Seems that dairy farmers are doing a very bad job tweaking Mother Nature. In even the most "sophisticated" operations, many newborns are found to be malnourished. Oh, and you'll never guess why! "Inadequate personnel" are "too busy" to insure the job of feeding calves is done correctly:
Calves were almost four times more likely to have inadequate levels if a milker was responsible for collecting colostrum versus other personnel, suggesting that milkers may be too busy to collect quality colostrum. WSU researchers recommended that designated personnel for colostrum harvest and feeding should be considered.
Calves were 2.3 times more likely to not have enough antibodies if colostrum quality was not evaluated versus evaluated by a colostrometer, suggesting that using a colostrometer would help eliminate first feedings of poor quality colostrum.These dairy folks aren't ever too short of time to steal the babies away, are they? And I'm quite sure too, that left to her own maternal instincts mother cow, would adore having the experience of nourishing her baby. I don't believe she would be "too busy"... I'm certain she'd find the time.
It's so odd that this industry and it's consumers think somehow that this is "natural." Or even think that it's kind.
Just recently, I asked a woman if she knew that the calves were immediately separated from their mothers? And she looked at me with (faked) confusion and asked "Do you really think they care"?
Yeah... I do think they care. What's more is I CARE!
Please gentle readers... Do not worry yourself with watching this video - You've already seen enough. Everyone else however --- Please do open your eyes, minds and hearts! Please live compassionately.
6 comments:
In your post you wrote: "Just recently, I asked a woman if she knew that the calves were immediately separated from their mothers? And she looked at me with (faked) confusion and asked "Do you really think they care"?"
I suspect the woman would have exhibited more honesty if she had said: "Do you really think I care?"
Often it takes a lot of courage (or ability to tolerate and endure discomfort) to be willing to entertain the idea that maybe we are looking at things wrongly. We have to care about seeing correctly or accurately or truthfully in order to put up with the anxiety of considering that we may be in error...only those that have that caring are going to be able to follow that path, open their eyes...and minds and hearts.
There are a tremendous number of folks for whom the avoidance of anxiety is more important than seeing clearly, accurately or truthfully...when you encounter someone like this...then the problem of presenting reality to them becomes much more difficult and tricky.
It is inherently somewhat anxiety provoking and difficult to change your notions about something...but when the consequences of being wrong or in error have been catastrophic in your past, or when your survival or self-worth is somehow tied to being "right"...then that "normal" anxiety or discomfort can be elevated to overwhelming or engulfing levels. Anxiety can make "cowards" of us all...if it is of sufficient strength...and folks that have few skills or poor skills available for coping with anxiety will trample on reality or anyone or anything else that gets in the way of their flight from that anxiety.
Sometimes they will trample even baby cows and mom cows...
It is curious when you think about it...(supposing these notions to be accurate)...what it means is that this person fleeing (for what they perceive as their survival in the face of overwhelming anxiety) wound and/or destroy others. In other words trying to avoid our own fear or pain results in us inflicting fear or pain on the innocent ones around us. A hell of a dilemma.
Sorry, didn't mean to write a book, I wish the woman cared more...I can speculate that maybe she is too wounded or damaged to operate any differently...but that doesn't excuse or prevent her destructiveness or her lack of compassion...
Apparently the Lely company thinks that robotic milking, involving cows entering the machine "of its own free will" (due to the food bin that automatically dumps grain in a bowl) constitues 'natural'.
These automated farms reduces the need or presence of humans on the site, which they claim reduces the cow's 'stress'. I'm sure that further treating cows as milk automatons including artificial insemination, artificial mother-calf seperation, and artificially induced early osteoporosis and trucking off to slaughter is anything but natural.
Beautifully said, PROVOKED and veganelder. I wonder whether this woman considers herself a compassionate, caring "Christian"? I wonder whether your words provoked in her a desire to know the truth about the powerful
feelings dairy cows possess, the truth about how the mother cows and their babies go through untold agony upon being forcibly separated directly after birth, the truth that humans were not designed to drink the milk of other species (much less require milk beyond infancy), the truth as to just why she pretends that her heart does not to care.
I'm thinking there's a higher Truth that she must face--Truth that will cause her to confront the truth about the dairy industry's deception.
The following utterances (from Science and Health, p. 542) seem tailor-made to the situation at hand: "Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. ... Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished. The avoidance of justice and the denial of truth tend to perpetuate sin, invoke crime, jeopardize self-control, and mock divine mercy."
I trust this woman will discover the truth that she is in deep denial, and come to her senses soon, sparing herself further ignorance-induced, guilt-ridden suffering, not to mention further cruel suffering to her fellow creatures.
"Do you think they really care"? ????? WTF? Excuse that, but... congrats to you for not punching her in the face. Now I'm so mad I can't remember what else I was going to write before I read that woman's...whatever that was. It is too offensive and ridiculous to even qualify as a question. .... Grrrrr! Great, she has reduced me to stupidity. Because that's all I can say. Grrrr!!!!
Hi veganelder - That's a keen observation! Yes, that's exactly what she meant to say without letting the truth reveal her callousness. How fakey-fake huh? AND cowardly!
Yes, many people in the desperate attempt to avoid truth will injure anyone in their path to escape it... This includes damaging/destroying relationships. I sure know that first hand. :(
It's filled with irony too... How insensitive they will permit themselves to be in their treatment to nonhumans - Yet how urgently they need to be "shielded" from it all! A hell of a dilemma - Exactly right.
Hello John! I agree with everything you say. Each and every step in processing dairy is "artificial" - Yet consumers still (literally) swallow their assurances that everything is (beautifully) "natural." How gullible and terribly... dangerously naive! :(
Thank you Anonymous! I'm hoping I did give this woman a bit of a reason to question further... However, I offered her a Compassionate Choices pamphlet which she refused with a reluctance that one would think I was passing her cyanide! I've had many people recoil from printed information - As if that would stop the threat of Truth to invade their minds.
But we all know it doesn't work that way... The brain processes all the time - I don't think she'll easily shut out the last visual image I gave to her, when I said I was certain the cows cared once they line up for the kill box.
I may have pushed that last comment a bit to "forcefully" as she couldn't slam her car door on my words fast enough. :(
I am hoping for her sake... And the cows - That she has what it takes to reflect and embrace Truth. There is no Good in her attempts at ignorance. "All that error asks is to be let alone..."
Thanks for your comments and hopes for a gentle world.
Krissa - You don't know how much "Grrrring" I do sometimes! I'm beyond the face punching reflex... That lasted a long, agonizing (unproductive) year!
Now, my instincts are to just cry and sob and blow a little steam off on the web. Thanks for the visit and the reassertion that in my disappointment (and rage) I'm not alone!
"All that error asks is to be let alone..."
And in correcting my error in not giving credit where credit is due I'd like to give proper acknowledgment to the author of these words.
"All that error asks is to be let alone..."
Mary Baker Eddy
President of Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Pastor Emeritus of The First church of Christ, Scientist
Boston, Massachusetts
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