Normal Ohio livestock owners bale hay, stack it near feed areas and plan to maintain cattle in a healthy condition prior to a major storm. Cattle hides are 10 times thicker than human skin. That is the way the Lord made cattle.
Concern about animal care has raced from Europe to the US with increased legislation, ballot issues and the “appearance” of growing compassion for farm animal welfare. The leading “compassionists” politically include PETA and HSUS. Millions of dollars are being raised to tighten the screws on caregivers and the USDA is ready to help with monitoring and enforcements.
Most political acts have some valid basis of need, and so do animal care concerns. Ohioans who voted for Issue #2 (Animal Care Enforcement Board) can easily recall the cattle altering, the greedy disregard of animals and national embarrassment at the Ohio State Fair in 1995. Quickly an Ohio Dept. Of Agriculture investigation led to convictions of 10 steer exhibitors who drugged, tampered with and injected show animals with paraffin, silicone or oil injections to cosmetically enhance championship appearances. Drugs were acquired from numerous USDA licensed veterinarians who were also indicted in the scheme. One Ohio exhibitor was forced to forfeit sale proceeds of $37,500.00.
During the worst blizzard every critter is fed clean nutritious fiber. No cow is left behind. Cattle owners plan and provide for their own stock. No government board is required to inspect and demand that cattle be cared for.
Going back in history to 1494, Christopher Columbus transported 17 boat loads of pulling oxen from Spain to North America. The size of the stalls per animal on each boat would make a can of sardines appear spacious. Yet, nutrition and care were of the utmost importance for these first valuable beast of burden. Columbus knew the seriousness of health for pulling strength, longevity and stamina. Modern animal rights activists would have a coronary doing a spot inspection on the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria.
Less than 3% of the nation are livestock producers — food producers. Any time the other 97% decide to leave their air conditioned or heated comforts and check out the farm, their main concern is where they step in the corral. Soon the Ohio Animal Care Board (committee of 13) will be empowered to enforce their animal care rules. Although none of the 13 may own or have experience with cattle, they will judge farm care of cattle and enforce. PETA and HSUS have their own opinions and want the authority granted to them by government to also regulate judge and police all animal care.
Before the blizzards herds are placed in brushy valleys, protected from the wind, with continuous warm spring water. A cow will drink one gallon of water per 100 lbs of body weight per day. A herd of 600 cows will need 6600 gallons every day.
During February, 76″ of snow dumped on eastern Ohio. With just over 1000 cattle to care for, daily every critter was nutritiously fed, regardless of the wind, cold and snow. Not a single animal was lost. There is an interesting thing about ownership, no one wants stock to live more than the owner. No one left a warm government office to check and see if the cattle were fed. It was not necessary. Critter owners don’t want to lose herd value. Every animal owner wants the herd to reproduce, be healthy and have top market value.
It is amazing that anyone would think they care more about Ohio farm animals than the owner. In fact farmers are insulted, totally insulted that, after ranching for generations, someone who has never raised a cow may have the job of checking herds to see if they are cared for.
Does the HSUS have a valid purpose? What happened before HSUS? What happens now?
Today, if an animal cruelty issue is observed, the witness notifies the Sheriff. The Sheriff engages a veterinarian to do an investigation. The professional health expert recommends action. Animals may be confiscated, dispatched, or not considered an issue. The animal owner, if believed to be willfully cruel, may be charged by the county Prosecuting Attorney and laws involving animal cruelty are strictly enforced.
A normal cattle owner can identify every cow in the herd by their name or number and recall their pedigree several generations. No new computer or government regulations are needed for herd inventory and complete ID. That is just normal stuff. No one knows cattle and herd management like the herd owner, and that is the way it is.
The most famous case on the national scene involved fighting dogs. Michael Vick pleaded guilty to interstate federal felony charges. He served 21 months prison time destroying a multimillion dollar football career, and forcing Vick to file for bankruptcy. Are more teeth needed in animal cruelty laws?
Now, fragment a scenario. What if the HSUS was at work in 1494? At first light there is a row boat in the Gulf of Mexico headed toward 17 arriving ships. Is animal care important to them? Would they demand to change the stall sizes or the nutrition? Perhaps give the oxen more leg room, or just — yes, you guessed it. Now we all understand — they are just interested in fund raising!
