Animal Place Photo Flashback - Summer and Freedom

August 8, 2009

This is an iconic shot of Summer and Freedom, two male calves rescued from auction. Like all dairy calves, Summer and Freedom were deprived of their mother, having been taken away from her right after birth. Here, they take comfort in one another. They are a little older than two months in this photo.

You can have your own copy of this beautiful photo. Each photo is matted on 11x17 archival quality mat. The photo is 8x10" and full color. Buy one here and support the efforts of Animal Place.

Dairy Farmers Waste Milk

On July 4th, participating dairy farmers plan on wasting a day's worth of milk to make a point. They aren't getting paid enough to maintain their dairy farms. So their solution for losing money is to squander a day's worth of milk.

This isn't anything new. Last year, European dairy farmers did the same thing. They dumped a whopping 6.6 million gallons of milk on their fields. Probably not the best way to feed your plants. Belgian dairy farmers alone dumped more than 750,000 gallons of milk.

Of course it is unfair to not be paid an appropriate price for the work you do.

But who is doing the work?

It isn't the humans. While a good farmer may work from sun-up to sun-down on the farm, a dairy cow's body works beyond that. She has been systematically bred to be a milk-producing machine, her body so focused on lactation to the utter detriment of her overall health. She is skinny. Her body is sending the message to lactate, lactate, lactate and the farmer doesn't help - s/he actually encourages the process by milking her. The cow does not have time or energy to spend on stuff like laying down fat or muscle, she must send all of her resources to her udder.


And that udder! It's huge. Sometimes so huge that it causes physical discomfort to the cow. She's dragging around an extra 30-50 lb appendage. Non dairy-breeds don't have that problem. They produce enough milk to satiate the natural thirst of their calves. Of course, humans don't care much about the natural thirst of a dairy cow's calf. In fact, calves get taken away the day they are born, generally minutes after birth. There is no nursing. Male calves get slaughtered, female calves live in isolation, then in small groups, and when their mom is slaughtered, they replace her.

What does the cow get paid? Nothing. As a final farewell, a final "thanks so much", she's killed. She is often lame from the inappropriate diet of grain she has been fed. Her udder is often riddled with infection. More often than not, at a young age, she is incapable of reproducing normally. In a natural setting, cows can remain reproductively sound into their early teens - the average lifespan of a cow on a beef cow-calf operation (she produces calves to send to slaughter) is 10-13 years. The average lifespan of a dairy cow is 4-6. Being bred nearly every single year is an enormous strain on her body. Her reproductive system, sooner than normal, finally just gives up under the stress.


Wasting this milk is an insult. It's bad enough these cows are bred and bred, made to produce ten times more milk than normal, denied normal cow-calf bonding, and then slaughtered...dairy farmers are now going to waste thousands, maybe millions, of gallons of milk? Thanks for adding insult to injury.

Go vegan. Happy cows love vegans.

Cattle to New Pasture

Running a 600-acre sanctuary is a lot different than 60 acres! We want to preserve the integrity of the land and, to do that, we have to move animals to different pastures, rotating where they can graze.

Today, we moved the cattle to another pasture. We were not sure how quickly they'd head out through our makeshift chute, but we didn't have to wait long at all! The cattle knew what to do and as soon as we opened the gates, they were out into the new meadow, chomping away.

Enjoy the photos!

Miss Sadie

Sadie seems to feeling a bit better. Not perfect, but better. Here are some shots from today:

The Stare of Sadie

On a cool, foggy morning I crouch next to her, scratching her neck as she stretches, and angles for the optimal position. The emerging sun glints off her hair, reflects back. She looks into my eyes. I gaze back into brown-black pools of what? Intelligence? Thought? Emotions? That and more? We had never communicated like this before – she, a cow; me, a human. For years, I tried to make eye contact, to convey my love, respect, joy at being near her. And, she would look away, shake her head, throw off my advances. Not today.

Sadie is a steady being, a painful one, a creature who is sometimes a complete mystery to me, sometimes a bright light of clarity. I fumble in my friendship with her. She tolerates my awkward attempts at communication, endures my steady hope that today, today is the day we understand each other.


Who is Sadie?

To know Sadie now, you must know who she was…or perhaps, wasn’t.

You can read more over at Animal Rights and AntiOppression

New York Dairy Investigation - not limited to factory farms

Mercy for Animals recently investigated a large, New York dairy farm. ABC News and Nightline both covered the story. Follows is video footage. Please be warned, some of the content may be difficult to watch.



The video is not easy to view. I love cows, they are my favorite of the large farmed animals. Two cows on a small dairy farm in northern California inspired me to go vegan. At the sanctuary, there is Sadie, a cow who I am honored to know and love. She too came from a small dairy farm and her life was miserable - she was tail-docked, de-horned, and deprived of her babies time and time again.

Practices Common on Most Dairy Farms
Tail docking occurs on farms of ALL sizes, not just factory farms. Approximately 1/3 of all dairy cows endure the amputation of their tail without pain relief. The American Veterinary Medical Association and the Association of Bovine Practitioners oppose this practice.
 
