Slaughterhouses

If they survive the farms and transport, the animals—whether factory-farmed or free-range—are slaughtered. Animals in slaughterhouses can smell, hear, and often see the slaughter of those before them. As the animals struggle, the human workers, who are pressured to keep the lines moving quickly, often react with impatience towards the animals.

Federal law requires that mammals be stunned prior to slaughter (exempting kosher and halal). Common methods of stunning:

Captive bolt stunning :  A “pistol” is set against the animal’s head and a metal rod is thrust into the brain.Shooting a struggling animal is difficult, and the rod often misses its mark.

Electrical stunning :  Current produces a grand mal seizure; then the throat is cut. According to industry consultant Temple Grandin, PhD, “Insufficient amperage can cause an animal to be paralyzed without losing sensibility.”

For ritual slaughter, animals are fully conscious when their carotid arteries are cut. This is supposed to cause unconsciousness within seconds, but because of blood flow through the vertebral arteries in the back of the neck, some animals can remain conscious as they bleed for up to a minute. Additionally, Temple Grandin, PhD notes “Unfortunately, there are some plants which use cruel methods of restraint such as hanging live animals upside down.” This can cause broken bones as the heavy animal hangs by a chain attached to one leg.

An article in The Washington Post noted: “Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water.”

These turkeys are shackled by their feet, entering the area where they will be slaughtered (courtesy of Farm Sanctuary).

“You have just dined,
and however scrupulously
the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles,
there is complicity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson “Fate,” The Conduct
of Life, 1860

Pig being skinned

To induce paralysis in birds for ease of handling, electric stunning is normally used. However, it is not known whether stunning renders the birds unconscious; the shock may be an “intensely painful experience.” Each year, large numbers of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese reach the scalding tanks alive and are either boiled to death or drowned.

In February of 2007, a Mercy For Animals (MFA) undercover investigator took a job at one of the largest poultry slaughter plants in the country. There he found workers:

    -  Punching live animals for fun.
    - Ripping eggs out of the hens’ cloacae to throw at other workers.
    - Ripping the heads off of turkeys who had gotten their feet stuck in the transport truck cages.
    - Throwing turkeys.
    - Letting birds lie on the ground flapping in misery for hours at a time.

MFA’s investigation comes on the heels of a February 2005 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals undercover investigation at a large Tyson plant in Alabama, where the investigator found:

• Workers ripping the heads off birds who had missed the throat-cutting machines.

• Birds frequently mutilated by throat-cutting machines that didn’t work properly; one bird had her skin torn entirely off her chest.

From October 2003 to May 2004, an undercover investigator working for PETA, took footage at a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughterhouse in Moorefield, West Virginia. Workers were filmed violently and repeatedly throwing live chickens into a wall, picking chickens up by their legs and swinging their heads into the floor, and kicking and jump up and down on live chickens. This was documented in the New York Times (“KFC Supplier Accused of Animal Cruelty,” July 20, 2004), and the video can be seen on PETA’s dedicated website.

The USDA oversees the treatment of animals in meat plants through meat inspectors. Arthur Hughes, Vice Chairman of the National Council of Food Inspection Locals, a union of 6,000 federal meat inspectors, states: “Drastic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants, new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little or no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed, have significantly hampered our ability to ensure compliance with humane regulations.”

Even when problems are reported by inspectors, the government often ignores them. For example, no action was taken against a Texas beef company despite 22 citations in 1998 for violations that included chopping the hooves off live cattle.

On May 24, 2000, King5.com new service in Seattle, WA, broke a story about undercover footage taken at a nearby IBP slaughterhouse. According to their report, “The video shows fallen cows being trampled and dragged, others are tortured with electric prods. One cow has fallen and workers stick an electric prod on its head, then place the prod down its mouth. Still other cows are hung on chains, fully conscious, blinking and kicking. The worker who shot the tape said one cow was already at a station where legs are removed. ‘It would be horrible if someone were to cut off your leg without anesthesia.’”

Workers hoisting cow

According to Steve Cockerham, a USDA inspector at Nebraska slaughterhouses, and former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander, some U.S. slaughterhouses routinely skin live cattle, immerse squealing pigs in scalding water, and abuse still-conscious animals in other ways to keep production lines moving quickly.

The men stated that the federal law requiring slaughterhouses to kill animals humanely has been increasingly ignored as meat plants grow bigger. Cockerham said that he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious on the production line after stun guns failed to work properly. “They were still blinking and moving. It’s a sickening thing to see,” he said.

In 2007 and 2008, a set of investigations (with video) came to light regarding a large, widely-praised slaughterhouse in California. The Des Moines Register pointed out: “The undercover videos were bad enough: packing-plant workers abusing sick or disabled cattle and dragging at least one of the cows to be slaughtered, a violation of federal food-safety standards. But consumer advocates say what’s also disturbing is what happened within days of that video being shot at a California slaughterhouse. Independent inspectors from two auditing firms visited the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. plant and gave it glowing marks.”

Investigator Gail Eisnitz writes about widespread violations of the Humane Slaughter Act in her 1997 book Slaughterhouse. One of many such stories: “It was a plant where squealing hogs were left straddling the restrainer and dangling live by one leg when workers left the stick pit for their half-hour lunch breaks; where stunners were shocking hogs three and four times…where thousands of squealing hogs were immersed in the plant’s scalding tank alive.”

“Animals are God’s creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God’s sight.”

Rev. Andrew Linzey
Oxford University
Animal Theology, 1995

 

“It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was ‘second-legger,’ a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour. The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren’t.

“‘They blink. They make noises,’ he said softly. ‘The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around.’

“Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller.

“‘They die,’ said Moreno, ‘piece by piece.’

“Under a 23-year-old federal law [which exempts the slaughter of birds], slaughtered cattle and hogs first must be ‘stunned’—rendered insensible to pain—with a blow to the head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works.

“‘In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis,’ said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant.

“‘I’ve seen it happen. And I’ve talked to other veterinarians. They feel it’s out of control.’”

Source: Veganoutreach.org

There are kinder ways to farm

I rischi nel mangiare carne

Dottor George Clements – “Scienza & Salute”, giugno 1989

“Io non mangerò mai più carne finché il mondo esiste”. I Cor. 8:13.
"L'estrema avversione che alcuni adulti e molti bambini mostrano nei confronti della carne di ogni tipo, è attribuita da Fitch ad una tendenza atavica, cioè alla sopravvivenza dell'istinto primitivo dei nostri antenati preistorici che non mangiavano carne” - (J. H. Kellog, M.D., editore Buona Saluto).
"E' stata notata l'enorme quantità di morti in America dovuta al morbo di Bright. Non ho più dubbi che la dieta ricca di carne rovini i reni, specialmente considerando gli esperimenti dei dr. Newburgh, i quali provano che possiamo, con certezza matematica, produrre il morbo di Bright anche nei topi, mettendoli a dieta con molta carne” - (M. Hindhede, M.D., Commissario della Sanità in Danimarca),

La carne è stata a lungo sospettata di essere un cibo povero. Un'ampia esperienza sta provando che il sospetto è fondato. L'avvertimento di solito era: mangia meno carne. Ora è: non mangiare la carne.
Gli uomini un tempo credevano che la carne fosse necessaria per produrre sangue. Ora è noto che la frutta fresca, le bacche e le verdure forniscono il corpo di materiale migliore di quello che danno le migliori bistecche.

Il brodo di manzo è stato a lungo considerato un valido tonico e stimolante, quasi indispensabile per i malati deboli. Ora è noto che è vero il contrario. Secondo un eminente medico francese, il brodo di manzo è una «vera soluzione di veleni». Il dottor Austin Flint, dei Bellevue Hospital College, uno dei più importanti medici d'America, fece un'analisi chimica dei brodo di manzo, e scoprì che il risultato era praticamente lo stesso di un'analisi dell'urina.
E' inevitabile che sia così, perchè il brodo di manzo, il brodo di carne, il brodo di pollo, il bollito e gli estratti di carne di tutti i tipi sono dei veri e propri tessuti disintegrati, preparati artificialmente, proprio come l'urina, che è composta da tessuti disintegrati, prodotti dal metabolismo dei corpo. Il brodo di manzo, perciò, è un veleno che intossica. Non ha proprietà nutritive; il suo uso non è mai indicato; né ha la capacità di aiutare i malati deboli o i convalescenti.

