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Glorfindel
 
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Default wife swap vegan episode

usual suspect wrote:

>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


>>>> Animals on concrete.


>>> It has benefits.


>> Only to the producer.


> Also to the livestock.


No.

> Hard surfaced floors are easier to clean and
> disinfect and provide a more hygienic surface than dirt, straw, etc.


They also create leg and foot problems, up to and including
crippling, if animals are kept on them continually. People
who are concerned about the animals' welfare can keep animals,
such as companion horses, dogs, or animals in university husbandry
programs, on bedding on top of hard surfaces. See Bernard
Rollin's book on farm animal welfare. Raking out the bedding
adds an additional step, but then the flooring can be disinfected
(as with Nolvasan or bleach) and clean bedding put in. The animals
are then comfortable as well as clean, and the crippling foot
problems eliminated.

>>> 1. Easier to clean and disinfect.


>> Which would not be necessary if the animals were not overcrowded.


> They're not overcrowded.


They are.

> It would still be necessary for sanitation and
> hygiene.


No. Many keepers of companion animals and small-scale
farmers demonstrate it is not, by using bedding for their
animals.

>>> 2. No loss of topsoil when cleaning wastes, so it's
>>> environmentally-friendly.


>> Which would not be an issue if the vast numbers of animals
>> kept in an area did not create waste far beyond the amount
>> which can be disposed of in ecologically appropriate ways.


> It's "ecologically appropriate" to wash down a floor whether one or
> one-thousand birds have been raised on it.


After the manure has been removed with the dirty bedding.
It only becomes a problem when very large amounts of manure
are produced.

>> Traditional farms


> The images I linked to ARE traditional farms.


Nope. I looked at them. They are not. Take a look
at some of the pictures in James Herriot's books
on life in rural Yorkshire to see what traditional farms
looked like as recently as the 1940's.

> You have romantic, idyllic
> notions that may prevail in communities with lots of New Age-y airheads
> (SF bay area, Santa Fe) but are far from reality.


>> used animal waste as fertilizer for their
>> crops.


> That's still done in areas where subsistence farming is the norm.


I.e., where traditional farms still exist.

>> It was an ecologically sound system. Modern factory
>> farms create massive environmental pollution.


> Not universally,


usually

> and not to the scale of environmental degradation which
> has already occurred in monoculture cropping (especially considering
> erosion).


Ipse dixit. Who says agribusiness monocropping is ecologically
sound either?

You frequently accuse vegans of being unethical by claiming
they are simply not as bad as others. Here you have used the
same argument: factory farming is O.K. because it is not as bad
as agribusiness monocropping. That does not make it *good* or
ethical. It is also not demonstrated to be true.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>
>> Read the Farm Sanctuary website for information


> You mean DISinformation.


No, information. They work within the system to correct
abuses in animal production industries, such as by
passing "downer" laws, and they rescue abused "food"
animals.

Send them a donation for one of their rescued turkeys for
Thanksgiving or Christmas. I do. www.adoptaturkey.org
I'll help sponsor Pumpkin this year. I also donate
to the poultry at Kindred Spirits Sanctuary.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


>> They cannot even breed by themselves,
>> because their breasts are too big.


> Turkeys have been bred to produce meat (especially the much preferred
> white meat) quickly. Turkeys are one of the poultry species with a
> penis; they're not bred so that their genitals are proportional to their
> breast size, but well-endowed toms conceivably (no pun intended) would
> have a greater chance of passing on genes for such a trait if they
> reproduced. It's irrelevant because turkeys go to slaughter long before
> they reach sexual maturity. Birds go to slaughter between 14-20 weeks;
> they become sexually mature in a year.


My point exactly. You support my argument that the turkeys
have been deliberately crippled and deformed for human
convenience. No animal should be bred so that he is *incapable*
of carrying out normal biological functions for his species,
such as reproduction. No animal should be slaughtered before
even reaching maturity.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


>>> those two farmers slaughtered all their
>>> sows. Is that the effect you want "animal rights" laws to have, dummy?


>> "Look what you made me do." No one over two years old should
>> find that a convincing argument.


> Leftists are like to make meaningless gestures, but seldom consider any
> unintended consequences of their specious positions.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Any action can have unintended consequences. If they were
unintended, by definition they would not have been obvious
before the action was taken. The point is that the slaughter
of the animals was also neither necessary nor in keeping with
the purpose of the law. It was a mean-spirited and cruel
action which harmed the pigs *unnecessarily* and for no benefit
to the producers (unless they sold the slaughtered pigs, which
they would have done anyway.) It is a shabby excuse for a
thoroughly unethical act on the part of the *producers* which
was no fault of the law or those opposed to confinement farming.

> The amendment in
> question was a thoroughly meaningless measure. The amendment's
> consequences haven't yielded any of the desired results,


Presumably, it has prevented other (legal) factory-farm pig
production starting up.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>