I don't understand why their is such an unusually high number of people in favor of animal cruelty in the world and especially in this forum. I get that some animals hunt for survival unmercifully and others don't and everyone is trying to decide which side of the fence we humans should be on. Are these responses posted from people who would feel the same way about a dog or a cat? People seem really in defense of animal cruelty as if that were a good thing.

I think animals in the wild are truly fair game as we all eventually have to die at some point. But locking an animal up it's whole life, taking away all it's instincts and comforts like it's in a concentration camp, and painful surgeries and torture of an animal are not what happens in nature.

The lack of compassion and pure hatred toward animals with total disregard for their pain and suffering astounds me. I wouldn't want to live next door to someone who did this to their dog or cat and yet it seems as if the same people who would be outraged and horrified by a person who did this to a pet will defend the hell out something so traumatic to a pig. it disturbs me just as much to know my friends, neighbors and associates are in support of such practices. It's as if many humans are of a a herd mentality, conditioned to think hypocritically and inconsistant with their own values and somehow all this anger is directed towards defending their lack of making healthy humane decisions on their own rather than just admitting that these practices of farming animals are archaic and ignorant and irresponsible business practices.

Get back to us when you know what you're talking about. Try visiting a well-run organic farm, for example. You know what "farms" are, right? I know you'll have to drive away from the tall buildings that house ivory towers where you can buy lots of pre-packaged GMO soy-based products that pretend to be "food" and that might scare you a little, but give it a shot.

Stop reading the shit that's regurgitated by activist/morons whose main experiences around food center on what they can bitch and whine about and go find people who respect their food and know where it comes from. That wouldn't be you, by the sound of it.

If all you can manage to do is chant what the people you've chosen to obey have ordered you to, then you have nothing to contribute here. No one is interested in hearing either rabid evangelist ministers or people like you who use the same tactics, just changing the words here and there.

wow. it is very clear, MessyONE, that you suffer from the exact anger/guilt complex described by jacqueline1110.

Not very suprising... when you eat hate, you are hate.

don't kill, don't hate

What do you eat? don't kill, don't live...

Farming is a tough business. Farmers do what they need to do to survive. Some are nicer and more humane than others. Some types of farming, dairying for example, involve less animal pain and suffering than other types of farming. Some farmers are trying more humane methods, such as using pain killers for surgery. People just get upset by the "meat is murder" accusations.

I grew up on farms, and if you can eat it, we pretty much raised it. When you do this, you have a certain obligation to the animals. They are to be raised in a clean, humane environment, free of pain, and when they are to be slaughtered, it is to be done in a professional and pain-free manner. Period. Any good farmer will tell you the same thing. That's life.

The fact that you've clearly never met a farmer, never seen a farm animal and never been outside of a city screams from every word you write. You buy your food from supermarkets, pre-packaged and full of chemicals, because the thought of knowing, really knowing where your food comes from is threatening to your chosen dogma. That makes you childish, fearful and too dim to take the initiative and see for yourself what farming is about.

There's not one single original thought in your pointed little head, is there? You claim to believe what the other kids believe because going along with the herd is where you find your security. You read the pamphlets they give you, belittle anyone who disagrees with what you've been trained to believe and think that the fact that you're following the crowd makes you somehow "better" than the rest of the world.

I've seen sheep with better intellectual skills. You have nothing to contribute here.

jacqueline1110,

like it's in a concentration camp

First off that is a bad analogy. Second you obviously do not understand your place in nature. You seem to think you’re above it. Third, you equate this with torture when it is not. That is to say it is not painful, but to assume farmers get pleasure from it is naive. This seems to be a two faced argument. On the one hand you don’t want these animals to feel pain for these necessary practices and on the other you want chemical free meat. You can’t have it both ways.

You're not a farmer. I can tell. You're upset and defensive because you don't want to think about animal suffering. That's understandable. It's horrible to contemplate, and it's natural for you to want to do everything you can to try to make frightening, guilt-inducing thoughts untrue. I look forward to having your support for humane treatment of animals soon, and I wish you well in resolving your own suffering about this.

I can say with complete candor that if you had gone there when we were operational, there was not one animal suffering on the entire place. Not. One. If you had any idea what you were talking about you would know that good farmers know that there's no point in raising animals that are ill or ill treated. There's no money in it.

No one likes to see animals suffer. No one. We owe our meat animals the best of care and feed for the duration of their lives. We owe them veterinary care, space to move, and to the best of our ability, things to do that they enjoy. While they are living, that is their right. THAT was our duty and obligation as some of the people that raised food animals. It certainly never stopped me from seeing little pork chops and lamb shanks running around in the field. If you're too fucking stupid to comprehend that, then I feel sorry for you.

"Humane treatment" INCLUDES killing these animals for food and money. That's life. That is how we made a living. You don't have to like that, no one cares what you think, to be honest.

I have no guilt. I can honestly say that in my entire life, I have endeavored to harm no living creature (including obnoxious humans). That is a conscious decision on my part, one that I have lived by since childhood. NOT ONE of my animals is permitted to suffer any pain or discomfort if it is within my power to stop it. And when it is not in my power to prevent suffering, I understand that part of my obligation is to end it. If that means euthanasia, then so be it.

So why are YOU projecting so much? Don't you understand the basics of animal husbandry and care? Or are the notions of "duty" and "obligation" so alien to you that you'll need a dictionary handy to understand them?