Bouchard scoprì che aggiungendo la carne nel regime dietetico, la tossicità dell'urina aumentava del 50%, e se la dieta consisteva interamente di carne, la tossicità aumentava dei 400%. Sterling scoprì che mangiare carne aumentava il contenuto di acido urico dell’urina da tre a dieci volte. Alla luce di questo, è da ricordare che l'acido urico, in combinazione con altre tossine, è considerato da molti ricercatori il più attivo di tutte le sostanze che producono le malattie.

Un tempo si supponeva che la carne fosse particolarmente salutare nella cura della tisi. Qualche anno fa un tedesco entusiasta fondò un'istituzione col proposito di nutrire i tisici esclusivamente con la carne, usando principalmente carne cruda. L'iniziativa fallì in sei mesi.
La carne si decompone nel tratto digestivo; il veleno risultante viene assorbito e il sangue contaminato, con risultati disastrosi. Questa è la principale causa che predispone al cancro, alla tisi e ad altri tipi di anormalità.

Gli esami post mortem, fatti in centinaia di casi al Phipps Institute di Philadelphia, hanno dimostrato che l'86% di tutti i malati di tisi avevano anche i reni malati, e in uno stadio abbastanza avanzato. L'indebolimento dei reni è, infatti, fra la cause più comuni di morte nella tubercolosi polmonare. Ed è sempre la carne ad essere in genere responsabile dei morbo di Bright e di altre disfunzioni renali.
"Nella dieta di frutta, noci e verdure, i malati di cancro hanno nelle loro mani i mezzi per liberarsi largamente, se non interamente, dalla paura che accompagna questa terribile malattia. lo l'ho verificato molte volte nella mia esperienza, e nella cura di questa malattia mi si è aperta una porta ancora più ampia da quando ho conosciuto il valore di una dieta simile". (George Biack, M.D.).
“Il cibo animale, l'abuso del quale si fa ogni giorno più grande, non è un cibo in nessun senso, ma un veleno continuo". (Prof. Dr. Huchard).
“Se non fosse per la carne, noi dottori avremmo poco da fare. - (Dr. Allison, esperto in alimentazione).

Per più di un centinaio di anni, i medici ostinatamente sostennero che una dieta composta principalmente di carne, era essenziale per la cura vittoriosa dei diabete. Di questa assurda teoria Trall osserva: “Io non posso qui fare a meno di alludere ad un perfezionato regime dietetico che è stato recentemente proposto dall'Accademia francese di Medicina, e discusso nel giornali di medicina di questo paese, per la cura della malattia chiamata diabete. Questo miglioramento consiste nel nutrire il paziente con la carne di animali carnivori - gatti, cani, volpi, ecc.. E allo stesso scopo di vincere il pregiudizio che la mente o il palato dei paziente potrebbero avere contro l'alimentazione al sangue, si propone poi di condirla abbondantemente con brandy e spezie. Tali scoperte nella scienza medica hanno il potere di portarci indietro nel Medio Evo, piuttosto che condurci a dei risultati utili nel futuro". - (Il corretto cibo dell'uomo).

Ancora abbastanza recentemente era usuale per i medici nutrire i diabetici quasi esclusivamente con la carne. Questa è una ragione per cui questi malati non guariscono mai. I dottori "senza farmaci" hanno provato che, una dieta di carne peggiora la malattia, aumenta la presenza di zucchero nell'urina e, comunque, peggiora lo stato del paziente.

Una dieta di carne magra è stata a lungo considerata benefica nel casi di obesità. Ora è noto che in simili casi di anormalità c'è una tendenza a sviluppare il diabete, e questo aumenta mangiando la carne. Commentando i pericoli nel mangiare la carne magra, Hindhede disse: “Noi abbiamo provato anche a vivere di sola carne. Ma dopo esserci nutriti di carne magra, cotta o arrostita, tre volte al giorno, In soli tre giorni stavamo così male che nessuno di noi volle continuare. Quale fu la causa? Dunque, quando gli intestini sono pieni di carne magra, il risultato è la putrefazione, che si manifesta in diarrea e feci maleodoranti. Attraverso questo processo sono probabilmente prodotte delle tossine, che una volta assorbite, causano un avvelenamento. Una dieta di sola carne magra è velenose per l'uomo, non ci sono dubbi su questo".
Hindhede ha condannato anche le uova e il latte con queste parole: “ClO' CHE E' STATO DETTO SULLA CARNE E'VALIDO PER LE UOVA E IN PARTE PER IL LATTE”.

