From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Painless slaughter?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 07:29:45 GMT

rwaigh@zooid.guild.org (Rosemary Waigh) writes:

>"To begin with, animals suffer horribly on factory farms.

	Has anybody ever defined a "factory farm?"  I'd like to know
just what one of these things is.

>  Then they are
>crammed into trucks which are, as I have since discovered by personally trying
>to stand on the floor of them, unbelievably slippery.

	Did she stand or make use of all four limbs?  Wooden floors with
excrement on them can be slippery.  So what?  A bit of straw takes care of
that problem, and despite her supposed horror at the idea, it's amazing
that cattle rarely if ever injure themselves by slipping on a slick floor.
Just ask the people who transport horses in horse trailers, or you might
even ask me about trucking a couple hundred head to different pastures each
year and never finding an injured animal.

>  During transit it may
>be extremely hot or extremely cold.

	Has she never heard of vents?  You know, slats on the sides of the
trailer that are opened or closed to provide fresh air as needed?  I
suppose she has never driven in a car without air conditioning, either.

>  Usually there is no food or water, or
>minimal amounts.

	Does her car have a refridgerator and a salad bar in it?  Of what
possible use is a feeder and water on a truck that is only going to be
running for, at most, a couple of days?  Cattle can go for a week without
water, providing they are allowed to drink a fair amount before the trip.
In a week you can truck beef from New York to Los Angeles.  In addition,
it is rarely profitable to haul beef for than a few hundred miles by
truck, so the cattle are without food and water for a few hours.  If this
same gripe is extended to humans we'd all have lunch breaks every hour at
work.  This is, of course, ludicrous.

> Then they arrive at the slaughterhouse.  They are dropped
>into a totally alien environment that they have never seen or smelled.  And
>they are crammed in there with hundreds of other confused and terrified
>animals.

	Yeah, I remember basic training and freshman orientation too.  So?

>It is not
>any of these things, it's the two or three days leading up to slaughter, it is
>the fact that the animal is terrified for hours on end.  There is no way,
>given the way it is done, that you can prevent that.  That is why it isn't
>humane.  

	And once again, she is wrong.  Maybe a bit of time in the ranching
portion would open her eyes?  That time in the factory seems to have done
more than just bias her views.

[ chicken plant story deleted ]

>"No, just shut off, unaware, frighteningly normal.  In a way it is the same
>process that every single person who eats meat is doing.  What they have on
>the plat e is a piece of dead animal, but no one thinks of it like that.  If
>you did, could you seriously sit down and eat it, day after day, without being
>upset, and actually enjoy it?"

	Just did it a few hours ago, and I know in intimate detail just
what goes on throughout the process.  Does this woman think of the many
injuries, deaths, and mutilations necessary to bring her vegetables to
the grocery store?  If not, I've a few friends she might like to meet.
Most are missing merely a limb, but a few are much worse off.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "This isn't an answer, it's a pagan dance around a midnight fire  >
<   written in intellectual runes." -- Rich Young                    >
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals