From: chris@mks.com (Chris Retterath)
Subject: Re: Better to be slaughtered than never to have lived? Re: Meat eaters (LONG)
Keywords: Meat Vegans vegetarian food
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 22:39:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.172603.20369@cdf.toronto.edu> g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>In article <schuck.724481107@sfu.ca> Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes:
>>Thats an interesting point. If everyone gave up eating beef tomorrow,
>>all the beef farmers/ranchers would kill their herd off within a
>>matter of days because they aren't into keeping cattle as pets.
>>
>No, if everyone became an ethical vegetarians, including the farmers, they 
>would set up sanctuaries for the remaining cattle to live out their lives in 
>peace.  Of course this is not going to happen.  What might happen is that the 
>demand for meat would decline, fewer people would decide to become farmers, as 
>the older farmers retired they would not be replaced, fewer animals would be 
>bred.
	What a fairy tale!

>>I ask the vegetarians out there:
>>
>>Is it better to have never lived at all, never to have chewed grass
>
>Never to have been fed poultry manure ("[W]ays to utilize poultry manure
>[Dr Ed Naber] listed as ... as ruminant feed, primarily using as broiler feed,
>a process that is fairly common in the southern states ... composting ... for
>use as a feed ingredient for ruminants."  "Manure Utilization", _Canada_
>_Poultryman_, August 1992).
	No one around here (that I know) is doing this. Sure, it's been
researched: feed the cows cardboard for fibre & chicken manure for protein,
and they shit little cardboard boxes... :-)
>"[On feedlots] the animals are fed a diet designed for one purpose only--to
>fatten them up as cheaply as possible.  This may include such delicacies as
>sawdust laced with ammonia and feathers, shredded newspaper (complete with all
>the colors of toxic ink from the Sunday comics and advertising circulars),
>'plastic hay,' processed sewage, inedible tallow and grease, poultry litter,
>cement dust, and cardboard scraps, not to mention the insecticides, antibiotics
>and hormones.  Artifical flavors and aromas are added to trick the poor animals
>into eating the stuff." (_Diet_for_a_new_America_ by John Robbins).
			  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ an unbiased source!
	My neighbour got some great milk fat 2 years ago feeding old
candy bars .. the wrappers were a pain, so he stop taking them off without
any problems. Cattle have very different stomachs then we do!
As for feeding the list of garbage mentioned above, no one I know does it.
Hay, sileage, haylage, grain, et cetera. Perhaps some food industry
rejects. But certainly not poultry litter... that's used to spread on corn
crops. Tallow? no way. cement dust is corrosive. I've heard of plastic
hay .. useful to provide fibre on feedlots that use a lot of grain.. but
it apparantly is no big deal (recycled after slaughter).
>>and dropped cow patties all over the place under a clear blue sky,
>
>"poultry, pigs or calves never see the light of day until they are taken to 
>the slaughterhouse... For three months at a stretch, pregnant sows are confined
>to stalls scarcely larger than their bodies.  To reduce stress and activity, 
>totally confined animals are kept in darkness except at feeding time...
		  ^^^^^^^ I've only seen this done to hogs.

Everyone I know keeps the lights on for > 12 hours a day, unless the
critters are on pasture.. except some hog farmers. And overcrowding is
always a mistake.. too easy to pass respiratory diseases. 

>"The new ways are solidly established.  About 95 per cent of egg laying hens,
>virtually all ... turkeys and half or more of beef cattle, dairy cows and pigs
>are maintained in some type of factory system."  (James B. Mason, "Industrial
>Pigs, Mechanical Chickens:  How Corporate Animal Factories Breed Poisoned Meat
>and New Pollution", _Vegetarian_Times_, March 1980, cited in Victoria Moran,
>_Compassion:_The_Ultimate_Ethic_).
	This is meaningless unless we know what 'factory system' means.
>>never to have got it on with another cow/bull, 
>
>Never to have served on a rape rack, never to have been artifically
>inseminated...
	Our cows like AI, and we sure don't want the hassle of a bull
around the farm. When the kids get bigger, maybe. What's a rape rack?