Il beri-beri, lo scorbuto, il rachitismo e la pellagra sono malattie da deficienza, e spesso risultano dal mangiare troppa carne. Tutti i tipi di carne mancano di molti elementi che il corpo deve avere per costruire dei tessuti sani. La carne è molto carente di vitamine e di sali di calce. D'altra parte, la frutta fresca le bacche e le verdure sono ricche sia di vitamine che di sali, e mangiandole si assumono tutte le vitamine e i sali di cui il corpo ha bisogno.
Qualche anno fa uno specialista dello stomaco fece trasalire il mondo della medicina affermando che "l'ulcera dello stomaco è una malattia di chi mangia la carne”. Il cancro dello stomaco e degli intestini ha origine dalla stessa causa - quando non è prodotto dalla vaccinazione o dalla inoculazione.
“Il 75% delle malattie più terribili di cui soffriamo, sono in pratica avvelenamenti causati da cibi non naturali. La natura dice, in un modo che non può essere frainteso, che l'uomo è un animale frugivoro e non carnivoro". - (Alexander Haig M.A.,F.R.C.P.).

Quei mangiatori di carne, che sono troppo deboli per abbandonarne l'abitudine, e quelli i cui dividendi dipendono dall'industria che inscatola la carne, sono sempre pronti a fare una grande pubblicità ad ogni informazione che sembra aiutare la loro causa.
Molte persone credono che per avere forza e vigore è necessario mangiare carne rossa. Sembrano dimenticare che i buoi e gli elefanti prendono la loro grande forza e il sangue dall'erba e dalle foglie, ricche di vitamine, di calcio, di ferro e di altri sali minerali. I deboli, i magri e gli anemici, invece di nutrirsi di fegato di vitello e di olio di fegato di merluzzo, dovrebbero trovare i cibi vitali nel regno vegetale, per la mancanza dei quali il loro sangue sta morendo di fame e il loro corpo si sta ammalando.

Le informazioni relative al rischi nel mangiare la carne, dovrebbero essere sufficienti a ridurre di molto il consumo della carne. Ma se i rischi si limitassero solo a quanto scritto sopra, l'argomento sarebbe di così poca importanza da ricevere poca attenzione da parte nostra.
E' stato recentemente dimostrato da Moore, nei laboratori di Fisiologia di Harvard, che una dieta di carne causa un'accelerazione dei battito cardiaco sorprendente per velocità e durata.
Dopo un pasto di carne, l'aumento dei battiti cardiaci va regolarmente dal 25 al 50% sopra il livello rispetto al digiuno, e persiste, in soggetti sperimentali, da 15 a 20 ore, raggiungendo un totale di molte migliaia di battiti in più.
Moore mostrò che un pasto di proteine causa un sovraccarico di lavoro per il cuore, che è paragonabile, in estensione, all'attività totale del cuore di due o tre ore; ciò ha portato Moore ad affermare che una dieta con molte proteine è incompatibile coi riposo cardiaco.

La carne, scendendo nello stomaco e nelle budella dell'uomo, è come se giacesse sotto il sole estivo al margine della strada, e ciò di certo causa danni maggiori di quanto sia mai stato detto o scoperto.
Uno dei prodotti della carne decomposta è l'urina, e non ha importanza se la carne si è decomposta nello stomaco, nella pentola o dal macellaio. I prodotti secondari della carne decomposta passano nel sangue dei consumatori di carne, e devono essere filtrati ed eliminati dai reni come uno scarto velenoso, che serve solo ad indebolire il corpo e a logorare i reni, portando al morbo di Bright e ad altre malattie renali.