Dehorning without pain relief occurs on ALL farms, not just factory farms.

Maternal deprivation occurs on ALL farms, not just factory farms. 100% of all male calves are removed from their mothers the day they are born. 97% of all female calves are removed from their mom within the first 24-hours of birth.

Only 1.7% of the nine million cows in the United States spend most or all their time grazing on pasture. Approximately 75% of all dairy cows never see pasture or graze green grass.

The only practice not common on dairy farms, though often brought up in these discussions, is the use of growth hormone - only 17% of cows in lactation are injected with the hormone. Most dairy cows have been artificially selected to produce 8-10 times more milk than a normal cow would.

So, let's be clear - these horrible things you see in the video? They are not merely restricted to "factory farms". They happen on most farms. Choosing a "less cruel" milk is not making the "most compassionate" decision - becoming vegan is.

Peas in a Pod

Well, more like mirroring cows!

Summer and Freedom are six-months old and like to copy whatever the adults are doing. So when they saw Nicholas (2) and Elsa (15) bonding through some head pushing, they had to be just like them!

Pretty cute stuff, huh?

Freedom is on the left - he's a bit more bloated, because he was born with a congenital defect. His tail is missing and his anus is in the wrong spot, which gives him some digestive and pooping problems. Summer is on the right and in really great health.

In the background, Nicholas is on the left - he just turned 2 in December. Elsa, the old lady cow of the herd is 15 and on the right.

Howie gets loved on

Last week, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) came out for their holiday party. I tagged along for their tour and captured a couple of shots. Howie, the cherubic steer, was the most popular.

Now, back in the day, this type of photograph wasn't possible with Howie. Even five years ago, Howie was a friskier animal, prone to random bursts of energy that often involved tossing wheelbarrows for sheer fun.

He aged and became a little arthritic and suddenly galloping madly towards humans wasn't such a fun idea. Instead of scaring people off, Howie finally gets to enjoy all of the attention he craves.

Welcome Patty (II)

Normally, we don't have two animals with the same name at the sanctuary. When an animal arrives with a name and seems to know that name, we certainly make exceptions.

Such is the case with Patty the cow. She should be very honored because her namesake, Patty the Pig, is the best pig ever.

Patty is 8-10 years of age. She first lived on a dairy farm but had trouble with pregnancy. This is generally a death sentence for dairy cows whose only worth is how many babies they birth and how much milk they produce. A veterinary teaching hospital ran some medical tests on Patty and determined she'd make a good blood donor cow.

Yes, they use other cows to provide blood to client animals. Summer may have received some of Patty's blood when he arrived at the hospital six months ago. She was used in this manner for six years. Recently, she got sick of it, the poking and prodding was too much and she wanted out of the blood donor business. Normally, an unruly donor cow would be sent to auction and slaughter....but as with most rescues, Patty had an advocate to champion her cause. A veterinarian who had fallen in love with the gentle cow worked tirelessly to save her life and that of two other donor cows (who have adoptive homes, yay). The teaching hospital acquiesced and, after months of cutting through red tape, Patty finally arrived home.

We let in Nicholas to keep her company and this calmed Patty down immediately. She's lived with other cows, so we couldn't possibly leave her by herself - cattle are incredibly gregarious, a lone cow is generally a stressed out, unhappy one.We'll keep her in this pasture, with Nick as company, for several days. This will help her identify the barnyard as "home base".

It's been interesting - the past two cows, Elsa and now Patty, have both been around people a lot. Elsa spent fifteen years being milked and handled by humans of all ages. When we asked if she liked people, the response was an immediate Yes! But it turns out Elsa didn't really like all of the handling she endured. It's more than just the novelty of new surroundings - Elsa now has choices. She can choose to approach us or choose to walk away from us. If she wants to let me scratch her neck, that's her choice. If she doesn't, she moves away. She chooses where she grazes (tragically far enough away that staff have to hike up hills to check on her every day). All these choices! Patty's experience has probably been even less positive with people, so it isn't surprising that she decides to keep her distance. I did scratch her neck, long upward strokes to simulate a cow's tongue, and she lowered her head contentedly. But mostly, she just wants to be left alone.

It's so nice to watch animals get the opportunity to think for themselves, make their own decisions!

Bovine Introductions

Elsa cried all night. Since she was so stressed, we decided to let her out today rather than wait a few more weeks. When the gate opened, Elsa immediately left her pasture and started exploring. Nicholas saw her and made a beeline in her direction. Love at first sight! According to Nicholas, anyways. In Elsa's opinion, not so much.

Animal Place has a small herd of cattle, five in all. Well, six with Elsa. With the exception of Sadie, the other cattle have essentially grown up here. Introductions went smoothly with Nicholas, Summer and Freedom because cattle tend to accept younger animals with great ease. Sadie spent nearly two years socially isolated while her mastitis was treated but when she finally was released - she booked it for Howie, touched noses and that was that, they were best friends for life.

