Another misleading hashtag: Farm24

This #farm24 seems to be the new idea of talking about the real life of a farmer. As always from the human perspective and trying to make a harming industry appear kind. Interestingly enough, tapping #farm24 into Google brings this article up as number one. It has a rather delightful picture of a cow, with twins and a farmer holding a ‘calf puller’ talking about how the farmer helped the cow calve her twins. The real story of farming from the victims’ point of view is not as heartwarming as the picture suggests. The cow wouldn’t need the help at all if she hadn’t been artificially inseminated in the first place. Carrying any baby, takes a huge toll on the mother, twins especially so. Any parent or person with a small iota of logic would also know that she would not want her children to then be cut into pieces and sold as ‘meat’. As is always the case, animal farmers like to be seen as the good guys, not the slave traffickers they actually are. I have used the words directly from Dairycarrie, a blog by a farmer,

"To top off all those reasons, after having twins a cow often has health issues. Having twins leads to more retained placentas and uterine infections. Carrying and growing two calves takes a toll on a cow."

This mother will be out to calf every year and her babies sold for meat. (obviously dairy cows suffer more) If one of these twins is male then the likelihood is high the other will be a freemartin. If you are unaware of what a freemartin is, Dairycarrie explains again,

 "When a set of twins is born and one is a bull calf and the other is a heifer calf, more than 90% of the time the female is infertile. The infertile female twin is called a freemartin. This happens because early in embryonic development it’s common for the separate embryos to fuse and share the same blood supply. The hormones that the male fetus produces can cross to the female fetus and causes reproductive tract abnormalities. A freemartin heifer will carry a Y chromosome instead of the typical XX chromosomes of a female. There are a few ways you can check to find out if a heifer is a freemartin, only one of them is something you can describe in public without people looking at you weird. Since a freemartin’s reproductive tract isn’t usually formed correctly, you can start with a physical exam.”

Thanks DarrieCarrie!  by physical exam, make no assumptions that the cow enjoys having a hand and arm put inside her vagina, for all the females out there, do you enjoy a smear test, and who looks forward to a prostate check, and that’s just a finger ?

Safe from harm - sanctuary cows

The more hashtags and heart warming stories the animal industries throw about the more ironic it seems that the general public buy into the rubbish. To wade through all this bumph, you as a human have to ask yourself one question. The only question that matters, “Would you find it acceptable and humane, if the same actions were taken against you, your partner, your family or your children?” If no, then it cannot be humane to do this to someone else for profit or product. If you answered no, then please look at;

https://www.facebook.com/ChallengeTwentyTwo/

Please do not contact Treway Farms, they were used as just an example because they came to the top of the search. They are by no means to my knowledge any different from any other farmer out there.