Now that more than a week has passed since I wrote the post about raising our own cattle, I wanted to follow up on a couple of questions people asked in their comments. But first, that's Suzette above with her calf Suzanna in a photo we took late last fall.
I will admit, we posted that announcement about humanely raised pet food on the blog with real trepidation. We had no idea what kind of response we would get, but we assumed quite a bit would be negative and some people would be even hostile. Yet with very few exceptions, the response was amazingly positive. Many of the comments on the blog were incredibly thoughtful and insightful, and it was clear in reading through them that a lot of people have been wrestling with this very same issue. Some had found the solution (or compromise) that worked for them, others were still searching, and others were now thinking about it for the first time … and in an entirely new light. It was, over all, a very heartening response.
We just had another long and very thoughtful comment posted yesterday by Marisa, a vegan, who wrote in part:
"With all these thoughts churning through my mind, I only have great respect for you and Alayne because you don't hide from the hard facts that most of us try to sweep under the carpet. You have made the links transparent. Sebastian will be fed to Fuzzy. Sebastian must die for this to happen. Fuzzy will live.
This is the very basic truth and everyone who eats meat or feeds meat to their companion animals needs to understand that this means the death of another animal who is just as much in love with life as we and our animals are. They frolic in the grass, they love their mothers and they enjoy basking in the warmth of the sun's rays.
If we have cats and dogs we are complicit in the deaths of other animals and I have NEVER seen another rescue acknowledge this and take responsibility for it. Absolutely astounding. I believe there is still hope for the world yet."
I think Marisa captured the real essence of why this is such a difficult, complicated and emotional subject for all of us who care about animals. Thank you to Marisa and all of you who offered your heartfelt comments.
The two questions I wanted to address were:
1. One person asked why we couldn't just buy the meat from someone else who was raising cattle in a humane way. There are two reasons: The first is that it would still be a way for us to avoid taking personal responsibility for their lives and how they were raised; the second is that it would be much, much more expensive, because now you're paying someone else to raise and feed them. That would make it far too costly.
2. A number of people asked if we knew about Dr. Temple Grandin, a well-known expert on humane livestock handling who is an animal science professor at Colorado State University. Yes, we do, and we purchased a copy of her book Humane Livestock Handling back in 2008 and set up our handling facilities based on her work. Her livestock website is here and her personal website is here. She's an amazing person who has had a remarkable life.
A funny story about Suzette: She was in the original group of heifer calves we got in 2008. One day not too long after she arrived, she was letting me scratch her back and sides (we were still very much in the 'getting-to-know-you' stage) when all of a sudden she raised up her left rear leg. I thought she was about to kick me — cows kick slightly forward and then out to the side, kind of a fast sweeping motion, completely different from the full-on rear kicks horses do — so I jumped back. She put her leg down. I resumed scratching. She lifted her leg again … but didn't kick. She just held her leg up in the air. I thought, well, that is odd. This time I warily kept scratching … and started working my way down her side towards her hip. The next thing I knew, I was scratching inside her thigh … and that's what she was trying to tell me by raising up her leg. "See, this is where I need you to scratch me." The more I scratched inside her thigh, the higher she'd raise her leg. All I'd have to do is reach inside her thigh and she'd lift up her leg. I finally figured it out. After that day, whenever I began scratching her sides, she'd cock up one of her rear legs so I could get inside her thighs. Go figure.
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