And then there is Elsa. Her behavior is shockingly different than previous cattle. We're not sure if this is because she is stressed out (likely) or if this is just her personality (also likely). Initially, she ignored Nicholas who followed her while she explored the sanctuary. When she met Howie, she didn't just touch noses, maybe push heads together - she head-butted him and tried to shove him away. At 13 and 2,200 lbs, Howie is arthritic and, tragically cannot hold his own against a 900lb 15-yr-old sassy cow. He went and hid behind Sadie. Elsa tried to greet Sadie the same way as she did Howie but even with a bum back leg, Sadie held her own and was not going to be pushed around by this newcomer. Elsa backed down and then promptly head-butted tiny Freedom into the creek bed. Unperturbed, Freedom sniffed Elsa and then took off for the hills with Summer. I couldn't blame him.

Elsa isn't the stereotypical docile cow who gets along with everyone. She's pushy and rude. Her small stature means she maneuvers more easily than Sadie and Howie, for sure. This is as much a new experience for us as it is for Elsa (though arguably less stressful for us than Elsa). It's only been a few hours since her release, so it's only fair to give her time to calm down and find her place within the herd (right now, she's engaged in a heated shoving match with Nicholas). We'll keep an eye on her, especially when she interacts with Sadie and Howie who cannot suffer a fall in their current states (Howie is pretty arthritic and heavy, Sadie has a permanent rear-leg limp).

This too shall pass for Elsa. But it's hard not to think about the unfairness of it all. Elsa should have spent her last few years on that little school farm with the cattle and people she knew and loved. Even the smallest, least cruel farm sends animals who have years left to live to slaughter. For at every farm, the value of an animal is not in how pushy she is or if she loves back scratches or how gentle he is with the calves, it's in how much milk, how many babies, how many pounds of flesh they produce.

Meet Elsa, the newest bovine resident!

Several months ago, we received a call from a local school that planned on sending their 15-yr-old Jersey cow to slaughter. The cow had been used as a teaching tool for her entire life, giving birth to nine calves and spending her life at this one farm. We couldn't let her be sent to her death, so we agreed to welcome the 6th cow to the sanctuary!

Today, Elsa the cow arrived. She's a gorgeous Jersey cow. Her life has been torn asunder. All she has known for fifteen years is this one farm, the people and visitors, the other cow. At Animal Place, her life is different and new. It is scary. She has spent the past two hours pacing in her temporary pasture, lowing for her bovine friends. When she was first unloaded from the stock trailer, she let out a big bellow. Hearing her, Nicholas came running. I mean, literally. The babies came over too but Howie & Sadie felt the distance was too far and they're waiting until later to say hi.

I WILL SAAAAAVE YOOOOUUU, MOOOOOO!

Nicholas is embarrassed by the fact that he is almost the same size as Elsa and, really, he should be a little bigger.

Nomnom Time!

BABIES!

And then he said that she said that HEY A CAMERA!

Pretty Lady

NOMS!

Yes, I can eat the hay.

So welcome home, Elsa. We hope you settle in soon and love your new digs and all of your new bovine buddies!

Cooperatives Working Together to Kill Cows

I know I've been blogging a lot about the dairy industry these past few days. I promise I'll be blogging about other farmed animal and Animal Place related issues soon, but this article was brought to my attention. I had to post about it, it's just so creepy and Halloween is right around the corner, so it seemed appropriate.

Living in California, the largest dairy state, it's hard not to hear about the "plight" of dairy farmers. Feed prices are up. Milk prices for producers are down significantly. Farmers are left with decisions to make and who do they turn to when times are tough? Apparently, Cooperatives Working Together - a collection of dairy co-ops that get to benefit any time a down-and-out-of-luck dairy farm participates in their herd retirement program.

You heard that right, herd retirement. If you are a cynic when it comes to the language industry uses, you probably laughed darkly at that nice little term. If you are unfamiliar with the way agri-business spins and twists and confuses with language, then you might think herd retirement was synonymous with green pastures and nice, new cow sanctuary digs. Or maybe you do realize that herd retirement = slaughter. I mean, I know people generally like to consider a permanent retirement from the work place, but this is a bit of an extreme interpretation of the word.

If you're like this farmer, this is how hard the decision to retire your herd might be:

"He said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do," she said. "Luckily, my boys could do it."

Yes, it must have been downright tough-as-nails hard carting off 1,500 cows to slaughter. Lucky!! Someone else did it for this guy. Left out of the equation are the cows. You know the herd about to be retired? How do you suppose they felt being crowded into metal containers, transported miles to the nearest abattoir, unloaded, poked and prodded, shoved and pushed, forward motion to the man or woman who would punch a hole in their heads, cut their throats, butcher their bodies?

I am a compassionate person. But let's face facts, here: This family (and in all honesty, I wish them economic success w/o animals) has profited off of the exploitation and use of another species without their consent. These cows have had thousands of gallons of milk taken from them for people to drink, they have given birth to calves they've never nursed. This is their send-off gift of retirement? Well, it is just sooner than normal - all dairy cows are slaughtered, of course, even when they could live another decade.

