When I drove up to buy cheese at a local dairy in Pennsylvania I was expecting cows grazing in the pastures and humane conditions for the animals. . What I found was this poor baby cow chained to a small igloo house learning to be separated from his mother. What you can't see in this photo is the dozens of flies sitting on him, with hundreds of others buzzing around.
The adult cows were not out in the pasture, they were caged in an open-ended barn, stepping in their own manure, looking out to the pastures they should have been roaming in.
When I stopped a few miles away for directions, I asked the local about the farm. She shook her head and said these operations couldn't afford the labor to keep the cows out and bring them back for milking. In fact, she said, they cut their tails off so they don't lay in the manure on the floors. She agreed it was a terrible way to raise these cows, but the farm couldn't survive otherwise. I disagree.
When do we as a society, say no to this type of treatment of animals? Why can't more farms be like Hawthorne farms? If the answer is we buy less milk and less cheese, then so be it. We as a civilization cannot continue to abuse the very creatures that allow us to live. Hawthorne can do it, and so can others. We just need to want to.
The adult cows were not out in the pasture, they were caged in an open-ended barn, stepping in their own manure, looking out to the pastures they should have been roaming in.
When I stopped a few miles away for directions, I asked the local about the farm. She shook her head and said these operations couldn't afford the labor to keep the cows out and bring them back for milking. In fact, she said, they cut their tails off so they don't lay in the manure on the floors. She agreed it was a terrible way to raise these cows, but the farm couldn't survive otherwise. I disagree.
When do we as a society, say no to this type of treatment of animals? Why can't more farms be like Hawthorne farms? If the answer is we buy less milk and less cheese, then so be it. We as a civilization cannot continue to abuse the very creatures that allow us to live. Hawthorne can do it, and so can others. We just need to want to.
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