Farms and cruelty to animals

[reallyME]

Changing:  In fact, they were seen as quite valuable because they had important jobs.
Of course, a cruel person has more opportunity to be cruel to animals in a farm setting, but a decent person would not be gratuitously cruel on a farm or in the city.

I would not say that being raised on a farm guarantees that someone will be cruel to animals.  I will say that being raised on a farm, slaughtering animals for meat, takes a mindset of either not believing that animals have feelings or of divorcing oneself from those feelings in order to be able to kill those animals.  How could a person kill any living creature without crying their eyes out, unless they somehow shut down the idea of that animal having feelings physically or emotionally?

My husband's father was raised in an orphanage where apparently he was treated cruelly.  He then raised my husband to see animals as worthy of being tortured before slaughter.  I won't even talk about some of the things that he taught my husband were part of the slaughtering process.  I will say that one of the things NH's father thought was perfectly ok, was to step on an animal's neck and watch their eyes bulge out, while laughing histerically at the site and suffering of that animal, and then killing it.  I don't find animals that are about to die, a funny thing.  Maybe this is why I stopped eating red meat recently.

I also know from NH's own admission, that, when kittens were born, if not wanted, his father chopped their heads off and buried them.  Tell me THAT would not teach a child a lack of empathy???  Years ago, they put kittens in a bag of stones and drowned them.  JUST SICKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK and cRUEL!

NH's sister has told me stories about being FORCED to pluck chickens and see animals killed.  I can tell you that, even from watching documentaries of it, I don't even like the thought of it entering my brain cells.  Killing animals is cruel, period, unless it is done humanely...but torturing them and laughing is totally WRONG!

That's my stance on farms and cruelty.  It's not the farm living that did it with NH...it was the insane "father"  Still, i'm glad I did not have slaughterhouses as part of my life as a child.  I learned that it's kind to even avoid killing insects as much as possible.  I like it that way.

~Laura

[changing]

You also mentioned that your H's father molested his daughters as well as  practicing other deviant behaviors . I still submit that the behavior of that particular farm family is not typical of, nor limited to, farms and farmers.

Love,

Changing

[Leah]

My paternal side of family : generations of farmers.  They all of them, tend their livestock with care, and to the point of naming the cows!

Here, I live in a rural farming community and they are the same.  Many wept with genuine heartfelt sorrow, while enduring the foot and mouth outbreak.  Many here too, name their cows 

Love, Leah

[isittoolate]

Hi
I posted slightly on this topic in my thread about 'ears'

xx
Izz

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[reallyME]

Leah: My paternal side of family : generations of farmers.  They all of them, tend their livestock with care, and to the point of naming the cows!

Here, I live in a rural farming community and they are the same.  Many wept with genuine heartfelt sorrow, while enduring the foot and mouth outbreak.  Many here too, name their cows 

Help me to understand this...my NH has told me how his family named their animals too...even the ones that they killed for food.  How does one reconcile the idea of killing an animal that has been endeared with a name?  I just don't get it, but then, i'm an activist, so maybe it just is what it is to the meat providers and hunters of the world.

[Leah]

Well I don't know that I can help you to understand.

All I know is that what I seen and heard.

Some would say that certain animals were given for food, and therefore, the animals lifespan has reached its closure upon the time of which it is necessary to feed the people.

But I saw grown men cry over their cattle, during foot and mouth outbreak, and also heard the shotguns fire, when some ended their own life.

That's all I know.

Love, Leah

[mudpuppy]

Well, I hope this is not offensive to anyone, but all animals die.
It is quite possible to name an animal and have affection for it but still recognize that it will inevitably die and that the best way for it to die is humanely and serving those who raised it or pursued it. It will either die and feed the worms and the vultures or it will feed people.
I believe it is over sentimentalization to think it is somehow more humane to let wild creatures die of starvation or disease or be eaten alive than it is to hunt them or raise them as domestic livestock. They should be treated humanely but they are part of the web of life and death.
Growing up on a farm one becomes intimate with that cycle and does not romanticize it; it is what it is.
After all when God wanted to clothe Adam and Eve He didn't knit them polyester leisure suits; He skinned an animal.


mud

[reallyME]

mud,

interesting sharing from your perspective.  As far as Adam and Eve being clothed in animal skins...keep in mind that was AFTER they sinned, not before.  God gave the animals to Adam originally to NAME them, not to eat or skin them.  In the story of Moses and the Exodus, God tried to feed the people manna, but they didn't want that...they cried for QUAIL, so He obliged.  I do not personally believe that it what God's original idea for people to kill animals for food...it was a result of sin both times...first, sin of eyes, flesh, pride of life, next, greed.

[Hopalong]

When vegetable protein is available I believe
it is the right thing to eat

I haven't given up fish yet, but red meat and poulty
(a few lapses when I felt weak and tired until I discovered
Ami's SUPERFOOD. Amaaazing!) Now I'm off them again.

But apologies to the sardines and salmon, I still do fish
once a week

This wknd I went to a little dinner party and passed up
rack of lamb, ate my veggies and salad and was content

I am not a vegetarian, being too lazy and slothful,
but I hand them the moral high ground with a humble heart

xo
Hops
PS--big difference between small farms and factory farming, which to me is immoral