La carne, scendendo nel tratto digestivo che è di una bellezza teatrale, dipinto con tutti i colori di una bambola di cera, forma uno dei veleni più mortali che i chimici abbiano mai conosciuto, e dà al respiro un odore nauseante che si tenta di correggere masticando caramelle e gomme profumato. Il dentista dica che il cattivo odore proviene dal denti malati, mostrando quanto abbia ancora da imparare.
Quando il sangue diventa così contaminato da questi veleni, la pelle viene in suo soccorso e, in un processo di emergenza, crea un'eruzione; i dottori possono definirla morbillo, varicella, eczema, e così via, e cercano di "curare la malattia” con altri veleni sottotorma di farmaci e sieri.
Non c'è da stupirsi se il grande Metchnikoff, dopo una vita di studi sull'argomento, abbia dichiarato che la putrefazione alimentare sia responsabile della morte prematura, che è causa di tutte le malattie, perchè questi pericolosi veleni passano dal canale alimentare nella linfa e nel sangue, e da questi sono condotti in tutto le parti dei corpo - il fegato, i polmoni, i reni, il cuore e il cervello.

L'origine di tutte le malattie giace nella putrefazione alimentare, disse Metchnikoff. Qual è il rimedio sicuro? La rimozione della causa, non l'uso di farmaci, sieri e bisturi.
Molti studi sperimentali hanno indicato che mangiare carne causa la nefrite cronica. Il professor Newburg, dell'università dei Michigan, ha dichiarato che una piccola porzione di proteine della carne, come il 20%, porta ad un logoramento dei reni.
Le esigenze dell'ultima guerra sono servito a dimostrare il valore di una dieta poco proteica. Maiali e bestiame furono uccisi in Europa con lo scopo di conservare le provviste di cibo, e le popolazioni si nutrirono per un certo periodo soprattutto di frutta e verdura. Il risultato fu una riduzione di un terzo della mortalità, oltre a una grande riduzione delle malattie. Alcune malattie come il diabete, l'obesità, la gotta, i disturbi digestivi, i problemi dei fegato e dei reni e altre malattie dei l'alimentazione sparirono quasi completamente.
La gente rovina la propria salute mangiando carne, poi paga i dottori per farsi curare i sintomi che provengono da questo abuso. Molti medici ignorano la causa che si nasconde dietro i sintomi di alcune malattie, perché anche loro mangiano liberamente la carne come molti dei loro pazienti, e soffrono e muoiono prematuramente per la stessa "malattia”.

Fonte: Disinformazione.it

Cows Used for Their Flesh

Cattle raised for their flesh spend the first year of their lives grazing. In fact, they are the only farmed animals other than sheep who are ever allowed to do anything natural, like breathe fresh air or feel sun on their backs.

However, cattle are still subjected to abuses that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if they were dogs or cats. To mark cows for identification, ranchers restrain the animals and push hot fire irons into their flesh, causing third degree burns, as they bellow in pain and attempt to escape. Male calves’ testicles are ripped from their scrotums without pain relievers, and the horns of cows raised for beef are cut or burned off.

Cows’ horns are cut or burned off at the base, often causing extreme pain.

While “on the range,” most cows receive inadequate veterinary care, and as a result, many die from infection and injury. Every winter, cattle freeze to death in states like Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota. And every summer, cows collapse from heat stroke in states like Texas and Arizona. After about a year of facing the elements, cows are shipped to an auction lot and then across hundreds of miles to massive feedlots—feces- and mud-filled holding pens where they are crammed together by the thousands. Many arrive crippled or dead from the journey.

Cattle on feedlots are fed a very unnatural diet to fatten them up. This diet causes chronic digestive pain—imagine your worst case of gastritis never going away—and some of their innards actually become ulcerated and eventually rupture (the industry calls this condition “bloat”). According to a study published in the Journal of Animal Science, this diet also causes potentially fatal liver abscesses in as many as 32 percent of cattle raised for beef.

The feedlot air is saturated with ammonia, methane, and other noxious chemicals, which build up from the huge amounts of manure, and the cows are forced to inhale these gasses constantly. These fumes can give the cows chronic respiratory problems, making breathing painful.

Cattle raised for food are also pumped full of drugs to make them grow faster and keep them alive in these miserable conditions. Instead of taking sick cattle to see a veterinarian, many feedlot owners simply give the animals even higher doses of human-grade antibiotics in an attempt to keep them alive long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse.

Source: Peta

This is What the Meat Industry Doesn’t Want You to See

Source: Peta

The Hidden Lives of Cows

A cow contentedly chewing her cud may look like she doesn’t have a care in the world, but there’s a lot going on behind those big brown eyes. Cows are as diverse as cats, dogs, and people: Some are bright; others are slow learners. Some are bold and adventurous; others are shy and timid. Some are friendly and considerate; others are bossy and devious. According to organic farmer Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Lives of Cows, cows “can be highly intelligent, moderately so, or slow to understand; friendly, considerate, aggressive, docile, inventive, dull, proud, or shy.”

