Cow folk, just curious about this "rescue"

[ohiofarmgirl]

what she said.

Miss Duck is confined right now. did you think that someone should 'round and fine me? or maybe take her from this hellish existence she has and put her in a rescue? she's locked up today b/c she keeps walking down to the road.

sometimes animals -- especially baby ones like calves and my meat chicks out in the brooder -- are confined for a reason.

i was wondering who trespassed to get this picture. or maybe it was a snapshot taken by the farmers 4H kids and was emailed to friends and originally included the caption "Hey look at the great calves we got for this year! Best in show winners for sure! Ok here I go to feed them - talk to everyone later."

 

[freemotion]

We have leash LAWS for dogs (no one seems to be bothered by dogs tied to a little house as far from everyone and anything else....the worst life for a pack animal is to live life all alone) and almost every rescue I know of requires cats to be confined....but heaven forbid we tie a calf. Are they going to go into stables next and sieze horses that are cross-tied for grooming and saddling? Goats confined on the milking stand?

There is a movement in many areas, MA is one, to pass laws requiring that poultry BE CONFINED and never see the light of day. This is to PROTECT us from avian flu! Sheesh! It is spread through confinement operations primarily!

 

[bibliophile birds]

come on guys, you know i'm not trying to say that temporarily penning a duck because it's wandering off and tying up your dog to be a responsible pet owner are the same thing as veal calves that can only stand or lay down and that is it.

tethering isn't a problem. it's immobility. when an animal is on a tether so short that it can't move around or, at the very least, get out of it's own feces, then it's abuse. just like confinement pig barns and industrially caged layers.

of course i would prefer that there was no need of governmental intervention into farming. wow, wouldn't that rock? but, the truth is that SOME people need to be monitored. the same regulations that keep the guy upstream from me from dumping toxins in the water should be protecting calves from being kept immobile for weeks.

as for leaving people alone as long as "they are well fed, can lay down if needed, are kept clean," how do we ever know that this is the case without someone, at some point, having the right to take a look? i did say that there needed to be proof that it was abusive treatment, not some city slicker coming to buy eggs seeing them tied up and reporting the poor old guy who tied them up till the truck came to pick them up that afternoon. but without the ability to make claims, have them FAIRLY (this is the hard part) investigated, and make a difference, we can never know what anyone is doing... period.

we used to tie the goat up to sections of fencerow so he would eat the poison ivy. he was never left there over night. if someone had reported us, we would have been in a perfect position to defend ourselves and explain the situation- because tethering a goat, temporarily, to a fence in order to clear it makes sense.

now, the guy up the road from me has 9 dogs on EXTREMELY short tie-outs who are never left off those lines. they have shelter and i see him feeding them, but they can't take more than a couple of steps in any direction. to me, that's abuse, even though the guy "takes care of them." i don't need to do anything but drive down my road to see that. have i reported him? no. do i want to? every single day. i don't because i think he genuinely cares for those dogs. i want to go up and talk to him and see if there was some way i could help him give the dogs a little bit better life. but, it's the country and people are sensitive. they don't appreciate someone telling them what they should do, even if it's out of a genuine sense of helpfulness.

you won't ever find confined veal calves on my farm. or confinement pig barns. or industrial layer cages. you might find the goat tied to a fencerow or a naughty dog in time-out. that's what living on a farm, at least a good one in my opinion, is like. there are things you do to keep everyone safe and then there is abuse.

 

[freemotion]

bb, I think most here (if not all) were responding to the article, not to your comments. I personally would not confine an animal so much that it can't move around for the bulk of its life, even for "finishing." Any animal I raise will have enough room to be comfortable. I just didn't see evidence of abuse in that picture or in the description, and it disturbed me.

