I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving Day with lots of tryptophan and pie! Here is my long awaited turkey post to go with turkey day.
A while back my mom was contacted by someone that wanted to buy one of her extra Midget White turkey toms. They had several females and a male, but the male had just been attacked by a fox. They needed to replace him. When the woman came out to buy the tom she told my mom that her and her husband have an animal sanctuary, and gave her a postcard sized card with their info and Facebook address. She told my mom about all the animals that they have, and that they hold parties, farm visits and such to earn the money to care for the animals. They are a no kill farm. I had walked up before she left and we (all 3) talked a little bit before she left. She seemed very nice. She told me she gets calls on a daily basis now asking her to take animals, and she tells them they are full, because they have around 70 animals and are going through $1200 a month in hay! My mom asked what they do with the baby goats and such, and she said they keep them. My mom told me later that the woman did tell her that they hatch out chicks from chickens, turkeys, etc. and they sell them. I assume she uses another term for this like adopt or re-home.
A while back my mom was contacted by someone that wanted to buy one of her extra Midget White turkey toms. They had several females and a male, but the male had just been attacked by a fox. They needed to replace him. When the woman came out to buy the tom she told my mom that her and her husband have an animal sanctuary, and gave her a postcard sized card with their info and Facebook address. She told my mom about all the animals that they have, and that they hold parties, farm visits and such to earn the money to care for the animals. They are a no kill farm. I had walked up before she left and we (all 3) talked a little bit before she left. She seemed very nice. She told me she gets calls on a daily basis now asking her to take animals, and she tells them they are full, because they have around 70 animals and are going through $1200 a month in hay! My mom asked what they do with the baby goats and such, and she said they keep them. My mom told me later that the woman did tell her that they hatch out chicks from chickens, turkeys, etc. and they sell them. I assume she uses another term for this like adopt or re-home.
This is the new form of farming. People want to have a farm, but they can't bring themselves to eat the animals that they raise. They can't afford to feed the animals they own/ raise, because they aren't eating them. So they find ways to get other people to pay for the animals they own/ raise. This is where they start using the word rescue. So they call their farm a sanctuary and become a non-profit. They buy animals, and then say they rescued them.
I am contacted on a regular basis in response to animals for sale by people saying that they want to rescue them or adopt them, because for some reason our society has turned it into this bad thing to say you bought an animal. If you say you bought an animal, you are saying you bought a life, and lives shouldn't be owned. Well that's the mindset of the majority of people anymore. They have humanized animals, but it only applies to the animals that they want it to. These type of people aren't vegan or even vegetarians. They just want the cute goats, rabbits, and chickens they see to not get eaten, because they are far to cute to eat. They try to say how intelligent the animals are "Goats are as smart as dogs and can be trained to walk on a leash and do tricks.". Well so can a cow! But you don't hear much about cows or pigs. They are meat makers. People don't want to see or hear about them.
These people just want to pick up the styrofoam -shrink wrapped containers of meat at the store and not think about where if came from. Did you know that some people actually think that meat comes from the grocery store? I mean, I belong to a meat rabbit group, and people that have mentioned that they raise rabbits for food have actually been told "Why don't you just buy your meat from the grocery store where it comes from?". How can people think that meat is made at the grocery store? How can they go through life eating meat and not know where it comes from? They are so disconnected.
I believe this is a large reason why so much food is wasted. If your eating a meal that you prepare yourself, from vegetables that you grew. That you watered, that you callused and stained your hands weeding, that you got sunburned and fatigued from the sun while tending. If you saw that animal enter the world, helped it latch onto its mom for the first time, care for it if if got sick, fed it, and then butchered it when it was of age. Would you look at those leftovers on your plate and scrap it into the trash or put it in the fridge? They don't know what it takes to make that food that's on their plate, and they don't want to. They like living in denial.
Getting back to the rescue people. I checked out the Facebook page of this "animal sanctuary" that bought the turkey, and guess what? You guessed it. They posted a picture of their new turkey tom they "rescued". Then they threw in a comment along the lines of his feathers were in bad condition because he was getting picked on by the other toms, and that he had mites that they treated. Now they write these sort of things so that they will get peoples sympathy. This makes it sound as though they rescued a poor beaten down, bug infested turkey. And they succeeded in getting peoples attention with this. The truth is, his feathers were frayed from the toms fighting. That's what they do anytime there are more than one male turkey (same with most animals). If it had been anything like broken bleeding tail feathers or an injury he would have been separated, and she wouldn't have been selling him. And mites? He might have had some lice. They are free ranging birds, and when you let your birds free range they do get lice off and on. My mom deals with this by putting out diatomaceous earth for them to dust in, when we aren't having rain. She had just butchered one of the extra toms, and she didn't see any bugs on him, but the tom the lady bought very well could have had some.
It wasn't that there was really anything wrong with the animal that was purchased. She was just trying to use it to get peoples sympathy, so they will continue donating money and feed to them. What really cracked me up is the fact that these farm day parties they hold where they charge for people to visit their no kill animal sanctuary, they serve hot dogs! Do they not know that those are made of drop calves!? So eat some day old baby cows while you visit with the farm animals....
Don't get me wrong. I think educational farms are great, but all these "animal sanctuaries" popping up are misleading people and screwing up the minds of the children that visit them. Educational farms actually teach kids where their food comes from, to respect animals, and treat them with kindness, but that they are food. If you give your hard earned dollars to an animal sanctuary your just supporting someone buying / feeding more pets. If you give your money to an educational farm your helping to educate our future about where our food comes from, and possibly bud some future farmers.
I actually wrote this post a long time ago, but never got around to hammering it out on the computer. After writing it, I found this blog post that really hits the nail on the head. http://www.bedlamfarm.com/2016/04/18/another-farm-under-siege-animal-rights-and-the-war-against-the-farmers/
Kimberly