According to recent research, in addition to having distinct personalities, cows are generally very intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time. Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly, forming social hierarchies within their herds, and choosing leaders based upon intelligence. They are emotionally complex as well and even have the capacity to worry about the future.

Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also, like humans, enjoy the intellectual challenge and get excited when they find a solution. Their big problem, of course, is that they’re being raised for slaughter, and just like all animals, they don’t want to be separated from their families, and they don’t want to die. So cows have been known to use their smarts to perform amazing feats, such as leaping over a six-foot fence to escape from a slaughterhouse, walking seven miles to reunite with a calf after being sold at auction, and swimming across a river to freedom.

Cow Know-How

Cows are intelligent and curious animals who enjoy solving problems and interacting with their environment. They have long memories and are capable of learning lessons from each other, just as humans do.

Cows like challenges, and according to researchers, they feel excitement when they finish a task or use their intellect to overcome an obstacle. In an article on cow intelligence, a reporter writes that “Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges. In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves. ‘The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,’ Professor Broom said.”

Research has shown that cows clearly understand cause-and-effect relationships—a sure-fire sign of advanced cognitive abilities. For example, cows can learn how to push a lever to operate a drinking fountain when they’re thirsty or to press a button with their heads to release grain when they’re hungry. Like humans and other animals, cows also quickly learn to stay away from things that cause them pain, like electric fences and unkind humans.

Because of their complex social interactions, cows also have the ability to learn from each other, another indication of their intelligence, which is comparable to that of a dog and a bit higher than that of a cat. According the Humane Society of the United States, if an individual cow in a herd is shocked by an electric fence, the rest will become alarmed and learn to avoid it. Only a small fraction will ever be shocked.

Cows Never Forget a Place or a Face. Cows don’t forget lessons that they’ve learned. Research has shown that these animals have impressive memories. Cows remember their homes and can find their way back to their favorite spots.

According to one report on cow behavior, cows “demonstrate good spatial memory (they remember where things are located). ... They can remember migration routes, watering holes, shelter and the location of their newborn calf.” Researchers also report that cows can remember the best eating spots in a pasture and that they use their spatial memory to guide themselves back to the best spots.

Stories of cows who used their navigation capabilities to find their way back home after being sold at auction are common. Some cows never forget those who have hurt them either, and they’ve been known to hold grudges against other members of their herd. Rosamund Young details a quarrel between a grandmother cow and her daughter. Grandmother cows often help their daughters with mothering duties, but a cow named Olivia wanted no part of that. She never left her calf’s side, and she ignored her mother’s offers to help groom him. Offended, her mother finally marched off to another field to graze with her friends and never “spoke” to her daughter again. Cows can also remember and hold grudges against people who have hurt them or their family members.

The Social Lives of Cows

Pecking Orders Aren’t Just for Chickens

A herd of cows is very much like a pack of wolves, with alpha animals and complex social dynamics. Each cow can recognize more than 100 members of the herd, and social relationships are very important to them. Cows will consistently choose leaders for their intelligence, inquisitiveness, confidence, experience, and good social skills, while bullying, selfishness, size, and strength are not recognized as suitable leadership qualities. Cows form close friendships with some members of their herd—the relationships between mothers and daughters are especially strong, and calves bond with others in their peer group.

Researchers at Bristol University in the United Kingdom found that cows have best friends and cliques, just like human beings do, and that animals groom and lick one another to demonstrate this affection. The longer partners know each other, the longer they groom each other. Also like humans, cows may carefully avoid others in their herd after they’ve had a falling out.

The social relationships between cows influence many parts of their daily lives. For example, when the herd settles down for a nap, each cow’s position and the order in which they lie down is directly related to their status in the herd.

Raising cows in unnatural conditions, such as crowded feedlots, is very stressful to them because it upsets their hierarchy. University of Saskatchewan researcher Jon Watts notes that cows who are kept in groups of more than 200 on commercial feedlots get stressed and constantly fight for dominance (feedlots in America hold thousands of cows at a time). He says that this occurs because the cows are taken from their mothers too early, deprived of adequate space, and can’t find their niche within such large groups.

