Having grown up on a family ranch, too and I live in a rural area now-you are absolutely right-you do not see the kind of abuse the article describes on small family ranches and farms, because livestock is not cheap to buy, and is at least a part of your livelihood, even if you just have a few chickens and sell or barter the eggs they lay-they have to be taken care of properly or they do not live long enough to really produce income. Everyone free ranges chickens, goats and everything else around here just like we all grow our veggies organically-which means we buy and barter healthy natural food from local markets and each other-most of us are natural living types-not into taking any drugs or eating processed or factory farm food, believing it is unhealthy...
I’m guessing these laws are made for the huge “factory farms” where the animal abuse is practically standard procedure-the livestock is treated with pretty much the same regard the owners would have for crated items on shelves in a warehouse, because they have no real connection-they don’t live there and see the livestock every day-they have no real responsibility for it other than profiting from it by whatever means produces the highest return-they don’t care what is healthy for the animal-or for the humans who buy and consume the meat-look at all the recent cases of E-coli contamination of meat from factory farms...
Agreed. I wish it didn’t have to be like that. We didn’t raise a steer this season as Beau was convinced he’d have a bear, an elk and a deer in the freezer by now - we have the bear, but no other RED meat. :(
There’s one more deer season this month, so not all hope is lost!
We’re also buying each other fishing tackle for Christmas gifts. We want to do more fishing, too.
However, I will miss having beef steaks & roasts in the freezer this winter! We’ve raised both beef and pork, and plan to do more of both in the future.
Life Is Good! :)