old mcdonald had a farm...

I've been wanting to write this blog for awhile now, just now getting around to it. Just basically wanting to rant. Not long ago, Mike and I watched this thing on tv about an environmental rights guy going out to this pig farm in Iowa. He was under cover, hoping to get enough on them to get them for animal cruelty. In this case, the people most definitely deserved it. They literally hung the hogs to kill them and were laughing as it happened. Plus a whole bunch of other unneccesary stuff. However, the whole thing kinda made me mad. Anyone who knows me knows I am huge on animals. I really do love animals and I believe cruelty should be punished. However, there are so many people who go off about things that they know nothing about. I've heard so many people say they think cows are happier grazing in fields. Hmm well that's interesting, because many of those cows go hungry, have to walk miles for water, get sick and aren't treated, and die. Our cows have a constant pile of feed in front of them, water at all times, are treated immediately when they're sick, and even have misters going off in the summer when it's hot. Many humans aren't treated so well. I'd like to have a camara man there when Mike is getting up at 3am because there's a down cow in the barn. Another thing people don't seem to understand is that cows LIKE being milked. I watched one video in college that showed cows with bloody utters... Occasionally cows have an infection (not resulting in blood)... and it is treated, they are not milked at this time, and within a day or so they're fine. That's about as far as it goes. Think of it this way... the owners of the dairy ultimately want to make money. Healthy cows produce the most milk, which makes the most money for the dairyman. So unless the guy's an idiot, he's gonna make sure his cows are happy and healthy. DUH. This is not to say that there is NO cruelty going on, I'm sure there is. I'm just saying it's not as mainstream as people would have you believe. I once voiced this to a professor my freshman year of college after a student showed an animal cruelty video, and he said, "Just because your boyfriend has a dairy doesn't mean you know how every cow in America is treated." I'll never forget my fury. Maybe not every single cow, dummy... but I can account for thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS of cows. Anyone with a good size dairy in Cali, we know. Or at least Mike does, haha. The prof was not impressed. Because he knew NOTHING about the dairy business. Let me just say... if you're a vegetarian... totally fine with me. I have no problem with people making their own personal choices about eating meat. But you can't get on other people for making the completely legal choice to eat it. And that's all have to say about that.