This is akin to how humans would feel if we were penned in a tiny space with thousands of unfamiliar people. Just like us, cows like to be near their families and friends, and the stress of life on factory farms makes them feel confused, scared, and alone.

Gentle Giants

Cows are emotional animals who have likes and dislikes, just like humans do. The chair of the National Farmers Union in the United Kingdom, Tim Sell, explains, “They are all individuals and all have their own characteristics. They are tremendously curious. They have emotional storms. When it is a miserable, cold day, they will all be miserable, but when it is nice and sunny, you can almost see them smiling.”

Many cows are affectionate animals who are deeply loyal to their families and human companions. Cows can use their body posture and vocal sounds to express a whole range of emotions, including contentment, interest, anger, and distress. These gentle giants mourn the death of those they love, even shedding tears over their loss.

Like humans and all animals, cows show strong reactions to bad treatment. For example, Dr. Ed Pajor of Purdue University found that cows resent being handled roughly: “The handlers don’t have to be really mean and hit the cows. It’s just a slap on the rump in the way that many farmers would. But the cows don’t like it and it makes a real difference.”

With kind treatment, cows can be very loyal companions. Anyone who has spent time with cows knows that they look out for their friends, both human and animal. In her book Peaceful Kingdom: Random Acts of Kindness by Animals, Stephanie Laland writes that when the Rev. O. F. Robertson began to go blind, his cow Mary became his “seeing-eye cow.” Mary would walk along with him, nudging him away from obstacles. She diligently accompanied Robertson everywhere he went for the rest of his life.

Cows Grieve. When they are separated from their families, friends, or human companions, cows grieve over the loss. Researchers report that cows become visibly distressed after even a brief separation. The mother-calf bond is particularly strong, and there are countless reports of mother cows who continue to frantically call and search for their babies after the calves have been taken away and sold to veal farms.

Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ Temple said, and, indeed, this was what had happened. We saw one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing. ‘That’s not a happy cow,’ Temple said. ‘That’s one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She’ll forget for a while, then start again. It’s like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don’t like to allow them thoughts or feelings.’”

John Avizienius, the senior scientific officer in the Farm Animal Department of the RSPCA in Britain, says that he “remembers one particular cow who appeared to be deeply affected by the separation from her calf for a period of at least six weeks. When the calf was first removed, she was in acute grief; she stood outside the pen where she had last seen her calf and bellowed for her offspring for hours. She would only move when forced to do so. Even after six weeks, the mother would gaze at the pen where she last saw her calf and sometimes wait momentarily outside of the pen. It was almost as if her spirit had been broken and all she could do was to make token gestures to see if her calf would still be there.”

Cows Don’t Want to Die. Like all animals, cows value their lives and don’t want to die. Stories abound of cows who have gone to extraordinary lengths to fight for their lives.

A cow named Suzie was about to be loaded on a freighter bound for Venezuela when she turned around, ran back down the gangplank, and leaped into the river. Even though she was pregnant, or perhaps because she was pregnant, she managed to swim all the way across the river, eluding capture for several days. (Believe it or not, cows actually love swimming!) She was rescued by PETA and sent to a sanctuary for farmed animals.

When workers at a slaughterhouse in Massachusetts went on break, Emily the cow made a break of her own. She took a tremendous leap over a five-foot gate and escaped into the woods, surviving for several weeks in New England’s snowiest winter in a decade, cleverly refusing to touch the hay put out to lure her back to the slaughterhouse. When she was eventually caught by the owners of a nearby sanctuary, public outcry demanded that the slaughterhouse allow the sanctuary to buy her for one dollar. Today, Emily is living happily in Massachusetts, a testimony to the fact that eating meat means eating animals who don’t want to die.

How You Can Help Cows

These are just a few of the countless stories of cows who value their lives and fear death, just like humans and all other animals. In the U.S., more than 40 million cows are killed in the meat and dairy industries every year. When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter.

The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the United States will spend most of their lives either in large sheds or on feces-caked mud lots where disease is rampant. Cows raised for their milk are repeatedly impregnated, and their calves are taken from them and sent to veal farms or other dairy farms. When their exhausted bodies can no longer produce enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers.