Back to the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT). They even have a program where you can include all of the bred heifers in the herd. Bred heifers = pregnant. It does not matter if the cow is 45 days pregnant or full-term, nine-months pregnant - CWT will buy them for a flat fee of $700/cow. What happens to these pregnant cows? Their babies? Generally the cow is stunned and her throat cut. Inside her, the calf - if he is full-term - will struggle with her as she dies (for as she dies, so does he). The cow may then be cut open and her fully-conscious or, by then, dead calf removed from her womb. The calf may be used for research, his blood pumped from a still-beating heart to make use of their fetal blood serum. This is done without anesthesia. The calf might just have her throat cut as well (without a stunning blow to the head) and be processed alongside her mother. Mostly, the calves will be cut from their mother's body and their skin turned into soft leather. That last link has a video. It's graphic, you have been warned.

This year alone, CWT has paid for the slaughter of 225,000 cows. That's almost as many cows they've paid to kill since they formed in 2003. Around 55,000 cows are being killed per week - that's 7,850 cows a day or 327 cows every hour being slaughtered. Generally, around 2 million dairy cows are slaughtered annually, but at the current pace, another million - 3 million total - will be killed. 

So who benefits from the CWT? Certainly not the cows and calves - they're killed. The farmers who "retire" their herds? The money they get per hundredweight of their cows is hardly worth calling home about. It certainly won't help the farmer retire. They have to sell their entire herd to benefit from the CWT program and they can't use that money to buy more cows. Member groups certainly benefit. They're buying into a system that winnows down a diverse group of farmers to a small, more homogeneous group of farmers (those big co-ops, primarily). They certainly benefit from less competition. That does not seem like a good thing for anyone.

Help give cows a real retirement by supporting sanctuaries and vegan outreach groups. Reduce the amount of money you spend on animal products, choose alternatives, try veganism. These are meaningful ways to help animals.

Milking it

Sadie is special, at least to me. She is the face of the dairy industry, those beautiful cows who are bred and milked, bred and milked in a cycle of loss and separation. In her life, she gave birth to four calves, their fates intertwined with her own. Each calf was a marker of loss for Sadie, torn from her at birth. She did not nurse or groom them; she never watched from a distance as they frolicked in green pastures. There was never a time when she met grand-calves, the young of her own daughters.

Her sons, sweet and smart, gentle and curious, they are all dead now. Sold at auction for $5-15, raised and slaughtered for veal or cheap dairy beef. None of them made it past the age of two.

Some of her daughters are alive, no doubt. Others are dead, slaughtered and disassembled for what meager flesh humans can obtain from their overworked bodies.

She spent six years at a dairy farm. Six years of producing gallon after gallon of breast milk for another species. Every meaningful behavior, from reproductive choice to nursing her own young to choosing what and where to eat, all of them denied.

And when her production decreased, when an infection common to 50-70% of all dairy cows invaded her mammary glands - suddenly she was no longer a valuable commodity. She had never been seen as someone, an animal with interests of her very own, but as a something, a unit of production whose worth was measured in gallons.

She was sent to auction. That awful place where other sentient beings are paraded in front of humans, where they are watched from bleachers, where they piss and shit in fear, where they cry. And where they go unheard. She was purchased by a veterinary university and used as a teaching tool. Her mastitis was left untreated,  yet another chapter of exploitation.

Someone saw her as an individual and ached for her. They saw a sweet animal who was struggling to survive amidst poking and prodding and a painful medical condition. It was an orchestrated production of frustration trying to convince the university to release her to the sanctuary. But in the end, she arrived, shy and concerned, an udder that sank nearly to her knees, a sign of human cruelty, of every milk-drinker's complicity in her suffering.

I will be honest, Sadie is never going to like humans. It has taken me years to touch her, to scratch her face like a bovine friend would. She tolerates my presence because I am a known entity, a biped who has given her apples and massages and has yet to do anything to violate the tentative trust built.

Her mastitis took years to heal. Years. It was only through NOT MILKING her, through the painful removal of cup after cup of pus and infection did it heal. And it was only because her caregivers, people who wanted nothing more than for her to get better, had to confine her, force her to suffer even more indignities. She endured, unwillingly, and it pained us to watch.

Life for Sadie now is one of choices. Like where to graze or nap. Or what to do with herself at ten in the morning. Or whether she wants to hang out with the other cattle or lie in the compost pile on her own. When we take in male calves from the dairy industry, the unwanted by-products, she decides whether they get a facial grooming or a back grooming. There are still times when we take decisions away from her, like when she needs hoof trims or pain medication. We hope that these are minor inconveniences and her life is generally full of good, positive, enriching experiences. She deserves them.

Whatever your reason for being vegan or striving toward veganism - thank you.

Some more pictures from yesterday (click to see larger):
     

Kinder side of veal?

