While animal-rights activists want all forms of farmed-animal use abolished, some people -- those like Michael Pollan's slow-food followers -- only speak out against factory farming.
They believe that we should go back to the kind of farming that existed before farmers were told to "go big or get out." A time of more smaller farms, each with fewer animals.
Of course, those animals were still killed for their flesh or because they had outlived their profitability. But how were they treated before they were sent to the slaughterhouse? Did they live idyllic lives?
A recent trip through a "farm museum" in northern Illinois showed me just how well the animals were treated. The relics on the walls could easily have been hanging in the Tower of London. Just in time for Halloween, take a look at these torture devices.
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| Top of "cattle horn trimmer" |
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| "Cattle horn trimmer" |
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| "Hand carved shaft used to hang hog carcass for butchering" |
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| "Hog mouth holder" |
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| "Chicken catcher" |
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| Milking machine |
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| Milking machine used from 1944-1959 |
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| "Nose clamp to lead bull" |
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| "Cow chain [to] prevent kicking" |
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8 comments:
The worst torture I saw growing up on a farm was ringing pigs' noses. Imagine a sharp piece of metal clamped onto an animal's nose. It doesn't heal, it's designed to make it too painful for them to root holes in the ground.
My grandparents were family farmers. I can assure you, for the farmed animals, the difference between factory farms and family farms is primarily one of size....and maybe, just maybe a little less suffering and crowding. For the farmed animals, any kind of "farm" results in an abbreviated, unhappy and unnatural life which is ended at the whim of a human animal. Would you rather be unjustly killed when you were very young while you were in a state prison or a county jail?
Thank you both for sharing your firsthand experience with farming. VeganElder, I like your analogy.
As both a history buff and vegan, I thank you for this post, Tracy. Your subjects are always timely (re: the grizzly Halloween tie-in).
You really have to stop and consider the whole picture.
I’d heard of mobile slaughterhouse and how they were more humane because animals don’t have to endure the stress of transportation. Granted, the lesser of two evils, but the end result is the same: horrifying.
When we first moved to Orcas Island, we were driving down an idyllic country road and suddenly I look out the window and see two wide trailer doors open and a cow shackled and hanging up-side-down from chains. There were skins hanging all along a fence in front. This is the first time I’ve written of it, but the image has made a lasting impression.
Yeah, great timing!
Branding... where are those? They're so obviously cruel and they go way back.
Tracy you certainly don't disappoint! A fascinating look at the instruments of domination and torture. Marquis de Sade has got nothing on animal growers - Then or now.
Thanks, Bea! Per your suggestion from last year, I'll be republishing my 2009 Halloween post Sunday.
That would be great! It really should become a standard vegan message at Halloween... You really called the gore and fright just like it is!
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