Many cows die on the way to slaughter, and those who survive are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, and taken onto the killing floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process—according to one slaughterhouse worker, in an interview with the Washington Post, “they die piece by piece.”

Learn more about the lives of cows on factory farms. Also keep in mind that every time you choose to buy a leather jacket or leather shoes, you sentence animals to a lifetime of suffering. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses, since the skins of animals are the most economically important byproduct of the multibillion-dollar meat industry.

You can help these gentle, intelligent, sensitive animals by removing their milk and flesh from your diet and refusing to wear their skins.

Source: Peta

Mercy For Animals pro-vegetarian TV commercial.

If You Had a Choice

Compassion Over Killing MTV ad.

Only you can stop it

He’s been skinned all the way to his head
his legs have been cut off
. . .and he’s still conscious

Imagine being hit on the head and finding yourself dazed but still fully conscious. A chain is attached to one of your legs and you're hoisted upside down onto an assembly line. As you lash out in terror, gigantic clippers are used to snip off the lower parts of your arms and legs.
Completely helpless, you feel workers cutting into your thighs, belly, and sides as they strip your skin from your legs to your neck. Even with the skin peeled back all the way up to your head you are conscious enough to struggle.
Atrocities like these are happening to thousands of cattle every week in slaughterhouses in Washington state and throughout the US, according to numerous sworn affidavits from meat industry workers. One Washington slaughterhouse worker says, “Cows can get ten minutes down the line and still be alive. All the hide is stripped out down to the neck there.”
According to another, “Workers open the hide on the legs, the stomach, the neck, they cut off the feet while the cow is breathing. It makes noise. It’s looking around.” Still another says, “Their eyes look like they are popping out. I feel bad that I have to do my job on them.”
Hidden camera videotape obtained by the Humane Farming Association (HFA)—and recently broadcast on television—shows, among other atrocities, live cows dangling upside down from a moving conveyor, animals being trampled, and a conscious cow having an electric prod held in her mouth.
The Worst Possible Way to Die
How can atrocities like these be taking place in the new millennium and in the United States of America? The answer is simple. A single US pig slaughterhouse can kill as many as 144,000 pigs a week—well over 20,000 a day. When a slaughterhouse boosts the speed of its killing line, it also boosts its profits. With animals whizzing by at the rate of one every few seconds, workers report that they cannot ensure that each animal is rendered unconscious. But workers say they'll be fired if they stop the production line. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is entrusted with enforcing the federal Humane Slaughter Act, knows about these abuses but is doing nothing to stop them. According to the US Secretary of Agriculture, it is not a priority. A better explanation is that USDA is charged with both regulating and promoting the meat industry.

USDA was made aware of widespread violations more than two years ago when it was provided copies of investigator Gail Eisnitz's landmark book Slaughterhouse. This important book documents meat industry abuses based on interviews with workers and USDA meat inspectors representing more than two million hours on the kill floor.

Attorney General Gregoire: Please Enforce The Law
At the Wallula slaughter plant owned by IBP, the world's largest meat packer, more than a dozen workers have courageously come forward. They revealed to investigators that, for years, they have skinned and dismembered conscious cows. “I've seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive,” says one plant worker.
“If I see a live animal,” says another, “I cannot stop the line. Because the supervisor has told us that you have to work on a cow that’s alive.” Like the U.S. Congress, Washington's legislature has passed laws requiring that animals be rendered unconscious before they are butchered. But the State has yet to enforce these laws. As a result, slaughterhouses can violate the law with impunity. Clearly, now is the time for the State to step in and enforce the law. Help Stop the Abuses Now
HFA and more than a dozen animal protection, consumer, labor and other public interest organizations recently joined forces to formally petition State Attorney General Christine Gregoire. HFA is asking her to investigate the allegations of animal cruelty at IBP and enforce state laws at that plant.
But the Attorney General also needs to hear from you.
Call Attorney General Christine Gregoire at (360) 753-6200, fax her at
(360) 664-0228, e-mail her at emailago@atg.wa.gov, or write her at:
1125 Washington St. SE Olympia, Washington 98504
Respectfully ask the Attorney General to investigate the allegations of animal abuse at the IBP-Wallula plant and to vigorously enforce all state laws that apply to IBP.
Please do it before one more helpless cow is needlessly tortured.

Source: HFA