Dumb Animals

This is the quote on my horse calendar this month (Thanks, Jack!)
"They are called dumb animals. And so they are, for they cannot tell us what is wrong. But they do not suffer less because they have no words." Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)

That's one of my favorite books. It just breaks my heart how the animals are treated. They are running a commercial right now for some animal charity and it shows all these horrible pictures of suffering animals while playing sad music. If I actually watch, it chokes me up every time. I just can't bear the thought of animals suffering.

So how/why do I eat meat? I tried to be a vegetarian once- that lasted 3 days. I love meat. But I want my meat to be happy before I eat it. I want to eat a cow, but I want it to live a happy cow life, muching placidly on grass with other happy cows. Cows should not eat grain- they make too much gas and then get sick and have to go on antibiotics so they don't get an infection and die before they are the right size to be dinner. They shouldn't be crowded into some horrible feedlot where they have no room to move. And they should not be shoved into a chute before they before they are (maybe ineffectively) killed. They should be happy grass munchers until they walk pleasantly into a place where they are suddenly and painlessly zapped to death and then butchered in a sanitary way that doesn't blow their bone marrow into my dinner. And if that means I would pay more for that meat- so be it. I buy a lot of my meat now from the Farm Store up the road. Their chickens walk on grass and eat bugs and lay happy eggs. The goats and sheep eat grass and live outside and are happy. When they go to the slaughter house, they are gently ushered in and the meat picker (Mike) would get yelled at by slaughter lady if he rushes them in or stresses them or uses any tool to force them in. She doesn't want them to have stress hormones in their blood when they are sacrificed. So yes, it costs more, but I'm happy to know my dinner was happy.