -

You're kidding , right?​

I agree..ALF would just as soon burn down buildings with animals and humans in it as tell the truth..unbiased..no such thing with them

 

[lorieMN]

Quote:
THERE ARE NO FACTORY FARMS.

The overwhelming majority (to use your term) of farms are not bad nor do they treat their animals poorly. What animals do you think are crammed in pens that they can't turn around? It's certainly not cattle and if you're referring to hogs....it's called a farrowing crate and they put sows in them so they won't lay on and kill their piglets. In my youth I worked on my neighbors egg farm. Yes, the hens were in cages and they didn't have a lot of space, but they could move and turn around with space to spare.

No acceptable source of food or water!? What sense would that make? Those of us who have livestock use them as our paycheck....what sense would it make to deny them the basics of life? Just how many instances of this have you seen personally? I'm betting not one.

If I have to watch one more of those old, re-run time after time video clips that "certain groups" show one more time I think I'll scream. They took the worst of the worst and show it time after time. It's really sad that the uninformed person uses those as their measure of how animals are treated by we farmers and ranchers. I haven't seen a new one in years and years.

I live every day of my life in the agricultural world.....it's my lifestyle and how I make my living. THERE ARE NO FACTORY FARMS......it's a made up term by people who've probably never even been a a real farm or ranch in their lives.

 

[patandchickens]

I wish it were possible to have this kind of discussion without super mega polarization of both sides.

Also total confusion of two entirely-independant issues, how the animals are raised and then how they are transported/slaughtered.

Regarding raising animals:

I think there are many livestock operations that it IS fair to call "factory farms", in the sense that the animals are raised factory-style in vastly more huge numbers and more-crowded conditions than traditionally done and with no real respect for the animals as living creatures, just trying to shave the bottom line so's to sell cheap-as-possible meat. There are still a lot of smaller operations that do not overcrowd and underclean and where people still have major amounts of contact with the animals; but an awful lot of our food supply is coming from mega-feedlots and overcrowded broiler barns and such.

I also think that many, many North Americans do not grasp that the only way you can have such very cheap food (and whine all you want, Americans spend a smaller fraction of their income on food than practically anyone else on earth, even a lot less than industrial European nations that we generally consider quite civilized) is TO raise animals in that way. If you don't want that happening, you have to sacrifice some things (cable tv movies, technological nicknacks du jour, buying clothes, big house with big mortgage) to PAY for it.

Regarding the slaughter of animals:

I have never been to a slaughterhouse. However I am inclined to put a fair bit of faith in what Temple Grandin reports, since she actually WORKS with slaughterhouses to develop more-humane more-efficient handling and killing systems, and even just reading what SHE says happens is enough to make me real unhappy. Again, it is not that every animal at every plant gets a horrific deal; but clearly far too many for me to consider acceptable.

suffice to say, it does very little good for a farmer to mis-treat his animals. I live in the middle of rural cattle/hog farms, and I defy you to find one farmer who doesnt care for his animals, and treats them better than his own kids.

The problem is that what is good for the bottom line is not always what is good for the animals. Various issues in hog farming are an excellent example of this. So, no, farmers do not generally go around kicking their animals and starving them, that would indeed be stupid and implausible; but "caring" from the perspective of staying financially afloat in a market that prizes cheap meat above all else is often going to be different than "caring" from the perspective of "what would really make these animals healthiest and happiest".

But polarizing the issue into "all livestock farming is cruel and inhumanely-done" versus "all farmers are the salt of the earth and their animals are always happy happy and healthy healthy, there is no problem at all" is just NOT constructive.

Pat​

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thank you, Pat

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I am always amazed that when people see a show like that about processing animals they are suprised. Where do they think the packages come from in meat section?

Steve

 

[Katy]

I have to disagree with Pat...What's good for the bottom line is what's best for the animal.....A farmer or rancher who doesn't care for and do the best for their livestock is not going to be in business very long.

People who are only looking in at farming/ranching from the outside do not realize the amount of time it takes. They are a 365 day a year job....you have to love what you do and care deeply about the animals you're raising otherwise you don't do it. We are out there with them whether it's 110 degrees in the shade or below zero with a minus 30 windchill like it has been here this week. If you don't love it and want to do the best you can you're not going to last long doing it.

I've never said that all farmers/ranchers are saints anymore than all physicians are saints. There's bad apples in every group of people. I just get so very tired of people who have nothing to do with agriculture thinking they could do it better than those of us who do it every day. That's the same as if I said I could do surgeries better than the surgeons because of what I've seen on TV shows or documentaries and started telling them how to do their jobs....I'm sure that wouldn't set well with them either.

Methods change in every industry...same for the processing plants and farming as a whole. What years ago was the accepted way to do things has changed and I'm sure will continue to change. Will the American consumer be willing to pay for it? I doubt it since they already think they pay too much for their groceries.

You don't want to eat the crops I raise and the cattle I raise....that is fine by me....there are planty of people who do because they know not to believe what the activist groups spew as the truth.

 

[Davaroo]

There is so much mis-information in this post that I wont even go into it; suffice to say, it does very little good for a farmer to mis-treat his animals. I live in the middle of rural cattle/hog farms, and I defy you to find one farmer who doesnt care for his animals, and treats them better than his own kids. If there is mistreatment and abuse, its the VAST MINORITY of farmers. Which, of course, get all the press.

Thank you.
Alarmist rhetoric is winning, I think.​