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Senseless violence on a dairy farm

Friday, January 15th, 2010

A rescued dairy cow, now safe from senseless violence

This Monday, someone stabbed 4 cows on a Comox Valley dairy farm. According to the Comox Valley Echo:

A senseless stabbing attack on four dairy cows at a farm on Dove Creek Road has the Comox Valley RCMP appealing to the public for information.

One of the four cows was so badly injured that she had to be put down, while the other three are expected to recover.

But one of those three cows was pregnant, due in June, and she has now aborted the fetus, likely due to the stress.

The owner of the farm, Barb Milley, is quoted as saying “Who would hurt innocent cows that have no grudge against anybody?”

This is a truly senseless attack on innocent animals. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is a working dairy farm that “has more than 200 cows of all ages and produces about 2,650 litres of milk per day.” So, in answer to Barb’s question, my answer would be: Barb Milley. How many innocent calves has she sent off to slaughter? How many cows has she sent to the slaughterhouse when they are past their prime milk-producing time?

Here’s another part of the story that’s not quite what it seems.

The cow that had to be put down was stabbed on both the left and right hand sides in the soft part of her belly, just like the pregnant cow, but the wounds were bad enough that a five-pin bowling ball-sized portion of her internal organs was outside her body.

She was sent to the slaughterhouse.

Being “put down” is not quite the same as being put on a truck, hauled to a slaughterhouse, getting hit by a captive bolt, hung upside-down, and bled out. What sort of merciful euthanasia is that?

No mention is made in the article that all of these “innocent cows that have no grudge against anybody” are destined for the slaughterhouse, where lots worse than getting stabbed will happen to them. This after having countless babies stolen from them, all so they can be forced into milk production, over and over again. Where’s the story about that? Why aren’t the police talking to Barb Milley about her systemic abuse of innocent animals? Why aren’t we outraged about the crimes committed on her farm every day?

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Debunking animal activists

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

I just came across this article about an event in Ohio:

Sutton-Vermeulen will focus on the myths and misinformation from animal rights groups that are out of touch with today’s agriculture and putting our food supply at risk. He is well-know for working with non-governmental groups to help them become animal agriculture activists.

The June 19 workshop is open to all interested people who want to be spokespersons for animal agriculture and its importance to our country. Threats are coming from the Humane Society of the United States that they are coming to Ohio with a program to restrict sound, approved livestock practices. Such restrictions, if imposed, would reduce our food supply and increase the cost.

So, it sounds like he’ll be talking about how we animal rights activists don’t know about how animals are raised on farms. Maybe he’ll explain how well the animals are treated on farms and that animal protection groups just don’t know this, but everything is already plenty good for the animals.

But, actually, here’s the big threat: “HSUS wants certain animals to be able to stand up, lie down, turn around and spread their limbs without touching another animal or any part of their enclosure.” This is the threat to our “safe and affordable food supply.”

Based on the results from California’s vote on Proposition 2, I would think that many people think that animals deserve to be able to stand up, turn around, and spread their limbs. Many people probably think that animals already have this amount of space, even though they are wrong.

So, this event is really training in smokescreening the way animals are treated on these “farms.” I wonder what sorts of excuses he’ll be making for why we need to cram animals so tightly that they can’t stand up or turn around, let alone ever see the sun or engage in any natural, instinctive behaviours.

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