 

[bibliophile birds]

thanks free. i think i sounded more worked up than i am. i just wanted to be clear, i'm not upset. people have their own ways of seeing things and that's ok.

i agree that they don't seem in terrible condition, certainly not the kind of condition that would set off my abuse alarms. but i would have asked the farmer about his plans for them and how long they remain tied up. i have a tendency to think people are genuine and honest, so i'd have to go with my gut on whether i believed him.

chances are, had i come across these calves and a farmer who blatantly admitted that he intended they remain immobile for their entire short lives, i'd probably have then felt it necessary to have a talk with him, respectfully as possible of course. older farmers hate this, especially coming from a 27 year old woman, but at least i would know i tried. if i still felt the animals were being mistreated (which would have to be more than just being tethered, as that case seems to be) then i would probably report it.

there was a recent case of cattle neglect locally. some of the neighbors have finally come forward to say they suspected a problem because the cows were so thin and they never saw anyone caring for them, but none of them reported anything. if they had, 20 cows wouldn't have starved to death. and now they are concerned that the creek that runs through the property is contaminated. see, animal cruelty does affect others.

 

[hwillm1977]

i was wondering who trespassed to get this picture. or maybe it was a snapshot taken by the farmers 4H kids and was emailed to friends and originally included the caption "Hey look at the great calves we got for this year! Best in show winners for sure! Ok here I go to feed them - talk to everyone later."

I looked it up on newpaper websites instead of just blogs... according to the Republican Herald the pictures were taken by an SPCA cruelty investigator who was called by a neighbour. I can see in my neighbours garage by standing at the end of my driveway, so they didn't necessarily trespass to see the calves.

Also according to the newspaper:

Six emaciated calves were rescued Tuesday from a North Manheim Township garage, but some are still fighting to survive after being taken to upstate New York for treatment. When Humane Officer Denise Turkavage arrived on the scene, all the calves, with the exception of one, were unable to stand. All six showed signs of severe dehydration and appeared to be anemic.

"Two of them will pull through. The other four are hanging in the balance," Meredith Turner, spokeswoman for Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, N.Y., said Tuesday afternoon.

While I do agree that there's no reason that a calf can't be both tethered and well taken care of, it does appear in this case that they didn't have access to any type of nutrition or hydration, and were being neglected...

The owner bought them at an auction, and refused to release them to the SPCA until the concerned neighbour paid him the $300 he had paid for the calves.

 

[Aidenbaby]

$300 for 6 calves? Weren't we just talking on another thread about how cheap calves were, oftentimes going for under $10 a head for week olds? I don't understand why the guy would pay $50 per animal only to let them starve to death. It just doesn't follow logic.

ETA: If, as the articles imply, they were being medically treated, there was definitely something very wrong.

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm not a big fan of one's word against the others'. The calves all look to be healthy, clean and solid. Just because they say that they are ill, doesn't make me believe it. I know, it's in the paper, but, they only know what the SPCA told them. The SPCA has done MANY things like that over the years under the "rule" of one man. They've KILLED horses that were being treated by owners, then made the owners fight and fight through court to get major animal cruelty charges dropped. I just believe what I see, and that's healthy looking calves. A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I think the phrasing of the 1st article, is what is so annoying.
Those calves don't look to be in particular stress to me. My former Neighbor used to confine his new calves also, it was for their safety. The had a nice little pen that they lived in until they were big enough to go out with the big girls and boys.
It could even be that the farmer put them in the garage to keep them warmer, rather than the field or his barn. Just like many of us put sick or baby animals in a more sheltered environment.
There are also many people who don't really educate themselves on the proper care of animals and thus may think it is acceptable to tie one on a short tether. Maybe the famer tried to give them water in a bucket and they didn't drink from it, because they were too young, maybe he didn't leave a bucket of water, because the calves would knock it over, wetting their bedding.
Maybe he was having trouble feeding them, because they are newborn calves and their whole environment changed and they need more time than he had to get them to drink from the bucket.

On the other hand the second article stated that they were dehydrated. All of us who have animals know that that is of serious concern, especially in young animals. It is very important to keep your animal well dehydrated. And as the owner of an animal, it is our responsibility to make sure our animals are well provided for.

I think this is a fundraising ploy. Just because of the wording of the solicitation for money.

 

[dacjohns]

I've been wondering about this for awhile now.

How do you know a calf is anemic by looking at it?



Also, the newspaper article sounded an awful lot like the narrative on the web page.