Humanely raised veal? Veal cast in a kinder light?

Today's Washington Post offers its readers a look into a kinder, gentler, more humane veal.


Wait a second, back up. Look at that language, how it muddies up the discussion right off the bat. Veal is not raised. There is no field of veal stalks reaching tendrils to the sun. Veal is the flesh of calves, specifically young male calves. It's calf meat or flesh.

Its producers argue that if male calves, an otherwise useless byproduct of the dairy industry, are not ethically raised for meat, they are sold to less-humane veal producers or destroyed.

Ouch. Let's be honest about who we are talking about. By-products are inanimate, they have no real moral value. They are things.

He is not a thing:

This animal you see above is not inanimate. He has wants of his own that often do not align with mine or yours. His personality is different from other cattle. He has emotions and intelligence. I am not using this picture as an attempt at appealing to emotion (but oh goodness, isn't he cute?). But when you see this calf, you do not see veal or a by-product, you see an individual, a breathing, feeling, moving animal.


Then there is the notion that gosh, people, if we do not start sending calves to pastures where they can be fattened and slaughtered in a less cruel manner, then we are guilty of sending them to horrible, evil, operations where animals cannot even turn around. Like most animals, a calf has an interest in life. Perhaps not an interest in pondering ethical matters, like us humans, but an equally valid interest in pursuing all the behaviors that keep him alive. He avoids things that cause him pain and fear. It does not matter if he is sent to a green pasture before he is killed or if he spends 20 weeks in a tiny crate before he is killed. He is killed. His life, which could extend for more than a decade, is denied him.

For what?

A beverage humans do not need in any manner, shape or form to survive. Dairy milk is not intrinsic to our survival. We are, in fact, the only species to consume the breast milk of another past weaning.

The article goes on:

For example, one common consumer complaint is that the animals are killed so young. But veal calves are in fact older than chickens, turkeys and pigs and about the same age as lambs when they are slaughtered.

Fear no more - calves raised for veal are older than other slaughtered animals! It's true, calves raised for rose veal are slaughtered when they are between 6-10 months of age, depending on the farm and location. Most are killed when they are 6-7 months of age. This is actually the same age as pigs and lambs (who are generally 5-7 months old) and definitively older than chickens raised for meat (who are a tragically young 6-weeks-old). Some turkeys are slaughtered at 6-mos-old, while most are around 4-mos old.

This begs the question: SO WHAT? That question deserves capitalization. There's a good post over at Change.org's Animal Rights about this very issue. The reality is that a six or ten month old calf is still a baby. Behaviorally he is a young animal. Physically he is immature. That he happens to be older than other young animals is hardly a winning argument for eating his flesh. Consumers! Please be smarter than that (I have faith you are, seriously). All animals on farms are killed before their normal lifespan.

Most important, dairy cows must give birth to provide milk. "If you consume dairy, you should eat veal."

This is irrefutable. But I have a different take on it. Instead of eating veal, stop drinking milk. You don't need it. It's made for a bovine baby. It is a non-essential nutrient. There are alternatives. You can get the added supplements and nutrients from other sources. Stop drinking milk, stop supporting veal. It really is that easy.

Because it all comes down to this:

"I think it's really tasty," said Bart Vandaele

Taste. Palate. Gustatory pleasure. I love food. Really, I do. There are so many variations of grains, so many varieties of vegetables and myriad fruit. There are nuts and legumes. The combinations are endless (statisticians may disagree). But can taste be a serious argument for raising animals for their flesh, milk or eggs? Can the fact that something is "tasty" excuse the commodification of another intelligent, emotional being? Can it excuse the separation of mother from calf the day he or she is born? Is the suffering and oppression of entire species' less important than liking how something tastes?


We cannot be that arrogant, that selfish. Can we?

On being afraid for Sadie

We've all met them. They have woven their story into our own. Their light becomes a beacon of our own, a shining we want to be near. Sometimes they reciprocate, attracted to our own flicker. Sometimes they tolerate us, bumping against our circle but not interested in entering. I've heard some call them their "heart" companions, these precious beings who force their way into some portion of our hearts. Their presence is weighty, a mass with feelings that sometimes spill out unpredictably.


Such is the case with Sadie.


I have not felt such a strong attachment to an animal at the sanctuary. Do not get me wrong, I love them all. Some I adore in different ways - for their stoicism, their playfullness, their joy, even their anger. I'm never indifferent to any sanctuary denizen - there are just some animals who I want to protect, nurture and be around more than others.

Sadie is special. People don't always see it when they meet her. She is a middle-aged Holstein cow, maybe 10 or 11 years old. Her life has never been easy. Never. Born on a dairy farm, she never knew her mom and she was denied the basics of motherhood - nursing her own young - for years. Her tail had been docked, leaving her defenseless against flies. My best guess is she gave birth to 3-5 calves. Maybe a few are still alive, living on a farm somewhere until they too are sent to auction. When Sadie ended headed for slaughter, she was purchased by a veterinary school and used as a training tool. A tool. Such a nasty word but it encompasses how she was viewed - a device to teach students rectal exams and finding veins. Her identification was an ear tag, nothing more.