Eye witness accounts at Dickinson Cattle Co, Barnesville, Ohio USA
The PPJ Gazette 
Mar 11, 2010 @ 03:37:01
This article should more appropriately be titled “Who Cares About Cattle Care”…since, apparently, cattlemens’ caring doesn’t apply to other animals, like our wild horses. Cattlemen associations and lobbying groups are contributing money and influence to promote reinstating horse slaughter and horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. This includes OUR WILD HORSES, which are icons of the American West and our heritage. It’s a disgrace. The French (and other Europeans) and Asians, are eating our magestic American icons as delicacies in restaurants. Kind of sticks in your craw, doesn’t it?
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Mar 11, 2010 @ 00:21:53
I agree totally! While this article paints a picture of what life for stock might be on a particular ranch, it in no way is an accurate picture of the horrors suffered by animals in CAFO farms and processing.
As for “processed dinners” I wouldn’t touch them on a bet. They couldn’t be any worse or stomach turning if they were in fact, road kill. And, after the suffering of some of these animals on their way to the plate….they might as well have been road kill.
I am always stunned at the accepted levels of inhumane treatment of animals and the obvious pleasure some of those who commit these terrible acts display.
thank you for your comments.
Marti Oakley
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Mar 10, 2010 @ 09:20:35
Logic error#1… comparing transport of animals to daily operation of animal care. Columbus was transporting animals and you can bet that once those animals that made it across the sea were back on land and their scene shifted to daily operation, the animals were in nothing at all like a CAFO– the infamous Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations — where animals NEVER see PASTURE.
Info Error… go read the “legalized” definitions of the cages that chickens (for example) are allowed to be kept in FOR THEIR ENTIRE LIVES 24/7… If you need help translating the carefully stated specs from metric to measurements that we here would quickly digest, I will assist. The size allowed by AAFCO rules is 7 inches x 7 inches, that’s a woman’s hand span, not even enough for the chicken to stand, much less do anything healthy like move about, stretch its wings, do its private stuff. In case you are thoroughly accustomed to buying only dismembered chickens — thighs and breasts and wings — I’d suggest you look for the whole chickens packaged in tightly compact bags (no heads, feet, etc) with wings and legs tightly tucked. Those chickens barely fit in my 7 inch diameter crockpot, but that crock is about the size that chicken had allocated for its entire waking and sleeping life.
Fact error#2 — you completely ignore the reality of the program being put forward for the ballot, which includes a rule that DOWNERS NOT BE ALLOWED INTO THE HUMAN FOOD SYSTEM AS THEY ARE NOW BEING USED BY AAFCO RULE. In case the term hasn’t crossed your path, a “downer” is an animal TOO SICK AND DECREPIT to be able to move on its own power onto the killing floor. Use of forklifts, kicking and bludgeoning are used on large sick animals and their bodies are then used for your food. I think you might consider the Animal Care Rules as in need of revision. Think about that the next time you open a frozen dinner from ConAgra and examine the thoroughly PROCESSED concoction that is supposed to convince you it’s meat-food.
You are clearly out of touch with the MAJORITY of meat producing operations in the US (and now probably worldwide as we export our ideas through our requirements for import and funding) ARE NOT THE BUCOLIC PASTURED ANIMALS IN YOUR IMAGES. The majority are CAFOs.
We’d like NOTHING BETTER THAN TO HAVE ALL THE ANIMALS IN OUR FOOD SYSTEM RAISED BY THE LIKES OF JOEL SALATIN AND HIS PASTURING SYSTEMS. The CAFOs and the INDUSTRY ORGANIZATIONS DOMINATED BY CAFO MONEY would like you to believe the fairy tales you have published here. I’m am so appalled at your lack of research, when I had been earlier impressed by an article here by EYES WIDE OPEN on legal issues.
The amount of chemicals used by these state supported veterinarian science corporations to keep the CAFO animals from expiring in their cages and to make them ‘passable’ on your pleasured plate, are unbelievable. The latest are the “repartitioning” chemicals that were rejected in medical research for some disease (because of their nerve damaging and sometimes lethal effects) but were switched to CAFO use when the scientists recouped their invested research with the notice that these chemical agents caused the mice to ‘bulk up’. These chemicals cause the body to ‘repartition’ the fats in the body into protein bulkiness. The CAFOs are using these chemicals RIGHT LEADING UP TO SLAUGHTER and those chemicals do not have to clear out of the animals’ bodies before slaughter. Bon Appetite! Thank your state veterinary authorities, and your academic scientists and your CAFO and their funded (not their little farmer populated) INDUSTRY GROUPS.
And yes, deal with the NAIS on its own unconstitutional features. And similarly reject the vegans for their extremism but face the reality that they just might have found something out that YOU DEARLY NEED TO LEARN.
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