The poster child for animal cruelty
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 08:59PM Given that we are small, pasture-based farmers and don't have a background in traditional cattle raising, we had never heard of Drovers, self-described as "America's beef business source, is a monthly magazine for ranchers and feedyard operators." No wonder we had never heard of them. Well, evidently, they've heard of little old Nature's Harmony.
One of their monthly publications is called "For the Record", which is sponsored by ALPHARMA, Inc. You can download and read the entire publication here if you are interested. Anyway, in the spirit of complete transparency, you should know that Drovers and ALPHARMA have come to the conclusion that we are cruel to animals. They base their carefully considered conclusion on perusal of a NY Times article about us several months ago, in which the author quoted me as saying we don't give antibiotics to animals or gestation crates to pigs. Had we given them medical props (presumably supplied by ALPHARMA) then everything would have been alright, the animals would have survived and, indeed, prospered, and we wouldn't be so cruel. Of course, they never attempted to contact us to ask us any questions about our philosophy.
The fact is that we don't give antibiotics to animals. We rarely even give minerals. We don't give any birthing support to pigs. We don't feed grain to ruminants. We work hard to undue much of what mankind has done in the past half century and we are trying very hard to breed maternal instincts back into pigs, and breed down cow sizes so that they can actually "finish" on grass.
That's as transparent as I can make it. You know our values and our approach, which isn't one that we preach as right or wrong. But it is our beliefs. And know you know what the factory farmers think of us. Perhaps this will help you clarify how you feel about raising animals and what you want in your food supply.
Reader Comments (11)
I read the article, but I didn't see where they claimed you were 'cruel' or were engaging in some sort of animal cruelty. The article I read explained what they had concluded from the NY Times article about your farm, and presented a differing view on how parasites, disease, etc. could be treated. They might have implied that you were wrong in your thinking, but shouldn't be a grave offense.
Take the opportunity to explain how your treatments are improving the health and productivity of your livestock, how natural treatments are more effective than 'synthetic' treatments, and how you are breeding and improving livestock that are more suited to a grass-based system.
As an example, explain your cattle breeding program, how are you finding and choosing bulls that are suited to grass-finishing and how you are pairing them with cows that are suited to grass-finishing. When you explain and document your results, more and more producers will see the light and start raising their cattle on pasture.
It was pretty obviously insinuated that natural rearing of animals is cruel. The picture of the freezing cow with "natural" written above it said that. The article went on to explain that many common afflictions can be eased by antibiotics and threapeutic medicine that they would seem to be common sense.
I mean, it was an article written by a pharma company that was obviously biased to their system of raising animals. I think Tim and Liz should do less explaining and more production of good, humanely raised foods. Raising cows in a feedlot isn't humane, no matter how it is defended. The diet is not proper for them, the conditions are deplorable. I've been there; I've seen it. It's very obvious.
When a cow is created that can survive in a feedlot for the duration of a normal cow lifespan, then I'll re-evaluate my statements.
"Drovers" has even a smaller readership than the NYT (which ain't much, these days). It wouldn't surprise me if more people read your response than would actually see the original article. :-)
Stay focused. Be strong. Fear not.
Thanks for the post, Tim
I understand your standpoint on being as minimally invasive as possible in the lives of the animals, and on most points I completely agree with y'all. I do have a question about antibiotics in poultry though. We have been doing some research on birds for our own future farm and I was speaking with someone who has a fairly large population of free-range birds, and this person was telling me that if you don't administer antibiotics to "domesticated" birds (even free-range, grass fed) they will eventually become egg bound and will die from this condition. I had never heard of this and was wondering if you've ever encountered this problem in your birds; and what, if anything you're doing in order to keep your birds healthy and producing regularly? Thanks for your consideration - I really admire your commitment to slow farming.
I wish they would ask themselves question WHY are so many anti-biotics etc. necessary for animals that a century ago had pretty good survival rates without them.
Whoever wrote that article (no name provided) makes several meaningless statements like "no sufficient studies prove organic food is better than conventional".
Plus, that bogus reference to a New Mexico State 2003 study comparing two 'industrial' feedlot type farms that includes a non-documented result that proves nothing is a very, very weak argument.
Well, there are plenty of studies. And each of us can choose to accept or ignore whichever ones we like. Obviously he/she does.
Maybe we can suggest to the writer to fly to the African savannah and give antibiotics to the thousands of animals that die each year of heat exhaustion, lack of water or injuries suffered after being attacked by lions. According to the writer, Nature doesn't know what it's doing and we must intervene with FDA approved antibiotics. ALPHARMA, Inc. to the rescue!
These people miss the boat completely, they argue in favor of antibiotics but do not address the reasons of why are we becoming an antibiotic dependent society.
But if we are lucky, maybe just maybe, the African lions may enjoy an Alpharma employee for dessert!
A little unfair to state Drovers and Alpharama as looking at your operation as cruel etc... I actually browsed that article/opinion when I got the monthly and didn't even notice the part about Natures Harmony (guess that shows how much attentioned and credence to that particular piece I paid attention to. I think I would classify that particular piece as more of an editorial by Alpharama; and from reading it an obviously BIASED one. And not much suprice that a pharmacutical company would put a piece like that out. The "Natural" way directly competes with them. Drovers actually has some usefull info and fairly interesting articles in it sometimes. The publication is free Tim. Might want to give it a look see you might find some things in it interesting reading. I try and keep an open mind and when I have time like to read multiple publications for info. I got my2x 2010 Turkey deposit in today. Looking forward to a NH Turkey next Thanskgiving and Christmas are you gona have any geese?
Everyone - Great comments and fair enough if you interpreted the intent of the article differently than I .
Will - Definitely there will be more geese in 2010 for A) the Christmas market and B) as we move closer toward producing ethical foie gras.
Thanks for your work; I suppose any publicity spreads the word about what you are doing. Debate is good--right? I support you and believe in what you are doing--as do many others.
Tim,
I think the author presents a specious argument in that he compares CAFO cattle on antibiotics with other CAFO cattle without them. He even presents pictures of a diseased liver from an unmedicated CAFO cow. Conclusion, CAFO cattle do better on, and need, medication. This is completely correct. However, he has hit the bullseye of the wrong target and fails to ask the most fundamental question, which is "should we really be raising cattle this way?"
Keep up the good work.
Snobound - I'm not sure if anyone responded to you. My family had chickens when I was growing up and one of my wonderful jobs was gathering eggs :) I never saw an egg bound chicken and in fact never heard of it until recently. We had a small number of chickens just for our family and never used any antibiotics.