She suffered from mastitis, a painful infection that engorged her udder with pus. It hurt, yet she trudged on, enduring the weeks of poking and prodding by students. In a cruel irony, she was never treated by the vet hospital, her mastitis was permitted to continue before she ended up at the sanctuary (and we had to take her back to that same hospital for mastitis treatment). At the age of 7, Sadie broke her left rear stifle when she slipped in the chute at the veterinary clinic, leaving her with a permanent, disfigured left rear leg.

Things did not look up when she arrived at Animal Place. We could not tell her that the daily, highly invasive mastitis treatment was meant to heal. She got into her routine of entering a make-shift chute, eating some fresh fruit, and having pus scooped from her udder. It had to hurt, such an uncomfortable indignity. I fed her apples every day. I promised her to be a source of good things - no touching, not a lot of talking, just apple after delicious apple. Our relationship was strictly one-sided - I adored her, loved her beautiful face, her stilted gait, her dedication to the crushing of red and green apples. She did not feel the same way about me - I provided her apples, that was good, but I was not her friend, not a bovine, not someone she could trust.

It hurt, this rejection. But stopping was never an option. If all she ever let me do was feed her apples, that would be fine. Just being near her calm, gentle presence was enough of a gift.

And then one day, her world once again spiraled out of control. She was pregnant. No one at the vet hospital had caught her near full-term pregnancy. We do not deal with births frequently and had no clue what ailed her. Her baby, a boy, died. She groomed him when his limp body fell to the ground. Oh how I cried for her, her loss, her missed chance to be a real mother. All this for a glass of milk. It seemed so unfair.

I kept my promise. Sadie only received good things. When she wanted to be left alone, I honored that. When she wanted a brushing, I reveled in grooming her. When she tolerated me massaging her sore leg, I'd push our boundaries and try to scratch her neck or touch her face. Back off, she'd sometimes say. But other times, she'd stand still, lower her head, and let me scratch in upward strokes her neck - the bovine way to groom a friend (they do it with their prickly tongues, I use my hand). For the rest of the day, I wore a goofy grin, so pleased with the progress.


This took years, folks. Years. And it isn't like we'll ever be best friends forever (still my great dream, of course). She loves cows, the real ones with four legs and alfalfa-smelling breath, the ones who know her moods in an instant. She likes me when she likes me and ignores me when she wants to be left alone.

She started losing weight a couple weeks ago. Her limp became more pronounced and she was knuckling over - her injured hoof would flip forward onto her ankle instead of back onto the bottom of her foot. She did not want to be touched. Even being brushed annoyed her. Something was wrong. Her blood tests returned normal, leaving us wondering what could be affecting her. We isolated her and offered food. Oh how she ate! Flake after flake of hay, bucket after bucket of produce. Perhaps she was being bullied away from the food or couldn't reach the best food in a quick amount of time, because of her leg. We're still not sure what the reason is for her decline.

But it has me afraid. Sadie has known nothing but heartache and suffering. She was exploited for years, and we desperately want the years of freedom and sanctuary to be longer, to be what she remembers most. This is the downside of opening up your heart to another living being, one who's life is generally far shorter than your own. It hurts to see them suffering, aches to be incapable of providing them relief. All we can do is make life comfortable and as enjoyable as possible. We'll get to the bottom of this - we have to.

Yesterday, Sadie was isolated in a pasture so she could receive ad lib food. She had been staring mournfully out at the other cattle. For hours, she stood and stared, as if willing her body to transplant itself from the pasture to the barnyard where her friends lay in straw. I watched her and felt that little Sadie-spot in my heart cry, so hurt at her emotional suffering. I headed out to the pasture where she stood, without any offering of food. We had set up straw pile for her bed and put out some hay which she had been ignoring for the better part of the day. Her shade where she stood was diminishing, being replaced by sun and heat. She needed to be in the shade, laying in a bed of straw, nibbling on hay.

I called to her. Sadie! Lo and behold, she turned her head and gazed back. Turning her body, her back legs shifting uncomfortably, she stared at me. I melted a little - perfect, perfect, perfect cow. Telling her she was a perfect, perfect, perfect cow, I willed her over to me, to the hay and straw. Until it is replaced by another, no moment left me speechless, so full of unparalleled joy as when Sadie stared me in the eyes and walked to me. She's never done this, chosen to come, it's always the other way around. But yesterday she did. For whatever reason, whatever thought propelled her closer to a human - well, I thank that thought. She sniffed me over, then dug into the hay. After every bite, she'd lift her head and drool on me, sticking her nose right in front of my face, breathing in my scent, exhaling hers. Conjuring up every ounce of self-restraint, I did not hug her. Hardest thing I've done in awhile.