I am not a farmer and basically don't have any skin in this argument. I am confused: could someone please explain the difference between the farming mentioned in the article and the one the messyOne is describing? It seems like there must be a range of farms and farming methods out there. On which end of the spectrum do most farms sit. Again, I am a meat eater, am sympathetic to the economics of farming and have no real opinion on the ethics. I just would be interested in the facts....

The whole point of the article had to do with some practices that have been standard for centuries - castrating boars and ringing their noses. However, now that people are so divorced from the reality of where their food comes from, they "find out" about these things and are all squicked out because they think it's something new. They refuse to understand that there are valid reasons for these things. Perhaps an encounter with a full-grown, cheesed off boar would enlighten them.

In terms of letting the pigs loose to hunt for acorns - probably the folks that raise these outrageously expensive hams have it all over the way we did it. On the other hand, we couldn't exactly do what they do, because the market for this stuff is relatively tiny.

I have to laugh at how "cruel" people are accusing me of being when I think about the outdoor space our pigs had, though. They had their own insulated house on an acre of thick green grass with plenty of white poplars to keep them shaded. We never kept more than three in there at any given time - usually there were only two. Pigs only roll in mud to protect themselves from sunburn, by the way, and they NEVER go near their own excrement if they can help it. Ours staked out a "poop corner" the instant they went outdoors and used it religiously.

In another corner of their pen, we rigged an outdoor "shower" that they could turn on with their noses. It was basically a hose with a water sprinkler suspended about eight feet off the ground. We had an artesian well that pumped beautiful spring water at a constant five pounds pressure. The "on" switch was a large lever attached to their fence. All they had to do was either lean on it or nose it into position and they got a custom shower.

They got their favorite treats (nettles, go figure), the best of food and were scratched whenever they wanted to be, by whoever was handy. These were happy, happy pigs and they made gorgeous, stunning hams, bacon, chops, ribs, roasts, sausages........

Dang, y'all DID have some happy pigs! LOL When my sis and I were little, our family lived on a small farm and we had pigs and chickens. Our chicken flock was small but we raised as many pigs as the sows could provide and sold what we didn't need for meat ourselves. Even as a little kid, I was very well aware that the pigs and chickens were "food critters."

Our hogs had a large pasture to roam in, and they did root some, even with their nose rings, but they didn't totally destroy the pasture. It was some kind of tall grass and they had paths through it to get where they wanted to go. They did have a nice mud wallow that my dad would periodically fill with water, and we kids found it very entertaining to watch them.

Messyone- you do realize that the VAST majority of meat available to the general public comes from large commercial farms that are in no way comparable to the farm you grew up on. i agree with your point that people overreact to hearing some of the practices like ringing, but you seem to go too far and paint the picture that all farming is how you describe it. I don't doubt that on small family farms the animals are generally well cared for in the way you describe. but that's not the meat available to buy in the local grocery store.

I ONLY buy organic, humanely raised meat. Period. The Evanston Farmer's Market has several vendors that sell from their farms. There are many, many farms in our area that will sell you a contract on an animal (or half, or quarter) in the spring to be picked up in the fall. I'll even go so far as to ask the farmer if I can come and have a look at the animals. If they refuse, I don't buy from them.

It's not rocket science, kids. All it takes is effort.

As to the farm we had? Hell, no one raises pork that way! It was too expensive - these were for our own use. You'd have to be nuts. We did raise goats for the restaurant trade pretty much that way, though. When you live on a quarter section (that would be 160 acres for the ones that don't know), it's easy to set aside pasture for them. We also raised meat rabbits and had a few clients who would buy poultry from us - all organic, all happy critters right to the end. They were also butchered better than most.

My mother used to make chevre which was miles better than the commercial stuff and we sold eggs to a few clients as well - mostly restaurants who wanted perfect eggs with bright yellow yolks (which only happens when the birds are outdoors).

These were all sidelines that happened on the home quarter, though. The larger scale of the business was grains. Malting barley made a fortune if the weather was right, and in Alberta, canola and hard wheat are the kings.

I was responding to the flaming morons who were accusing me of "cruelty" and "guilt" (for the record, I don't even feel guilty for ignoring beggars on the street) when they don't have the foggiest notion what they're talking about.

"If you had any idea what you were talking about you would know that good farmers know that there's no point in raising animals that are ill or ill treated. There's no money in it."

So what, you don't think factory farms make money, or they don't ill treat animals? If you think the former, then you don't apparently understand the economies of scale at work. Factory farms can become more profitable by stuffing more chickens into the same area, even if it means a percentage of chickens die as a consequence and profit per bird goes down. Total profit still increases at extremely high densities. If you think the latter, then you just don't know what goes on in factory farm. Just as one representative example, chickens are breed solely to grow as fast as possible to maximize profit without any thought of the consequences to chickens. This rapid growth rate leads to crippling, deformities, and death in the chickens. But again, this does not mean that the factory farm is not going to make money.

"No one likes to see animals suffer. No one."

I don't know how you expect to be taken seriously if you make categorical claims that like that are obviously false. There are sick people who do like to see animals suffer, and more than that, there are plenty of people who are willing to turn a blind eye and not think about it, if the consequences of not doing so mean they have to confront where their food actually came from.

"'Humane treatment' INCLUDES killing these animals for food and money. That's life. That is how we made a living."

So, if you actually think that's true, I can only conclude that you think the proper thing for all pet owners to do is to kill their pets while they're still healthy and either eat them or sell them for money? Is that life? If they don't do that, are they not being humane toward their pets?

"As to the farm we had? Hell, no one raises pork that way! It was too expensive - these were for our own use."

See, again you contradict yourself. Making money and treating animals well are two completely different things, you can do one without necessarily doing the other.