>>never sucked milk from it's mothers teat, 
>
>"...today almost no dairy cow is permitted to suckle her calf for more than
>three days, if that long.  According to the 1965 report of the Brambell 
>Committee, a British governmental commission which conducted extensive
>research into animal treatment in the UK, 'Separating the calf from the mother
>shortly after birth undoubtedly inflicts anguish on both.  Cattle are highly
>intelligent, and attachment between the calf and the mother is particularly
 ^^^^^^^^^^^ -- now I'm laughing!
Calves are seperated at birth or as soon as possible in dairy operations,
because it makes it much easier to get the cow milking properly. And the
colestrum (sp?) is fed to the new calves... noone likes mixing up milk
replacer when a milking cow is right there, and noone knows more about
the benefits of 'first milk' then a diary operator.

>strong.' ... [some] calves go on to white veal units where their fourteen-
>week lives are spent confined to wooden crates or stalls 1 foot 10 inches wide
>and 4 feet 6 inches long.  They are fed a liquid diet deficient in iron and
>certain vitamins to promote the desirable paleness of flesh."
	Which is why 'white veal' is not eaten by lots of people anymore.
Red veal is totally different, though.. its usually less then 1 year old
calf. Fed milk and hay/whatever as soon as it wants.

>"[T]oday's cattle are routinely de-horned because today's cattle feedlots, where
>the great majority of today's cattle spend the last half of their lives, are
>unbelievably overcrowded.  And they are not likely to become less crowded in
>the foreseeable future.  ... Studies at the University of Minnesota suggest
>maximum profits can be obtained by allowing each of these large animals 
>fourteen square feet of living space.  To realize what this means, consider 
>that a typical 12' x 15' bedroom is 180 square feet.  Imagine thirteen half
>ton steers in your bedroom and you've got the picture." (_Diet_for_a_new_
>_America_ by John Robbins.)
We try to get 'polled' cattle .. naturally hornless. Dehorning is a pain.
The alternative is lots of accidents like popped eye balls in other cattle.
Dehorning can be done with a paste if applied early enough. Otherwise,
its the big chompers and some hard work.

>>and never been born,
>Never to have been castrated:
>"I hate castrating them.  It's really horrible.  After you put the ring on its
>scrotum the calf will lie down and kick and wring its tail for half and hour or
>more, before the scrotum finally goes numb.  It's obviously in agony.  Then it
>takes about a month before its balls fall off.  You can do it faster with a
>special kind of pliers, but I can't bear to use those because I can't take how
>they carry on." - cattleman Herb Silverman, quoted in _Diet_for_a_new_America_
>by John Robbins.
Jeeze, our calves are usually running around as though nothing had happened
within 10 minutes. The sheep are the same.. I don't think there are that
many nerves there (the idea is to cut off the circulation *between* the
scrotum and the body, not to squeeze the testicles! Maybe Herb missed?
A bardezo (the pliers) is faster but it doesn't always work.. we converted
to the rubber bands because it was fool proof.

>>or is it better to have done all those things, and more , even in a
>>shortened life and end up as a steak on my plate?
>
>I submit to you that the conditions you describe are not typical of the
>average cow's life.
>Even if their lives were that idyllic, it does not justify killing them.  Which
>do you think is more humane - for my husband and I to try to avoid unwanted
>pregnancies, or to have a large number of kids and kill them when they reach
>a certain age?
>
>>I ask those questions, because thats the choice, there is no inbetween.
>>Or, in a shortened version: 
>>Is it better to have lived and lost , ending up as
>>steak tartare , than to have never lived at all?
>
>Better to have never lived than to live the kind of life led by livestock on
>farms and then killed.

But it ain't so.. your quotes don't hold up to examination.
I find hog and poultry operations to be the closest to what you're saying,
in that conditions are more extreme.. but on the other hand most
of these animals only live a very short life (12 weeks for a chicken,
< 1 year for a hog).

Remember that stress is bad.. it causes weight loss, which is a big deal!

	Chris Retterath

Newsgroups: can.general