So I'm afraid for Sadie. Afraid of the unknown thing that ails her. Afraid she won't have a set of great years. Afraid I won't be with her when she dies*, afraid she won't have her cattle friends with her when she dies. Afraid of many things that are silly and useless but plague me nonetheless. All those fears, I'm working at pushing them aside, balling them up, kicking them to the curb. Sadie is here. She is in the now, doing her best to forget the past. SHE KISSED ME WITH HER NOSE. A good thing, I think.


*Which she isn't going to do, by the way. She's living another 30,000 bazillion years.

Land O'Lakes abuses cows

Land O'Lakes is a $12 billion dollar diversified corporation. It runs a dairy "co-operative" with 7,000 dairy farms across the country.

PETA recently investigated one of the suppliers to Land O'Lakes (the video depicts animal suffering):



If you want to click on the hyperlink above, you will be taken to PETA's page on the investigation, along with a Land O'Lakes contact form.

But here is the deal: The animals do not care if Land O'Lakes requires its suppliers to implement a welfare policy of any type - they care about living, sleeping comfortably, eating, being with friends, nursing their babies. Which is why a dietary change is a lot more helpful to the animals than policy change. We encourage you to remove dairy and cheese from your diet, starting today! Try soy milk in your cereal or almond milk for your baking. Moving toward a compassionate diet is easy - take it as slow or fast as you want and make it an enjoyable, delicious experience!

And as a sadly amusing aside, here is what Land O'Lakes has to say about the video and investigation.

Land O'Lakes does not own cows.

Thus apparently Land O'Lakes is not culpable for buying milk from suppliers that treat cattle horribly? Excellent failure of logic.

Land O'Lakes supports efforts to develop national animal care guidelines and to urge producers to adopt these guidelines

But Land O'Lakes apparently does not feel it is important enough to warrant developing their own animal care guideliness for its suppliers. It's like the classic "bystander syndrome" in which people just hope someone else will fix the problem displaying itself front and center. See a flaming car on the side of the highway? I'm sure one of the thousands of other drivers will call 911! Notice that your dairy supplier sticks knifeblades into the backs of cows? Certainly someone else will develop guidelines to stop that sort of inhumane practice! Way to avoid any ethical responsibility, Land O'Lakes.

PS: Land O'Lakes owns Moark - keeping 24 million hens in cages, it's the egg industry way.

Cows fed chicken waste

I don't know how I came across this article from care2 causes, but I did and it left me with mixed emotions.

If you eat feedlot meat, chances are you may be eating chicken waste!

Unless science has progressed so much that we are already raising meat on feedlots, let's call a spade a spade. Animals, in this case cattle, are fattened for slaughter on feedlots, not meat. You are not eating chicken waste, you are eating the flesh of a cow who has been fed chicken waste.

It is astonishing that herbivorous mammals are being fed feathers and feces, but not any more astonishing than their diets on feedlots. A cow is biologically predisposed to consuming grasses. Yet on feedlots she is fed grain, a diet so high in protein that it can ruin her digestive system and mess up how her blood flows to her extremities. Too much grain can restrict bloodflow to her legs, causing laminitis and other joint and leg problems. Grain as the primary source of nutrition is abnormal for ruminants, as much as feathers and feces are.

The author then goes on to explain why cows eat feces and feathers:

Because cows eat what is in front of them...

There is an implication here, unintended or otherwise, that suggests cattle are machines too stupid to figure out what to eat and not eat. At the sanctuary, we compost all the chicken feces and straw. While the cattle love to lie in the compost piles (primarily straw), I cannot recall a time when I've seen them just eating every feather, piece of manure or straw in front of them. They are not vacuum cleaners. That isn't to say they eat inappropriate things, but that is not because they have some insatiable drive to eat whatever is in front of them.

Regardless of your dietary choices, no one (animals included) should be allowed to eat floor waste. It's disgusting, unsafe and inhumane.

And then there is a link to sign a petition to stop the feeding of feathers and feces to cattle. The problem is not feeding feathers and feces to cattle, the problem is that people eat chickens. The most obvious solution to this problem is to not participate in the cycle at all. Don't eat chickens - there won't be an overabundance of feces and feathers. Don't eat cattle - there won't be a viable mechanism to dispose of those feces and feathers.

The lives of cattle or chickens will NOT improve in any significant manner by removing feces and feathers from cattle's diet. Your health will not improve by eliminating this practice - it isn't the feeding of feces and feathers that is unhealthy, it's the feeding of grain. It isn't removing feathers from a cow's diet that will alter your risk of high cholesterol, it's not eating the cow that will.

So yes, it's about choice. You can choose to do something as meaningless as signing a petition that changes nothing. Or you can choose to be part of something that saves lives and improves health. It really is that simple.

Cattle do hold grudges

Scientists long ago (and by long ago, I mean 2005) discovered cattle form cliques and even go so far as to hold grudges. I've seen that in the herd of cows, bulls and calves who live next to the sanctuary and are, tragically, raised for consumption. There are probably 3-4 different sub-groups amongst the eighty some odd cattle, and they generally do not mix company. Except for the bulls who are equal opportunity flirters. My favorite sub-sub group is comprised of Long Face, Skinny Cow and White Tail. Yes, silly names, but I have a hard time getting even more personal than that. Long Face is a beautiful brown-brindle cow with a loooong white-blazed face. Skinny Cow is a smaller, slender, black cow and White Tail is a black cow with white tail-hair. They do not hang out with anyone else - it's just them and their calves. Sometimes they'll be standing twenty feet from their sub-group with their backs turned, snubbing the rest. When they get separated, they'll moo for hours, guiding the lost cow back to her small clan.



At the sanctuary, there are five cattle - Sadie, Howie, Nicholas, Summer and Freedom.They're a tight-knit group and I can't say they bear any grudges toward one another. Sadie is enamored with Howie and rarely leaves his side, while Nicholas, Summer and Freedom sometimes spend time frolicking away from the two older bovines. This is all besides the point, which is that I learned first-hand what a cow-grudge entails.

Every day, I like to go out and see Sadie. I've worked hard to build up a positive relationship with her, often around food. So I usually bring her an apple or two and tell her she is a Very Nice Cow while I brush her. I always make sure to pay attention to all the other cattle, because I love them too. But I rarely bring them apples. Yesterday, Howie had had enough. He would not talk to me at all. Every time I tried to scratch his big neck, he turned away. Panic!!

Mulling his behavior over, I decided to bring him an apple the next day. In fact, I brought out five apples, one for each cow. Sadie's eyes got real huge, thinking she had scored in the apple-eating department. As she scarfed down her apple, I approached Howie - he eyed me warily but stretched out his head to inspect the apple. Taking it gently in his mouth, he rolled it around and then he spit it back out at me. This seemed like an attempt at insulting my apple selecting abilities, so I let him taste-test each apple. He spit them all out. Fine, be that way. Nicholas got a Howie-spit drenched apple while Summer and Freedom thought the apples were a rather silly thing to try and eat. Sadie nudged me, demanding that I stop trying to share HER apples and give them to HER. So I did. Howie felt it was the opportune time to amble over, nearly crushing my foot, and demand attention. He let me scratch and brush him thoroughly. So I guess I was forgiven? I'm not sure, but I hope to remain in his good graces; being snubbed by a bovine buddy is no fun.

Jersey Calves on the Run

When Abby, sanctuary manager, asked me if it would be okay to allow Freedom and Summer, our two youngest bovines, out in the big pasture with the rest of the animals, I asked when. Oh, now? Panic attack!! Will they be big enough to defend themselves? Will the other cows like them? Will they know not to run off into the hills and abandon ship? WILL THEY STILL LOVE ME? Abby patiently answered all my paranoia-based questions and, finally, I just had to agree - everyone else was fine with it, so there (no one said it like that, of course, it was just implied).

Freedom and Summer have been spending the past three months in a smaller pasture with Matt, the rooster, and a rotating cast of goats and potbellied pigs. They were getting to be a lot more rambunctious and ready for a new scene with bovine friends. Cattle are not like any other species when it comes to introducing new animals. Even though they are the largest animals here, they are by far the gentlest with each other. With any other introduction, we'd be on guard ready to intervene when things got too rough. Not so with cattle. The second Freedom and Summer were released, they became part of the herd. It's that simple.

Nicholas, the nearly two-year-old Jersey (also from auction), was overjoyed. Finally, cattle he can play with - at 12 and 13, Howie and Sadie are well past the age of "frolicking". Nicholas was extremely gentle with both calves and modified his head-butting to their small stature. Howie, not so much. When Freedom challenged Howie to a head-butting contest, Howie obliged and accidentally tossed Freedom a good three feet. Undeterred, Freedom came back for more. Sadie, who is from the dairy industry herself, was interested in sniffing and grooming the calves.

As I write this, all five of the cattle are up by the big barn, just hanging out. I spent time taking photographs of them and, as I left, both Freedom and Summer mooed to me - THEY STILL LOVE ME. This is good. Howie even took time out of his busy schedule to put his head on my shoulder and drool on me. How's that for love?

Now, I took way too many photos to share in this blog. But they are up on our flickr page, so you can see them in all their glory.
Summer and Howie touch noses
Nicholas waiting for Summer to play
Nicholas using Jedi mind tricks to try and get Summer to play
A frog (seriously, he's a frog) <--- WRONG! He's a toad, apparently. :)

Calf Cuteness

You Saturday blog-reading folks are in for a real treat, the kind that leaves you content and full of warm, fuzzy feelings. You Monday blog-reading folks won't miss out, either, except you'll see this MONDAY instead of RIGHT NOW. Behold!



That's right, cuteness factor of one kajillion! Summer is on the left and Freedom is on the right, and they are both filling the frame with their "adorability". These two little whipper-snappers are celebrating their two-month-plus-eight-days birthday! You may make a dairy-free cupcake in their honor or chew your cud, though I suggest the former.